Aboriginal elders were misled by Northern Land Council over Muckaty nuclear waste dump plan
Northern Land Council ‘misled’ elders over Muckaty Station nuclear dump site http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/policy/northern-land-council-misled-elders-over-muckaty-station-nuclear-dump-site/story-fn9hm1pm-1226940619084# PIA AKERMAN THE AUSTRALIAN JUNE 03, 2014 ONE of the country’s most powerful Aboriginal bodies has been accused of misleading Top End residents about the safety of using Muckaty Station as a nuclear waste dump site.
In the opening day of the legal challenge to the proposed nuclear waste facility at Muckaty, 110km north of Tennant Creek, opponents of the plan said they would never accept nuclear waste there.
Ron Merkel QC, representing Mark Lane Jangala and three other elders who oppose the waste dump, told the Federal Court that the Northern Land Council had acted outside its powers and misrepresented the facts during “consultations’’ with traditional landowners.
“This is a matter which has literally torn the Muckaty community apart,” he said.
Mr Merkel’s submissions claim the NLC failed to ensure traditional owners understood the effect of nominating Muckaty as a nuclear waste site, telling them it was safe to bury it and downplaying any risks. The NLC is also accused of incorrectly identifying people with an interest in the land and not consulting in a culturally appropriate manner with Aboriginal interpreters.
Muckaty Station was chosen by the Howard government in 2007 after being volunteered by the NLC in a deal worth more than $12 million to the NLC and $10m initially to the Northern Territory government, which would receive another $2m a year from other governments once the facility was operational.
Mr Merkel said “not one” Aboriginal person at Muckaty had any right to any money if the dump went ahead according to a deed that nominated the site.
The hearing continues in Melbourne this week before moving to the NT.
Aboriginal owners fear that radioactive waste dump will poison their land
NT nuclear dump will ‘poison’ land: trial The indigenous owners of Muckaty Station, which is earmarked for a nuclear waste dump, fear it will poison their land. SBS News, 2 June 14, Source AAP “….…The indigenous owners of the Northern Territory’s Muckaty Station were asked to welcome a nuclear waste dump while waving away their rights to compensation, a court has heard.The remote site near Tennant Creek has been earmarked, since 2007, as the site of a major Commonwealth-run radioactive waste storage facility.
A seven-year bid to halt the project reached the Federal Court on Monday, where Justice Anthony North was told its indigenous owners were being short-changed………
Mr Merkel said the waste to be stored at the site would remain dangerously radioactive for 200 years, and indigenous people he represented had a connection to the land for 50,000 years. The indigenous owners did not want it to proceed, he said, because they believed it would affect their spiritual affiliation with – and “poison” – the land.
The court was also told proper process to determine Muckaty Station’s indigenous ownership, or to obtain consent from all affected families, was not followed.
“It is an unusual structure for what is a compulsory acquisition of land,” Justice North said………
Kylie Sambo, 20, of the Warlmanpa people, said it was a relief for her community to get its day in court after more than seven years of campaigning against the waste dump. “It’s a poison. We don’t want it to be there,” she told reporters. “We don’t want it to spoil our country because we love our land and we’ve been there for centuries. “My uncle once told me, ‘You may think you own the land, but in fact the land owns us’.”Muckaty Station has been selected as the preferred site to provide long-term storage for radioactive waste that is now being held at Lucas Heights and then sent to France for further processing. http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2014/06/02/nt-nuclear-dump-will-poison-land-trial
AUDIO: Muckaty Nuclear waste case in court today – puts scrutiny on Northern Land Council
Muckaty nuclear waste proposal in Federal Court today, ABC Rural By Lauren Fitzgerald , 2 June 14, A row over the future site for Australia’s first nuclear waste dump hits the Federal Court today. Muckaty Station, 600 kilometres north of Alice Springs, was nominated by the Howard Government as its preferred site for storing low and intermediate level nuclear waste in 2007.
That policy, continued under Labor, has been met with vocal resistance from some traditional owners since its inception. Muckaty Station was declared Aboriginal land under the Land Rights Act in 1997, with seven different clans identified as part of the Muckaty Land Trust.When the Northern Land Council nominated a small part of that property to host a nuclear waste facility, they did it on behalf of the Ngapa clan.
