Antinuclear

No charges over radioactive spill! How nice for ERA!

ERA radioactive slurry spill: NT Government won’t lay charges against miner A uranium miner has avoided charges over a 2013 spill of 1,400 cubic metres of radioactive slurry at its Ranger mine in the Northern Territory. ABC News 12 Feb 16 

Key Points:

The spill at the Energy Resources of Australia (ERA) Ranger uranium mine, which is surrounded by Kakadu National Park, saw a holding tank collapse on December 7, 2013. Workers discovered a hole in the side of the tank and were evacuated before the tank burst and the slurry escaped.

ERA said no-one was injured and no uranium leaked off the site into Kakadu.

The NT Government on Friday released the findings of its Completed Investigation Into Failure of Leach Tank 1 Ranger Uranium Mine.

Department of Mines and Energy chief executive, Ron Kelly, explained in the report that he accepted the “admission of fault by ERA to the unauthorised spill as a result of the failure of Leach Tank 1”.

“However I have decided that it is not in the public interest to lay a charge against ERA under Section 33 of the NT Mining Management Act [MMA],” he said……..

EDO blames ‘lack of political will’ for failure to prosecute

Principal lawyer with the non-profit Environmental Defenders Office in the NT, David Morris, said the Government did not need to show that ERA intended for the spill to occur to successfully prosecute the miner.

“The reason they are not bringing this prosecution? I think, lack of political will,” Mr Morris said.

“What this decision does is send a message to the Northern Territory community that we are not going to hold companies to account for a really poor standard of quality control on their mine sites,” Mr Morris said.

He said being forced to shut down the site was not a penalty.

“That is the cost of doing business when you do business poorly.” http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-02-12/era-avoids-charges-over-radioactive-slurry-spill/7163560

February 13, 2016 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | Northern Territory, politics