Antinuclear

Aboriginal group to take their protest against nuclear waste dump to Resources Minister Josh Frydenberg

Fears nuclear dump will end their story, MEREDITH BOOTH, THE AUSTRALIAN,MAY 23, 2016 Australia’s first registered Adnya­mathanha storyline runs 70km from Hawker to Cotebina Spring through pastoral and indigenous lands between Lake Frome and South Australia’s picturesque northern Flinders Ranges, where it is emerging as a battleline ­between anti-nuclear activists and the federal government.

Its landmarks, 440km north of Adelaide, tell the origin of Pungka Pudanha spring, where it is said tears falling from a grieving husband merged with the birth waters of his buried pregnant wife — a story that teaches children about family relationships and provides the basis for deeper women’s business.

Custodian and elder Regina McKenzie, a descendant of the king of five clans known as the Adnya­mathanha or “people of the rock”, said Pungka Pudanha was the first storyline in Australia to be registered with Aboriginal heritage authorities, in 2012.

But it was now at risk of ­destruction since pastoral neighbour Wallerberdina Station was named last month as the preferred site for the federal government’s low and intermediate-level nuc­lear waste dump.

If further technical and envir­onmental testing proves the site suitable, five million litres, or two Olympic-sized swimming pools’ worth, of low radioactive waste will be stored in a warehouse and underground facility.

Ms McKenzie’s worry is mostly for the 25 tonnes of intermediate waste, spent fuel from Sydney’s Lucas Heights reactor returned from reprocessing in France and which requires handlers to wear protective clothing.

She said the Adnyamathanha didn’t want the risk of contamin­ation of groundwaters that fed mound springs on the floodplain where Ms McKenzie brought groups to camp, drink from the spring, and hunt and cook kangaroo in trad­itional ground ovens and share stories.

“We want to share the culture so we can promote this region to the world,’’ she said.

“Nobody takes the Aboriginal belief systems seriously — it’s our belief system. I just wish that non-Aboriginal people will look and see the richness in our culture.’’

Ms McKenzie and her sister Vivienne, two of 13 children in the McKenzie clan and part of a wider 200 indigenous people in the area, will take their protest, supported by conservation groups, to federal Resources Minister Josh Frydenberg in Melbourne on Wednesday to stop a dump at Wallerberdina………http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/indigenous/fears-nuclear-dump-will-end-their-story/news-story/0bf29b3b919547bad0c797ac1b9a4631

May 23, 2016 - Posted by Christina Macpherson | aboriginal issues, South Australia