But four other groups say they also lay claim to that particular area.
Dianne Stokes is one of the traditional owners opposing the dump. She says she has waited a long time to have her case heard in court.”While I was waiting we went around to all the big cities to protest, went to public meetings to let everyone know that we’re still going ahead on this court challenge,” she said.
“The Commonwealth and the Northern Land Council weren’t talking to the traditional owners and they weren’t consulted properly at the beginning.”………
Maurice Blackburn Social Justice Practice will represent the Traditional Owners opposing the facility, on a pro-bono basis. Lawyer Elizabeth O’Shea says the case is significant for a number of reasons.
“There’s also some provisions about misleading and deceptive conduct, which is traditionally consumer protection and we’re alleging that the Northern Land Council was engaged in that behaviour. “And it will test some provisions as well that the Commonwealth is relying on, so some technical legal stuff.
“But mostly I think it’s interesting because the Northern Land Council is never usually put under this level of scrutiny, and we’re ready to undertake that process and give traditional owners the opportunity to be heard.” She says that if the case is successful, she hopes the decision will give Traditional Owners more say over particular land use proposals…….. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-06-02/muckaty-nuclear-waste-federal-court/5492958
Tennant Creek taken over by anti nuclear, anti -waste-dump protest, led by Aboriginal elders
Elders lead dump demo http://www.ntnews.com.au/news/northern-territory/elders-lead-dump-demo/story-fnk0b1zt-1226932228540 BY MONIKA O’HANLON NT NEWS MAY 26, 2014 THE main street of a Territory town was flooded with more than 250 people protesting the proposed nuclear waste dump at Muckaty Station yesterday. Tennant Creek was overrun by a sea of yellow signs reading “Don’t radioactive waste the Territory” as kids led the march, holding up homemade banners and chanting “land rights not dump sites”.
Seven years ago the Northern Land Council nominated Muckaty Station as a potential site for a nuclear waste storage facility, including waste from nuclear medicine and operations of the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor in Sydney.
The site is part of a land trust shared by five interrelated indigenous groups – Milway, Ngapa, Ngarrka, Wirntiku and Yapayapa. Most traditional owners oppose the plan but some said “yes” to the proposed storage facility.
Bunny Nabarula – a senior traditional elder and part of the Milway group – is among those who have spent years fighting to preserve Muckaty.
“I was eight years of age when my grandfather first showed me country, but I never forget,” Ms Nabarula said.
“We don’t want the waste here. NLC picked out the wrong people. Us mob fight for this land.”
Dianne Stokes has worked tirelessly over the years to protect the Muckaty site, and on Saturday was named an ambassador at the Tennant Creek and Barkly Region Golden Hearts Awards.
“We won’t be stopping – we will continue to talk about it,” Ms Stokes said. “It’s time to put my foot down and protect the elders’ words. They’ve passed away and now they left it to us to protect our country.”
Wirntiku woman Penelope Phillips said she was concerned what would happen if the land wasn’t protected for the next generations. “We want to send a clear message out to the politicians and the people who said yes to it,” she said. “Tell them that we are still strong and we don’t want a nuclear waste dump in our country. Come back and meet the people. See what it looks like. “The politicians don’t talk to us. They don’t reply.”
The protest comes a week before a Federal Court hearing challenging the proposal for the dump on Muckaty begins in Melbourne. The hearing will continue in Tennant Creek before finishing in Darwin on July 4.
Northern Territory Chief Minister’s secret support for Territory nuclear dump
Territory and National environment groups have called for NT Chief Minister Adam Giles to come clean on his secret support for a Territory waste dump in the wake of revelations by former-Prime Minister Bob Hawke made public today. Mr Giles has previously refused to state his position on the controversial proposal to dump Australia’s nuclear waste at Muckaty, 120 kms north of Tennant Creek until the matter had been settled in a Federal Court trial due to start in June.
Former-PM Minister Bob Hawke has claimed that Giles is “an ardent supporter” of an international dump for high-level nuclear waste in the Territory. The news is an unwelcome announcement to Muckaty Traditional Owners, the Barkly community and Territory health, environment and trade union groups on the eve of a mass community rally in Tennant Creek on May 25.
