Decades overdue Ranger Uranium Mine rehabilitation plan released The world is watching
Northern Land Council, 5 June 2018 The Northern Land Council and Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation welcome today’s public release of the Ranger Mine Closure Plan by Energy Resources of Australia. The plan is decades overdue and critical to the company meeting the objectives of rehabilitation.
The NLC and GAC, representing the Mirarr Traditional Aboriginal Owners of the mine site, will now review the plan and engage with stakeholders as part of the approval process. While not part of a public environmental impact statement process, the public release of the plan does provide the broader community with an opportunity to comment on the plan to the Australian government.
The Mine Closure Plan is of a very high level and even though Ranger’s closure is imminent, a significant amount of detailed planning and supporting studies remain outstanding. ERA and its parent company Rio Tinto must clearly demonstrate that they have sufficient resources devoted to mine closure to provide stakeholders with confidence that the objectives outlined in the closure plan can be met.
The Ranger plan remains unenforceable until it is approved by the federal Minister for Resources. The mine’s operational life must cease by January 2021, ahead of five years’ rehabilitation. The future of Aboriginal communities downstream of the mine and the World Heritage listed values of Australia’s largest national park are at stake.
ERA and Rio Tinto’s rehabilitation obligations include remediation of the site such that it can be incorporated in the surrounding Kakadu National Park. The final determination as to whether the area can be incorporated into the World Heritage area sits with the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, on advice from its expert advisory bodies the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and International Council on Monuments and Sites (ICOMOS).
NLC contact: Martha Tattersall 0427 031 382 GAC contact: Kirsten Blair 0412 853 641
Malcolm Turnbull mouths platitudes about climate change, but his government has no clear policy on climate action
‘No doubt our climate is getting warmer,’ Malcolm Turnbull says, Despite the PM’s declaration, it is unclear how current climate policy will ensure Australia reaches its Paris commitment, Guardian, Katharine Murphy Political editor@murpharoo 4 Jun 2018 18.07
Ranger mine closure and rehab to cost $1bn
The $1 billion plan for the closure and rehabilitation of Australia’s oldest operating uranium mine has been released by Energy Resources of Australia… (subscribers only)
http://www.ntnews.com.au/business/ranger-mine-closure-and-rehabilitation-to-cost-1-billion/news-story/f86aa022ca5c700cf3264c7fe8d3abdd
In 2018, the chance of limiting human-induced global warming to less than 2 degrees is rapidly disappearing
Limiting global warming to 2 degrees now ‘aspirational’: scientists, https://www.theage.com.au/environment/climate-change/limiting-global-warming-to-2-degrees-now-aspirational-scientists-20180604-p4zjeb.htmlThe Age, By Peter Hannam, The chance of limiting human-induced global warming to less than 2 degrees is rapidly disappearing as carbon emissions again ramp up in China while reductions in the US and elsewhere stall, scientists say.
Data from the CSIRO’s Global Carbon Project indicates greenhouse gas emissions in China accelerated to 1.5 per cent growth last year. China is now responsible for about a third of the world’s carbon emissions.
“That was quite significant growth for China because we had seen almost three years of little or no increase,” the project’s director, Pep Canadell, told Fairfax Media.
Early indications are that 2018 could see an even larger rise, with China’s carbon emissions in the first quarter jumping 4 per cent alone, according to a Greenpeace analysis.
2017’s increase was partly caused by a revival of China’s reliance on heavy industrial growth to prop up the economy, and a drop in hydro electric generation amid poor rainfall, Dr Canadell said. This year’s growth, though, is also being spurred by a pick-up in the global economy.
Given China’s emissions are roughly double the next largest polluter – the US – and triple the European Union’s, its acceleration means there is a fast-diminishing chance that the rise in global average temperatures can be restricted to the range of 1.5 to 2 degrees, as agreed at the 2015 Paris climate conference.
“Most climate scientists think 2 degrees [compared with pre-industrial levels] to be aspirational,” said Andy Pitman, director of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Climate Extremes.
Even if emissions ceased globally, it is probable warming would still reach at least 1.5 degrees given the longevity of carbon-dioxide and other heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere, he said.
With increasing evidence of extreme weather events even at the roughly 1 degree of warming so far – including compounding risks of bushfires, heatwaves and droughts – societies can expect impacts to worsen, Professor Pitman said: “The notion that 1.5 degrees is somehow safe is totally incompatible with the evidence.”
‘Not a pretty picture’
News in recent days that the Trump administration plans to bolster the ailing US coal-fired power industry by intervening in markets would worsen the global emissions picture.
