George Gear submits on Radioactive Waste Bill – that Kimba site is totally unsuitable

George Gear to Senate Economics Committee on NATIONAL RADIOACTIVE WASTE MANAGEMENT AMENDMENT (SITE SPECIFICATION, COMMUNITY FUND AND OTHER MEASURES) BILL 2020 [PROVISIONS] Addition to my submission. I have attached [on original] two short articles on radioactive storage which will be of assistance to the committee. As you will see the proposal by the government will not be licensed for storage in Australia. It fails to reach the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) standards for the storage of Intermediate Level Waste (ILW).

Accordingly your committee must inform the senate that the Kimba proposal in the bill does not meet IAEA standards and should be withdrawn.

The two articles make this clear.

The first is written by Aurora who are the only company operating a (low level ) radioactive storage facility in Australia.

In it they draw attention to the following factors which are relevant to Kimba:

1. The buffer zone is inadequate, it is measured in hectares instead of kilometres. Leonora has a buffer zone of 15 kms.

2. The site should be at a location where there are “few active land uses” on surrounding land. As you know the Kimba site is in the middle of a prime wheat growing area. The site at Leonora is remote, nothing grows there and nobody goes there.

3. When the governments proposed site is finished with in 30 years and a new underground site has been established the redundant Kimba site will have to be managed (at taxpayer expense ) for 300 years.

4. Based on their experience none of the sites in SA would have been considered if it were not for the expression of interest model chosen by the government.

5. The Kimba site is unsuitable.

6. The decision to site the facility at Kimba is a political one and not based on technical or scientific considerations.The second article is by the AINS Group who are a specialist group in storing radioactive waste. They are based in Helsinki and this article is specific to the decision to establish the facility at Kimba. The main points of the article are:

1. Intermediate Level Waste (ILW) should be stored at intermediate level geological disposal. The Department already knows this. The quote below is taken straight from the “ National Radioactive Waste Management Facility Project” (NRWMFP) Facebook home page (attached). The statement that it will take several decades to site and build is wrong and they know it. The Leonora site can store the ILW at depth within a year and the NRWMFP have known this for 3.5 years.