Lauren Mellor, Nuclear Free NT Campaigner at the Environment Centre NT, said: “The Chief Minister should be fighting Canberra’s plan to make the Territory Australia’s waste dump, not secretly promoting the Territory as the world’s nuclear dump.”
Dr Jim Green from Friends of the Earth said: “The plan to impose a national nuclear waste dump on the Territory is a national disgrace. The Chief Minister cannot even demonstrate that the Territory can safely manage a uranium mine, with processing at Ranger suspended following a serious industrial accident last year.”
Natalie Wasley, Beyond Nuclear Initiative convenor said: “The Muckaty proposal does not have scientific basis, or social licence to go ahead. Muckaty was not short listed in a national site selection study and people across the Territory have been campaigning against the dump for almost 9 years, since the first proposed sites were announced. We call on Chief Minister Giles to publicly state his position on this important issue so his constituents across the Territory are clear where he stands.”
A community rally in Tennant Creek is planned for May 25, marking 7 years since the Muckaty site was nominated by the Northern Land Council. The Federal Court trial will begin on June 2 with hearings in Melbourne, Tennant Creek and Darwin.
Muckaty Traditional Owners and NT environment, health and trade union groups have launched a television advertising campaign calling for waste dump plans to be scrapped: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDcliZ_EHLY
For media comment please call:
Lauren Mellor, Environment Centre NT: 0413 534 125
Dr Jim Green, Friends of the Earth: 0417 318 368
Natalie Wasley, Beyond Nuclear Initiative: 0429 900 774 (Tennant Creek)
More trouble for ERA as shaft collapses ar Ranger uranium mine
Shaft collapse brings new setbacks to Ranger 3 Deeps uranium operation Australian Mining 12 May, 2014 The Ranger 3 Deeps exploration decline project has suffered another setback after a collapse during works on a new ventilation shaft last week. Energy Resources Australian reported that soft ground had “gradually subsided” beneath the top of the vent opening, and that crumbling of material has created a cavity in the shaft wall, about 20 metres below the surface running to the top, which was observed after the completion of drilling by a raise bore.
ERA said this type of crumbling is common, and that ground movement was identified in the development of the raise bore design.The crumbling, which began midway through last week, created a cavity in the ventilation shaft wall which led to the gradual subsidence of material to the top of the shaft…….
The Australian Conservation Foundation, outraged at the “litany of management and material failures at Ranger”, has called upon ERA to suspend development of the Ranger 3 Deeps project altogether. “All mine development operations at Ranger should be immediately halted,” said ACF nuclear free campaigner Dave Sweeney. “The Ranger mine is a dog’s breakfast with eroding shafts, collapsing tanks and the company routinely losing contaminants and credibility,” he said.
“There have been enough warnings, now there needs to be a stop to works and a comprehensive and public assessment of the full impacts of this aging and failing facility.”
In 2021 ERA are legally obliged to end all mining and mineral processing and start the comprehensive clean-up of the existing Ranger site, however in their 2013 report ERA has stated they will not be able to fund the clean-up unless the Ranger 3 Deeps project goes ahead.
Rio Tinto again refused to commit to underwrite the cost of Ranger’s rehabilitation.
This has called into question the issue of regulatory approval for the Ranger 3 Deeps expansion. “The ultimate cost of rehabilitation is uncertain and whilst ERA has used its best estimate, costs may vary in response to factors such as legal requirements, technological change and market conditions,” the 2013 report reads. “In addition, if the Ranger 3 Deeps mine is not developed, in the absence of any other successful development, ERA may require an additional source of funding to fully fund the rehabilitation of the Ranger Project Area.