The CSIRO’s Dr Canadell said while US carbon emissions had fallen for a decade, last year’s decline will likely be much smaller because of quickening economic growth at home and abroad.
The European Union, too, was likely to register a slower emissions drop. Australia, meanwhile, is on course to increase its carbon pollution for a fourth year in a row, a “remarkable” result for a rich nation, he said.
Bruce Nilles, a former head of the Sierra Club’s “Beyond Coal” campaign, who is visiting Australia, said President Trump’s “brazen efforts” to help coal in US would likely be stymied by a flurry of lawsuits from other energy suppliers.
The US had seen 266 coal-fired power plants shut or set closure dates since 2010, and these “were continuing at the same rate as during the last few years of the Obama administration”, he said.
Filling the gap were more than 10,000 megawatts of new wind and solar capacity each year, a process likely to continue as their technology becomes even cheaper, Mr Nilles said.
Aboriginal sovereignty – mere symbolism will never be accepted
Challenging the Great Divide in a David and Goliath struggle Sovereign Union – First Nations Asserting Sovereignty, by Ghillar, Michael Anderson
‘What is currently and actively going on without our Peoples’ full realisation
is the struggle between, on the one hand, grassroots Peoples and their leadership,
who are beginning to assert their pre-existing and continuing sovereign status
as linguistically based Nations, whose Countries are occupied
by the Australian/British colonialist administrators and, on the other hand,
the assimilated two-bob-mob conditioned by the colonised mindset
who are attempting to derail the sovereignty movement.
Only yesterday at Warmun, Turkey Creek, Kimberley Land Council
presenters were challenged by people asserting their sovereign position,
only to be told sovereignty was a ‘load of rubbish’ but this was
strongly refuted by Elders and the younger generations.
This situation at Warmun is developing fast.
‘The complex and grimy underbelly of Australia is gradually being exposed for the world to see.
Meanwhile in the international arena, diplomats under the instruction of the
executive Commonwealth government falsely pretend that Australia is an independent Nation.
The Australians sitting in the UN are there at the behest of Britain
and are mere puppets to the United States and Britain.
‘These puppets, in the guise of the Australian State,
hide the fact that there is a major struggle for sovereign title
to this island continent, now known as Australia, These colonial puppets
know they have no legitimacy while ever our sovereign First Nations continue
to exist and our Law if the Law of the Land, always was, always will be.
‘On this most recent journey to the Kimberley,
I was alerted to the very real fact of the enormous destruction and desecration
that is looming without our people knowing what is coming.
had an impact upon the government sitting in Canberra, because they were forced to realise that there
was NOT a true consensus on the proposed constitutional inclusion. The actual ‘Uluru Statement’
must have sent shock waves that propelled the government to abandon its enthusiasm for a referendum.’It is now clear that, because of the WALKOUT, the government became aware that the
leadership for this Constitutional inclusion had failed, because the grassroots people
saw through the con and did not want to be included in a racist colonial constitution belonging to Britain.
‘The impact that the WALKOUT had on those present created a situation that scared the organisers,
who clearly lost the complete overview of their original intentions, which the government know of.
The final document that was concluded came completely out of left field and
the government realised mere symbolism was never going to be accepted. … Continue reading
Conservation Council South Australia: No adequate case has been made for the establishment of a National Radioactive Waste Management Facility.
In the case of the site nomination of Wallerberdina Station, the pastoral lease is held by an absentee landlord. It is of deep concern that this person can receive financial gain for the siting of a radioactive waste facility which will impact the local community that he is not part of.
To date, there is no definition of the boundaries of “community”, what proportion of a community must support the proposal to be regarded as “broad” or how it will be gauged.
It is a fundamental flaw of the guidelines and the process that these critical parameters have not been defined. They should have been clear before Phase 1 began.
Justification The current proposal for which site selection is already underway has not been justified. No adequate case has been made for the establishment of a National Radioactive Waste Management Facility. The failure of the proponent to consider and review other management options means that justification of the proposal and the site selection process cannot be proven.
It is of deep concern that a site selection process has commenced prior to an investigation of the need for a site.
Conservation SA believes that there is a strong case for extended interim storage at ANSTO’s Lucas Heights reactor, particularly for the intermediate level waste created and already stored there.
The three sites currently under consideration are all in South Australia. South Australia has legislation11 that explicitly bans the establishment of radioactive waste management facilities. There is a lack of clarity and disclosure about how this legislation will be considered in the site selection process.
