Antinuclear

The small community of Kimba sits roughly halfway across the national highway stretching between South Australia’s east and west coasts.  Wheat is the main crop grown here, but mayor Dean Johnson

says it’s marginal farming land. “We’re very reliant on rainfall in our area,” he tells SBS News.

The town’s uncertain future is the reason some residents have thrown their support behind a plan to store the nation’s nuclear waste. Local small business owner and farmer Michelle Raynr and her husband have offered to sell a small parcel of their land to the government for a future radioactive waste facility.

“You kind of just dread to think what the town will be like in another five, ten years if it doesn’t happen,” she says.

It would be a permanent facility for Australia’s low-level nuclear waste, and a temporary site for intermediate level disposal.

Ms Raynr says not everyone has been supportive of her decision.  “It’s been a little bit disappointing, people’s reactions,” she says.“But the majority, we’re just so excited about the possibilities.”

Andrew Baldock is one who agrees. His parents have also offered to sell a piece of their land. He says it’s a way of ensuring a future for his young children.

“I’d really like to see something like this to help underpin the community, and perhaps, put us ahead of the other struggling towns in the region,” Mr Baldcock says.

“To me, it’s a lot less scary than the chemicals and the petrol, diesel and everything else that comes through our road here. I think it’s far safer than my own farming industry, to be honest.”

Radioactive waste is currently held across 100 different facilities. The federal government says it wants a central facility, housed in a community willing to support it.

Peter Woolford, Chairman of an anti-radioactive waste group in Kimba, wants the concerns of those who don’t support the project, to be heard.

“They’ve continually said they’re not going to impose it on a community, that it has to have broad community support, but I don’t think they have that in Kimba at all.”

The location for a national facility has been narrowed down to three sites, all in South Australia. Two are in Kimba, and the other is near Hawker, in the Flinders Ranges. The federal government says any facility would be constructed and managed under a strict regulatory framework.

Kimba local Graham Tiller believes any radioactive waste should be stored on existing government land.“There’s just no guarantees that land values won’t depreciate, or that grain won’t be devalued,” he says.

Tina Wakelin, another resident, says she agrees the site must go somewhere, but questions why it has to be in Kimba. “We must not be depicted as trying to stop nuclear medicine, that’s not the aim at all,” she says.“But a little town like ours should not feel responsible for all of Australia.”

Last month, the Resources Minister announced $4 million dollars in community funding grants for both Hawker and Kimba.

Mayor Dean Johnson says dozens of groups benefited from the cash injection.

“There’s the pony club… tennis courts, playgrounds, all sorts of things.”

Graham Tiller’s wife, Janet Tiller, says the money is not worth the impact of such a project.  “No amount of money’s worth the health and livelihoods and friendships that have been lost in the town,” she says.