“Any inability to obtain additional capital or to monetise assets would have a financial impact on ERA’s business and financial performance.”Under the Ranger permit, rehab works must be completed by 2026, which a strategy review has found will cost $603 million……..http://www.miningaustralia.com.au/news/shaft-collapse-brings-new-setbacks-to-ranger-3-dee
Environmental and racial injustice. The saga of Northern Territory radioactive trash dump plan continues
Environmental Injustice in Australia – Nuclear Waste, The Stringer, by Kate O’Callaghan, May 8th, 2014 Muckaty Station is a small township in the remote Northern Territory, 110km north of Tennant Creek and roughly 800km south of Darwin. Also known as Marlwanpa, the land is held under Native Title having formally been returned in 2001 to thetraditional owners – the Milwayi, Ngapa, Ngarrka, Wirntiku, Kurrakurraja, Walanypirri and Yapayapa peoples. Muckaty is also the proposed site of Australia’s first national nuclear waste dump or, as it’s officially called, radioactive waste repository.
Despite the absence of consultation with the broader community, in 2007 the Howard government approved the Muckaty dump site with plans to open the facility in 2011. After thesecretive deal was negotiated with the NLC, so secretive that some members of the Ngapa clan were not even given a copy, a bitter conflict erupted. Other clans, environmental groups, unions and the NT Government expressed outrage at the lack of proper consultation with the traditional owners. Despite ongoing attempts to contact the government, opposing community groups had their meeting requests ignored, correspondence unanswered and were continually ignored.
In 2010, the subsequent Rudd government introduced legislation giving them the ability to override the Northern Territory’s threat to block the construction of the Muckaty dump. After years of opposition, the Gillard government passed the legislation in 2012. The National Radioactive Waste Management Bill removed community appeal rights, indigenous & environmental protections, and gave the government the ability to override state or territory concerns about environmental impacts. After her election in 2013, Northern Territory Senator Nova Perris expressed her objection to the Muckaty site, stating it would cause “profound grief, suffering and loss on Aboriginal people.”……..
while there are still disagreements on the best way to deal with nuclear waste, there is consensus that the process must involve a high level of community consultation. According to a UK report by an expert committee on nuclear waste, “There is a growing recognition that it is not ethically acceptable for a society to impose a radioactive waste facility on an unwilling community.” It is clear at Muckaty that the Australian government did not engage in meaningful consultation with the community as a whole. More deplorable than this is the willingness of successive governments to dump this problem on marginalised indigenous communities. This is in direct conflict with our international obligations under the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples which requires that no disposal takes place on indigenous lands without without “their free, prior and informed consent.”
So what’s next for the people of Muckaty? After being postponed, the legal battle against the Commonwealth Government and Northern Land Council is expected to commence in the Federal Court in June 2014. The legal team will include prominent human rights lawyers Julian Burnside and George Newhouse, who will challenge the nomination of the indigenous land for the nuclear dump site. The case will be an important litmus test for any similar legal challenges in the future. It is crucial that the government looks toward the responsible and transparent management of radioactive waste and away from the secretive tactics that have defined the past decadehttp://thestringer.com.au/environmental-injustice-in-australia-nuclear-waste/#.U3Er04FdWik.
Rio Tinto dodging its responsibilities for radioactive pollution of Kakadu National Park
Rio Tinto dismisses Ranger rehab funding concerns as “hypothetical” Mining Australia, 8 May, 2014 Rio Tinto has stated that concerns about the funding for rehabilitation of the Northern Territory Ranger mine site are hypothetical, and remain the concerns of the ERA board of directors.
CEO Sam Walsh once again shrugged off suggestions that Rio Tinto, as 68 per cent shareholder in ERA, is responsible as the parent company for any of ERAs financial shortcomings in regard to rehabilitation and clean-up at the Ranger uranium mine…….David Sweeney of the Australian Conservation Federation, in his question to Sam Walsh and the Rio Tinto board of executives, suggested that because ERA reports to RioTinto’s energy division, it will be “closely watched and long judged on its actions regarding ERA”……..
“I thought his response was very partial and legalistic,” Sweeney said.
“Clearly Energy Resources Australia is a separate legal entity to Rio Tinto, but Rio provides the mining instructions, they provide the management, the CEO of ERA is appointed by Rio and is always a Rio person, Rio’s energy division manages ERA.
“It is absolutely a Rio Tinto subsidiary, it is a Rio Tinto child, and it concerns us greatly now that, when it’s coming to the pointy end of what will be a costly and complex rehabilitation exercise, ERA is saying they don’t have the funding capacity and Rio Tinto is saying they don’t have the responsibility.