The nomination process is still open. No nominations should be accepted until the report from this Senate Inquiry has been released so as to minimise any negative impacts on communities and ensure the best possible management of Australia’s most hazardous waste
Conservation SA Craig Wilkins Chief Executive RE: Submission to Senate Inquiry into the selection process for a National Radioactive Waste Management Facility in South Australia (Submission No 55. Contains excellent references)
Conservation SA is an independent, non-profit and strictly non-party political organisation representing around 60 of South Australia’s environment and conservation organisations and their 90,000 members. Conservation SA is grateful for the opportunity to provide comment to the Senate Inquiry into the selection process for a national radioactive waste management facility in South Australia.
We welcome the inquiry into “The appropriateness and thoroughness of the site selection process for a national radioactive waste management facility at Kimba and Hawker in South Australia, noting the Government has stated that it will not impose such a facility on an unwilling community”. Each of the Terms of Reference are addressed in turn below. Continue reading
Nuclear Waste Dump Site Selection: Leszek Gaweda points out the Conflict of Interest, and other negative factors
Leszek Gaweda Submission to Senate Inquiry on Selection process for a national radioactive waste management facility in South Australia (Submission No 54)
I am opposed to the current process on the following grounds:
1. Site Selection: Site nominated by ex Liberal politician Mr Grant Chapman. His nomination should never have been accepted on the grounds of conflict of interest.
Mr Chapman was a strong supporter of storing nuclear waste in Australia during his time as a senator, chairing a Senate committee into the subject and recommending a single national facility, a clear conflict of interest.
Best practice in the world for storage nuclear waste is to store it as close as possible to the production site (Lucas Heights in this case) not thousands of kilometres away.
- Broad Community Support:Communities involved: Transport to the site about 2000km, it’s not just the immediate area that would be effected. In case of accident a large part of the country could become uninhabitable. People from the towns, communities along the route should be consulted.Does the community understand that majority of the waste to be stored there is intermediate to high level? Example Lucas Heights reactor and vitrified nuclear waste brought back from France is intermediate and high level waste as classified in France. This requires isolation from the biosphere for hundreds of thousands of years.
Majority of Low level is only dangerous for hours to days (max few weeks) and doesn’t require a specialised facility.
- Aboriginal Communities‘It’s like getting news of a death’ Adnyamathanha woman Regina McKenzie said the local Indigenous community has been shattered by the announcement.Why haven’t the local Aboriginal community been consulted prior to the announcement? These people lived on these lands for 50,000 years in harmony with the environment and they deserve better.
The nuclear strategists know that Maralinga wounded the Aboriginal people. It is still an open sore and just like vultures, they are still picking on the wounded. Politicians should be protecting the disadvantaged and instead they are supporting and encouraging this assault.
Adnyamathanha Native Title Representative Body (NTRB) known as ATLA.’
They go on to oppose nuclear activities on several counts, including the advisability of renewable energy development instead, and roundly condemn the waste dump proposal:
‘The push for a waste dump in SA keeps coming up repeatedly; we didn’t want it then and we don’t want it now…….Pressuring poverty stricken and isolated communities is unethical, and the public of SA have faced this issue several times in the last decade or more. Enough is enough.’ No means No
4. Water
Much of the region relies heavely upon aquifers to supply settlements, stations, fauna and top up dams.
Polluted water means no business, no food production, no communities just a toxic wasteland to be passed to the future generations.
5. Floods
This region is prone to heavy flooding. Nuclear waste should never be located where flooding occurs. Containment leaks can’t be guaranteed.
On the 14th of February 1955 a huge flood flowed down the Hookina creek only a stone throw away from the proposed Wallerberdina site and washed away a bridge. In the images below you can see the large concrete bridge pylons laying on their sides. The weight of these would be at least 80 tons.
Hookina Spring
“Australia’s first registered Adnya¬mathanha storyline runs 70km from Hawker to Hookina Spring through pastoral and indigenous lands between Lake Torrens and South Australia’s picturesque northern Flinders Ranges, where it is emerging as a battleline ¬between anti-nuclear activists and the federal government ”
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 trad¬itional 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.’’ (Source: The Australian May 23, 2016)
Hopkins Spring is only a stone throw away from the proposed site
- Seismic ActivityFlinders Ranges is the oldest mountain range in the world, the area selected is not seismically stable. In fact it is probably the most seismic area in the whole of Australia 7.7.Food production – Kimba
About 4% of Australia’s land is suitable for agriculture and Kimba is in the 4%, this land must be given highest protection as our future food supply is paramount. If a nuclear waste dump was to be located in Kimba, its reputation as a clean and green supplier of food would be adversely effected.
The perception that SA would be a nuclear waste dump would surely effect our clean and green image and price our agricultural products would attract.
8.Summary
Many locals don’t want industries such as tourism and farming threatened. Many traditional owners do not want cultural heritage sites and their spiritual connection to country put at risk.
