Antinuclear

The NSW government will push ahead this year with a $12.4 million clean-up of Hunters Hill land contaminated by a uranium smelter 100 years ago, a government report has revealed.

But the only site in Australia identified by a string of government studies as the best option to store the waste – Kemps Creek near Penrith – is in a marginal Liberal seat where sitting MP Tanya Davies campaigned against the dump while in opposition.

Government Property NSW, which owns the three contaminated Nelson Parade properties, will lodge a report with the planning department by January 31, a spokesman confirmed.

More than 5000 residents, most from western Sydney, lodged submissions opposing the plan – to send “restricted” waste to Kemps Creek, and “hazardous” waste to a government facility in Auburn – when it was publicly exhibited in 2013.  Ms Davies welcomed an announcement by Treasurer Andrew Constance last February that the clean-up would be put on hold, as NSW sought to instead dispose of the waste at a national radioactive waste management facility to be established by the Commonwealth Government in the Northern Territory.

But the Abbott Government was forced to abandoned the Northern Territory site in June after a court ruling in favour of Aboriginal land holders at Muckaty Station who opposed it.

The search for a national radioactive waste facility has gone back to the drawing board.

The Baird Government has quietly restarted plans for cleaning up the contaminated soil, which will be overseen by Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation.

According to the annual report of Government Property NSW, $12.4 million will be spent  “undertaking and completing the remediation in 2015-16”.

The final decision on where to send the waste, which has plagued successive governments, has been delegated by Planning Minister Pru Goward to the Planning Assessment Commission……..

Lane Cove Liberal MP Anthony Roberts was slammed by community groups in his safe Liberal seat when the clean-up halt was announced last year.

The Nelson Parade Action Group’s Philippa Clark wrote to politicians in August complaining the community was growing “increasingly agitated about the failure of the government to act”.

“There seems no government concern about the very real health, social and environmental concerns of the Hunters Hill community living within metres of the contamination, which is daily impacting our lives,” she wrote.

The Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency said radioactive waste from Hunters Hill wasn’t permitted to be stored at ANSTO’s Lucas Heights interim waste storage facility, which will open in 2015.http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/controversial-radioactive-cleanup-to-go-ahead-20150117-12sdhd.html