“Just this week, Rio bailed ERA out of a problem caused by the suspension of mineral processing, by saying that they will pool Australian and Namibian uranium through the Rio Tinto marketing authority.”……http://www.miningaustralia.com.au/news/breaking-rio-tinto-dismisses-ranger-rehab-funding
Radiation exposure to workers at Ranger uranium mine – sloppy controls
Running amok at Ranger Mining Australia, 5 May, 2014 Ben Hagemann“…….The job was to clean out one of the CCD (Counter-Current Decantation) tanks, ready for inspecting and repairing the rubber lining, and to change pump impellers underneath the tank.
A CCD tank is like an enormous, open-topped butter churn, but rather than mastitus-ridden, bovine squeezings, the tank is filled with a mixture of milled ore, water, some kind of flocculant (guar gum, maybe) and of course, sulphuric acid.
If I remember correctly, the acid comes from the leach tanks where the ore sits for a while so that the uranium can dissolve into solution, then that solution is decanted in the CCD tank where the flocculant is frothed up so that it can bond with the uranium and float to the surface, turning the whole lot into one big, bubbly, radioactive milkshake.
Of all the tanks only one of them was shut down so that we could do maintenance, and judging by the look of them, we were the first guys to take on this job in a very long time.
Once drained, the tank was one or two feet deep in the extremely heavy ore slurry and the arms were piled with sulphur sediment, hard as sandstone. We needed to disconnect the pumps below and hose all the sludge down the drainhole in the middle, a task that we were instructed to do with process water.
Now, process water… little did I know that’s the water that was used to “process” the ore… duh.
This means the water contained traces of the uranium in solution, fully dissolved and ready to soak into porous, human skin. Although we wore gumboots, long gloves and faceshields, naturally we wound up completely soaked after a few minutes of waving a two inch fire hose on high pressure, trying in vain to get the dense rock sediment to lift up and go down the drain.
It took four weeks to clean one tank, and that included digging out the gutter around the top of the tank from a scissor lift, as well as smashing all the piled up sulphur residue off the enormous arms of the churn (crawling around the lattice structure with a gympie hammer, bashing our way through and getting covered in the yellow muck).
If this sounds like a horrifying degree of physical contact with some very noxious material, you’d be right. It was about two weeks into the job that management finally got around to giving us our radiation inductions.
There I learned that the water with which I’d been soaking myself was actually radioactive, and you shouldn’t let it get on your skin!
We couldn’t know the degree of radiation we faced, as we weren’t issued with personal radiation monitors (not necessary for shutdown crews, we were told) but workers would reassure us that it wasn’t much.
The next week I took myself to the radiation lab during lunch, where the radiation officers expressed bemusement, then horror when I told them that the grey material all over my shirt was ore.
A quick sweep with the scintillometer revealed slow ticking over my body, which was reassuring, but my leather boots crackled like static on a black and white TV.
They were, as they say in the uranium game, “hot”, and were promptly discarded and replaced with a fresh pair from the stores, along with a full complement of new socks……..
Leaving alone the forgetfulness of management when it came to educating a shutdown crew about the full extent of radioactive hazards, Ranger’s production plant was in pretty bad shape, even to my uneducated eye – It was like the mine that time forgot. There was gridmesh rusted out, full of holes in some spots, so you really had to watch your step on the stairs and catwalks, not to mention the rotted-out, RSJ beams, steel nearly two inches thick you could push a screwdriver through.
I guess that’s what happens when you have sulphuric acid fumes mixing with the sultry, jungle atmosphere- It rots the steel away from under you.
I don’t know whether the site was under-maintained or not, but the fact that a leach tank actually busted open and spilled a full load of radioactive acid slurry last year is a pretty bad sign.
It’s good that ERA is replacing the baffle supports in all the leach tanks, but that kind of corrosion incident points to the prospect that the Ranger plant will be up for a lot more maintenance than that.
It makes me wonder what could happen if ERA were allowed to start a new mine expansion?
Would they look after it? Or would it simply rot away over the years, mismanaged and scraping by on the barest minimum of maintenance?