South Australians do not want their state turned into nuclear dump.
This issue continues to cause deep division and stress in the affected communities where friends even families are divided and turn against each other.
SA parliament passed the Nuclear Waste Facility Prohibition Act 2000. The object of this Act are “to protect the health, safety and welfare of the people of South Australia and to protect the environment in which they live by prohibiting the establishment of certain nuclear waste storage facilities in this state.
It’s a real travesty of justice that such a proposal is being seriously considered in our beautiful tourist mecca Flinders Ranges and food bowl of our state Kimba.
ANSTO’s secret transport of spent nuclear fuel assemblies through Sydney’s streets
The Australian 1st June 2018 ,If you look out the window and glimpse a convoy winding through Sydney’s streets guarded by swarms of federal agents and state police, don’t be alarmed.
Any day now a decade’s worth of spent nuclear fuel assemblies weighing 24 tonnes will be moved out of Sydney’s Lucas Heights facility in a highly sensitive transport mission months in the making.
The radioactive cargo is set to be shipped to La Hague, in France, but details about the port, routes and specific timing of the operation remain classified with the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) only disclosing it will happen mid-year.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/latest-news/guarded-nuclear-shipment-to-depart-sydney/news-story/a878a37d7528fa62b7b9e70d7284475a?nk=3adfd2e6af8da25abc149e98fc9467b0-1527847195
Australia needs a more consistent and rational approach to China
Australia needs to reset the relationship with China and stay cool The Conversation Adjunct Professor, School of Communications, La Trobe University,
Let’s call it the “China syndrome”. This describes a condition that is a bit compulsive and not always rational.
Australia’s response to China’s continuing rise mixes anxiety, even a touch of paranoia, with anticipation of the riches that derive from the sale of vast quantities of commodities.
Economic dependence on China is two-edged and potentially policy-distorting.
To put this in perspective: Australian exports of goods and services to China in 2016-17 were worth $110.4 billion. That accounts for nearly 30% of total exports. This compares with $20.8 billion for the US, or 5.16% of total exports. The EU (including the United Kingdom) accounted for $30.5 billion, or 9.8%.
In other words, nearly one-third of Australian goods and services trade is hinged to the China market. Putting it mildly, such a level of dependence on a single market is not ideal……….
What is lacking in Australia’s approach to its relationship with China is consistency, so the government speaks with one voice and, where possible, separates domestic politics from the conduct of China policy. ……..
the greatest risk for Australia is that an erratic Trump administration will undermine a rules-based international order critical to Australian security.
Canberra’s diplomatic efforts over many years have been aimed at drawing Beijing into a rules-based system, promoting certainty in China’s behaviour as a “responsible stakeholder”.
That longstanding impulse of Australian foreign policy is now under stress.
However, what also needs to be kept in mind is that relations between Canberra and Beijing have had their ups and downs over the years. These blips have come and gone……..
The Australian government needs a reset of the relationship that would move the two countries past a difficult stage caused by a combination of misunderstanding and loose talk.
Australian officials also need to bear in mind that, in a region in flux, Australia’s Asian neighbours are accommodating themselves to new realities at warp speed. Old certainties such as the validity of US security guarantees are being questioned.
The Turnbull government is operating in a much-changed environment. Stakes are high. Levels of anxiety about China’s rise are unlikely to fall. Australia needs to keep its cool and avoid falling prey to a China syndrome characterised by unsteadiness and poor judgement. https://theconversation.com/australia-needs-to-reset-the-relationship-with-china-and-stay-cool-97370?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20June%204%202018%20-%20103249093&utm_content=Latest%20from%20The%20Conversation%20for%20June%204%202018%20-%20103249093+CID_283a8e2d929a46b44b455fc08b8056c4&utm_source=campaign_monitor&utm_term=Australia%20needs%20to%20reset%20the%20relationship%20with%20China%20and%20stay%20cool
A cry from a brave indigenous heart
Heather Mckenzie Stuart Fight To Stop Nuclear Waste Dump In Flinders Ranges SA, 4 June 18 Hmm, Regina McKenzie Vivianne C McKenzie I feel that our intelligence has been insulted by DIIS especially how we have been disrespected and ignored in our stand against the proposed nuclear waste dump Barndioota on Adnyamathanha yarta.
Honestly people, we might be Aboriginal and are still part of the flora and fauna and not in the Australian Constitution, but we have a mind of our own and can go between the non Aboriginal world and our culture.
