Proposal for Nuclear Waste Dump on Aboriginal Land in Western Australia

Nuclear dump plan for desert MICHAEL DULANEY The West Australian July 6, 2014, A traditional owner in the northern Goldfields wants to house a proposed nuclear waste dump on land in the Gibson Desert to help develop the region’s economy.

Kanpa community chairman Preston Thomas has seized on the Commonwealth dumping Muckaty Station as the site for a Federal nuclear waste repository.

It is part of his vision to provide biofuel to the Ngaanyatjarra Lands and develop agriculture around the remote Kanpa Aboriginal community, about 900 km north-east of Kalgoorlie-Boulder.

The Northern Territory station was withdrawn last month after a Federal Court case and division between Aboriginal groups in the region who claim they were not consulted properly.

The Federal Government is looking for an alternative site for Australia’s first radioactive waste dump.

Kanpa’s representative body the Pira Kata Aboriginal Corporation, chaired by Mr Thomas, has applied for a native title sublease of about 500sqkm between Kanpa and the Great Central Road.

Mr Thomas wants this area to be considered for the facility, which requires an area of about 3sqkm – about the size of two football fields……..Mr Thomas has been in discussions for the project with AgGrow Energy Resources since 2010, after the company’s involvement in a similar pilot project in the Pilbara………Industry Minister Ian Macfarlane said the Northern Land Council, which represented traditional owner interests at Muckaty Station, had been given three months to find an alternative site.

If the process was not concluded by September, a nationwide tender would be conducted, with “preliminary discussions” already under way.https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/business/wa/a/24395664/nuclear-dump-plan-for-desert/