What do I know? I’m just a simple rigger.
Aboriginal science: their knowledge completely underestimated by white Australia
Aboriginal people – how to misunderstand their science, The Conversation, Ray Norris, 21 April 14 Just one generation ago Australian schoolkids were taught that Aboriginal people couldn’t count beyond five, wandered the desert scavenging for food, had no civilisation, couldn’t navigate and peacefully acquiesced when Western Civilisation rescued them in 1788.
How did we get it so wrong?
Australian historian Bill Gammage and others have shown that for many years land was carefully managed by Aboriginal people to maximise productivity. This resulted in fantastically fertile soils, now exploited and almost destroyed by intensive agriculture.
In some cases, Aboriginal people had sophisticated number systems, knew bush medicine, and navigated using stars and oral maps to support flourishing trade routes across the country.
They mounted fierce resistance to the British invaders, and sometimes won significant military victories such as the raids by Aboriginal warrior Pemulwuy. Only now are we starting to understand Aboriginal intellectual and scientific achievements.
The Yolngu people, in north eastern Arnhem Land in the Northern Territory, long recognised how the tides are linked to the phases of the moon.
Back in the early 17th century, Italian scientistGalileo Galilei was still proclaiming, incorrectly, that the moon had nothing to do with tides.
Some Aboriginal people had figured out how eclipses work, and knew how the planets moved differently from the stars. They used this knowledge to regulate the cycles of travel from one place to another, maximising the availability of seasonal foods.
Why are we only finding this out now?………..
Still to learn
In recent years, it has become clear that traditional Aboriginal people knew a great deal about the sky, knew the cycles of movements of the stars and the complex motions of the sun, moon and planets………
kids studying science today could also learn much from the way that pre-contact Aboriginal people used observation to build a picture of the world around them.
This “ethno-science” is similar to modern science in many ways, but is couched in appropriate cultural terms, without expensive telescopes and particle accelerators.
So if you want to learn about the essence of how science works, how people learn to solve practical problems, the answer may be clearer in an Aboriginal community than in a high-tech laboratory. http://theconversation.com/aboriginal-people-how-to-misunderstand-their-science-23835
Held To Ransom: Rio Tinto’s radioactive legacy at Kakadu
http://www.mirarr.net/media_releases/held-to-ransom-rio-tinto-s-radioactive-legacy-at-kakadu The Mirarr Traditional Owners of Kakadu National Park have accused mining giant Rio Tinto of
holding the World Heritage area to ransom by revealing it will not guarantee the rehabilitation
of the controversial Ranger uranium mine unless the company’s plans to expand operations at
the site are approved.
ERA, 68% majority owned by Rio, has revealed in its annual report that funding for
rehabilitation, despite being legally required, is now likely contingent on securing approval for
the proposed ‘Ranger 3 Deeps’ underground expansion of the mine.
…if the Ranger 3 Deeps mine is not developed, in the absence of any other successful
development, ERA may require an additional source of funding to fully fund the
rehabilitation of the Ranger Project Area. (ERA Annual Report p.17)
At its London AGM this week Rio Tinto boss Sam Walsh attempted to distance the parent
company from Ranger’s rehabilitation, saying it was an issue for ERA. However, Mirarr
Traditional Owners said the company has failed in its obligations despite profiting massively
from mining the area for the past 30 years.
“The attitude of Rio and ERA demonstrates little has changed in the more than three decades
since Galarrwuy Yunupingu described talks over the Ranger mine as ‘like negotiating with a gun
to my head’,” CEO of Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation Justin O’Brien said.
“The mining giants have made enormous profits at the expense of Mirarr traditional lands and
are now holding the Word Heritage listed area to ransom.”
This comes just months after the spill of 1.4 million litres of toxic slurry, while the mine is shut
down and under investigation and while ERA develops its proposal for further mining at Ranger.
“Rio Tinto is a tenant on Mirarr land. They come and they go. If a tenant told you they weren’t
prepared to fix the damage they caused to your house unless you agreed to give them a longer
term lease, you’d laugh them out of the building – what does this type of announcement say
about these tenants?” asked Mr O’Brien.
