Nuclear lobby hosts 5 Kimba officials in tour of Lucas Heights nuclear recator
Kimba officials take nuclear fact-finding mission to Lucas Heights after toxic dump short listing, ABC Radio 20 Nov 15 The World Today By Tom Fedorowytsch Officials from Kimba, the tiny town home to two possible sites for a radioactive waste dump in South Australia, have visited Australia’s only nuclear reactor in Sydney.
Mayor Dean Johnson was among the small group of five people to be shown the reactor and waste facility at Lucas Heights, southwest of Sydney’s centre.
“We feel the tour has provided us now with a much more thorough overview and an understanding of what a repository would look like, and probably some of the keys to properly and safely handling and storing that waste,” the mayor said.
Two of the Federal Government’s six proposed sites — Pinkiwilinie and Cortlinye — fall within the Kimba council region. Other sites making up the Government’s shortlist include Barndioota in South Australia, Hale in the Northern Territory, Sallys Flat in New South Wales and Oman Ama in Queensland.
A $10 million sweetener for infrastructure and community development will be given to the local area that accepts the waste.
……..’Everyone has right to say no’: farmer While Cr Johnson and the council weigh up whether to support a nuclear waste dump, some residents of Kimba — especially farmers — are deeply opposed to the idea.
As a farmer, the perception and stigma attached to a nuclear waste dump, could have ramifications on this clean and green reputation we have in agriculture.
Farmer Peter Woolford
“To be quite frank I think it’s totally irresponsible to be putting one of these in a food producing area,” Peter Woolford, a farmer who works land next door to one of the sites, said. “We obviously have the safety issue, but you know, we have things like land values,” he said.
“Who’s going to buy a property alongside a nuclear waste dump? I think we have to be real about that.”
Mr Woolford said he would not consider taking a tour of Lucas Heights.
“Well I don’t think I need to, at the end of the day surely everyone has the right to say no, and that’s what we’re doing. This has been forced upon us,” he said. “As a farmer, the perception and stigma attached to a nuclear waste dump, could have ramifications on this clean and green reputation we have in agriculture.”
Formal consultation will ramp up in Kimba in the next few weeks, and a decision to proceed will be made next year.http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-20/kimba-officials-take-nuclear-fact-finding-mission/6958734
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of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 
23rd November 2015
The Editor
The Advertiser
The by-product from the reprocessing of spent fuel from nuclear power reactors is given as an example of high-level waste (The Advertiser, 23/11/15). At the same time it is claimed that Australia does not produce high-level waste. How can this be?
Australia has one operating nuclear reactor, two previous nuclear reactors having been shut down, and has high level nuclear waste in the form of nuclear fuel rods. Some of these fuel rods have been sent overseas for processing and the resulting waste is being returned to Australia. This nuclear waste is by far the most dangerous that Australia has to process and safeguard.
The apparent contradiction resides in one innocuous word “power”.
Because our reactors aren’t power reactors then the nuclear industry and government agencies would have us believe that the waste is not a major issue. It is, and any attempt to claim otherwise is simply a PR exercise designed to allay public concern. Such tactics are counter-productive because they increase distrust in a highly controversial industry.
Dennis Matthews
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21st November 2015
The Editor
The Advertiser
I found Clare Peddie’s interview with Chief Executive of the Environment Protection Authority (EPA) very revealing (The Advertiser, 21/11/15).
Five decades after the publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring there is little evidence that the EPA is able to do anything to protect crucial ground water supplies, simply shifting the contamination from suburbia to the regions.
Past carcinogenic blunders like Maralinga, asbestos and smoking cannot be blamed on ignorance. To do so is to dismiss the role of political and corporate vested interests. Interests that are as influential today as there were 50 years ago.
Circelli’s “what is it with you guys?” remark is spot on. The silent spring problem is ongoing. Unless we can see, or smell, or hear a problem then it can be ignored and left to future generations.
Far from learning from past mistakes SA looks like repeating them on a larger scale in the form of the nuclear industry, driven by vested political and corporate interests with the impotent EPA giving its implicit approval.
Dennis Matthews
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