“It is inconceivably thoughtless and arrogant of any mining company to manage its corporate
social responsibilities in this way and regrettably brings to mind the comment made by Mirarr
Senior Traditional Owner Yvonne Margarula in 2003: ‘The promises never last, but the problems
always do’”.
For further information or comment: Justin O’Brien on 08 8979 2200 or 0427 008 765
In lead up to Rio Tinto’s Australian AGM (May 8) signs that Rio will not pay up for fixing up Ranger uranium mine
Rio chief tight-lipped on Ranger mine, SMH April 16, 2014 – Peter Ker Rio Tinto chief executive Sam Walsh has refused to guarantee that his company will cover the cost of rehabilitating the Ranger uranium mine near Kakadu, building on uncertainty that was created last month by the Rio subsidiary in charge of the mine.
Energy Resources of Australia – which is 68 per cent owned by Rio – raised eyebrows when it revealed it may need to find new sources of money to meet its rehabilitation commitments for Ranger, which is entirely surrounded by Kakadu National Park.
Under the Ranger permit, ERA must have rehabilitated the site by 2026, and a review of the rehabilitation strategy in 2013 found the cost would be $603 million on a net present cost basis. ERA has $357 million on hand and has ceased mining at Ranger, with the company now exploring for more uranium underground in a bid to find future revenue streams.
In an unusual move, ERA appeared to link the success of that exploration project – known as Ranger 3 Deeps – to its ability to pay for the rehabilitation of the site. “If the Ranger 3 Deeps mine is not developed, in the absence of any other successful development, ERA may require an additional source of funding to fully fund the rehabilitation of the Ranger Project Area,” the company said in its annual report.Such an outcome would be unusual, as miners are typically compelled to pay for the rehabilitation at the end of a mine’s life through provisions that are made each year.
In ERA’s case, some rehabilitation is already underway and it maintains a trust with the Australian Government which was holding $63.9 million at December 31.
When asked at Tuesday night’s annual meeting of Rio shareholders in London, Mr Walsh indicated he was in no mood to pick up the tab for ERA, particularly after Rio took part in a $500 million equity raising for the company in 2011. “There was a rights issue at ERA to fund the rehabilitation work and those funds are still sitting within that business,” said Mr Walsh.
”(ERA) is a public Australian company and clearly that is an issue for them.
“We are clearly shareholders, but it’s a matter for all shareholders and a matter for the ERA board.”
Environmental sensitivities of another kind were also raised at the AGM, with Rio executives forced to defend the company’s continued involvement in coal mining.
Mr Walsh said Rio did accept that “man made emissions” were responsible for changes in the climate, but the company believed the challenge could be resolved through technological developments rather than by ceasing coal production………
Rio’s Australian AGM will take place on May 8. http://www.smh.com.au/business/mining-and-resources/rio-chief-tightlipped-on-ranger-mine-20140416-36qfi.htmlSMH
Aboriginal community in the North to develop a strategy for the long term
For our power now lies outside of Labor or Liberal. The big parties have lost the true path. The north cannot be developed without our advancement, too. What is required now for remote Aboriginal people is a strategy beyond the election cycle. There are numerous complexities in coaxing participation out of welfare-dependent communities or productivity out of government-funded community programs. Part of the solution is developing an environment where private businesses can grow, in order to foster private wealth. That requires a strategic and efficient program of infrastructure development, including the local Aboriginal workforce.
Instead of driving remote economic development, the Labor and Liberal parties continue to treat remote Aboriginal people as a uniquely unresolvable problem. Australia’s Northern Territory has become a new colony — a moral crisis zone. By now it should be obvious there will be no change in remote Aboriginal communities unless the residents are willing. The arrogance of the major political parties will never inspire willingness.
The only path to advancement is via the bush bloc http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/opinion/the-only-path-to-advancement-is-via-the-bush-bloc/story-e6frgd0x-1226881272887# 12 April 14, Alison Anderson MLA for Namatjira.
POWERFUL factions in the major political parties have failed Aboriginal people in the Northern Territory. That failure can be attributed almost wholly to a poor understanding of the aspirations of remote Aboriginal people. It’s simple — the people in power do not want to take the time to sit in the dirt and communicate with the most disadvantaged people, even if those same people gave them their power at the ballot box. Rather, they treat us as useful idiots. Continue reading
Evidence to be taken in Tennant Creek, on the legal case against Muckaty nuclear waste dump
Muckaty trial to be held in Tennant Creek http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/latest-news/muckaty-trial-to-be-held-in-tennant-creek/story-fn3dxiwe-1226880701026 NEDA VANOVAC AAP APRIL 11, 2014
THE federal government is exploiting the Northern Territory’s constitutional weakness by planning to build a nuclear waste facility there 
against traditional owners’ wishes, Senator Nova Peris says.
This week it was decided that a Federal Court trial would sit in Tennant Creek and Darwin in June to take evidence on the proposed dump, which is fiercely opposed by four of the five traditional owner groups at Muckaty, about 120 kilometres north of Tennant Creek.
Legal proceedings have been running against the federal government and the Northern Land Council (NLC) since June 2010, with those opposed accusing the NLC of breaching its duties by failing to properly identify the traditional Aboriginal owners of the nominated land, not consulting adequately and not getting proper consent before recommending the site. “The Northern Territory is not our nation’s dumping ground,” Senator Peris told a Muckaty dinner in Darwin on Thursday.
“The only reason the dump was proposed to be built here is because we are a Territory and not a state. Exploiting our constitutional weakness is not acceptable.”
Ms Peris called for a scientific and rational approach to determining how Australia would deal with its nuclear waste.
Lawyer Elizabeth O’Shea said it was a victory for traditional owners to have part of the trial sit in Tennant Creek.
“We’re very concerned about the health and age of a number of our witnesses,” she said.
“It’s hugely important that the court has taken this step and we’re very pleased, and it’s caused great comfort for our clients.”
The Muckaty decision affects all of Tennant Creek, traditional owner Penny Phillips says, so it’s important for the community to be able to observe the legal process.
“All the people there, the old people and the young ones too, they can step up and start talking up,” she said.
“Our people fought for country for years and years – you get back country and you have to look after it.
“If you put the dump there, who’s going to look after the next generation?”
The trial will begin in Melbourne on June 2.
1000 US marines arrive in Darwin. What a target!
Why are there U.S. marines in Darwin? Independent Australia Nick Deane 10 April 2014, The recent arrival of over a thousand marines in Darwin provides a risk for Australia, yet absolutely no reward, writes Nick Deane.
IF ONE COUNTRY INVITES the armed forces of another onto its territory, one would expect the government of the host country to have seen strategic benefits in the arrangement.
Furthermore, one would also expect, in a democracy, that this government would be happy to explain these benefits to its people. That should be simple enough.
In the case of Australia playing host to a garrison of more than 1,000 United States marines in Darwin for the next six months, the public has been offered no explanation about the strategic benefits. All we have been told (via a letter to IPAN-NSW from the Minister for Defence on 7 December 2012) is that the marines’ presence is an extension of our existing, long-standing alliance with the U.S. — as though the passage of time alone is sufficient justification for us to willingly accept foreign forces on our territory.
What is missing is any discussion of the strategic advantages to Australia that come from the presence of the U.S. garrison.
It is probably taken for granted that the advantage lies in the supposed ‘protection’ that it brings us. But are the marines really here for our protection?
And who actually benefits, in strategic terms, from this arrangement?
Certainly, the strategic benefits to the U.S. are large.
The marines occupy a ‘forward position’, thousands of kilometres beyond US territory. And, in the words of a report from CSBA (the Centre for Strategic and Budgetary Assessment):
‘Australia’s strong ties with America provide it with the means to preserve U.S. influence and military reach across the Indo-Pacific.’
Note: that’s the United States’ influence and military reach……..
where is the benefit to Australia?
What we get out of it is the certainty that we are now directly involved, if hostilities break out between America and China. That would make parts of Australia potential targets for attack…..http://www.independentaustralia.net/article-display/why-are-there-us-marines-in-darwin,6370
1 This month
of the week – Disrupting War & Militarism in Oceania. Active solidarity. Radical practice.
Antinuclear 