We started our campaign against the dump talking to media etc, attending protest marches, visiting politicians. Vivianne and Regina went to Melbourne to see the then minister Frydenburg. Regina and my grand daughter went to Canberra campaigning with others. Regina’s daughter attended functions in Sydney.
I dropped out attending functions interstate, due to the loss of my only son. The grief of a loss of a child, no matter how old is horrendous, I wouldn’t wish it on anyone, but at the time, the DIIS lot didn’t care about me my feelings, my hurt, my sorrow as a human being, a mother who was in mourning, they still persisted liaisoning with my family organisation and visited family homes in Port Augusta causing unrest among our once close family. During this time, culturally at different times, I should have had my loved ones around me, but due to the unrest among everyone that those lot caused, me and my family were left on our own. Everyones world was turned upside down as we had already lost a dear family member 4 months before my son’s passing, we were already grieving for a nephew.
I love all my family no matter what, but I with my sisters and my family will trudge on against what we believe in and that’s standing up and say NO to a nuclear waste dump on Adnyamathanha yarta. We will never forget the hurt that has been caused through this dump by DIIS dividing and conquering. We have had enough of our family been destroyed bad enough our mum was stolen from her family. #WeWillKeepSayingNoToNuclearWaste#EnoughIsEnough #WeWillNeverGiveUp https://www.facebook.com/groups/344452605899556/
MNEMOSYNE GILES’ powerful submission exposes the deceit in the National Radioactive Waste Management Facility plan
MNEMOSYNE GILES (citizen of South Australia) to Senate Inquiry on Selection process for a national radioactive waste management facility in South Australia (Submission 51)
I submit that the process of selecting a site for a NRWMF has been fundamentally flawed by the fact that it has not been properly or publicly debated whether a NRWM F is an appropriate response to the problem of Australia,s radioactive waste. It is therefore premature to be selecting a site. The inappropriate campaigns of ANSTO and ARPANSA to find a site as soon as possible,(within one year it is suggested) , are part of the misguided nature of their task
I therefore recommend that this Senate Inquiry lead on to a full independent Judicial inquiry into Australia,s radioactive nuclear waste and whether we should keep producing it. I recommend a moratorium on uranium mining should be held while a decision on what to do with the waste is made.
World wide there is no solution to the long lived ILW (Intermediate Level Waste), and this must be acknowledged and emphasised at all levels of discussion and public consultation. Instead of this the NRWMF site selection process has given the illusion that a National site would be a “safe”solution allowing the industry to continue.
- CORRUPTION The Act 2012 that allows nominated private land to become nuclear radioactive dump sites, allowing State prohibition laws to be over-ridden, needs to be examined in connection with the possible corrupt volunteering of land, ………. I recommend an independent inquiry into how and why the National Dump process was initiated,and what interests,(including defence,may have been involved).
An inquiry should ask :why is nuclear radioactive waste at present not better secured at sites such as Woomera where it currently is held? :how”safe” is any storage of ILW? :would one National site be “safer” than more smaller sites,considering that a National site provides a more definite military target and involves the hazards of transport.
2) COLLUSION It needs to be explained how it came to be that the two campaigns for an International dump in S.A. And a National dump were run in parallel during the year of the NFCRC (Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission).
I submit that there was communication and co-operation between State and Federal Govts.or other bodies to keep the two separate. The effect of the concurrent campaigns was to confuse the public : if it was designed to confuse , it succeeded :after the S.A. “Citizen,sJury” rejection of the International dump, most South Australians believed the threat of a “Dump” for S.A. was over.
Now many South , Australians believe that this proposed National dump must be quite different, a smaller proposal,necessary for low level medical waste only. I perceive because I have talked to hundreds of people, handing out information leaflets to passers by on the streets of Adelaide, over the last two years. I submit that the separating of the National and International dump proposals has been and is a deceitful strategy. Well known and influential Richard Yeeles submitted to the NFCRC that a National dump was a good strategy to lead eventually to an International dump. So this strategy is well known to government and industry leaders. But the distinct possibility of a National dump leading to an International dump is never admitted to the public, (especially not to people at Kimba or the Flinders Ranges). This is collusion at a high level to deceive the public. If it is the blind leading the blind it is not good enough when so much is at stake.
3) DECEIT
I also submit that the presentation of medical waste as the main purpose of a National dump is deceitful. Other submissions I am sure will give details of the small proportion of waste which is medical, and the fact that nuclear reactors are not necessary for producing isotopes for medical treatment Nuclear contamination has caused innumerable cancers and will continue to do so. People in contaminated districts can not forget this, but further away people wonder where their cancer comes from.
4) CONFUSION OVER LEVELS OF WASTE In the early stages of the ARPANSA National dump campaign people were led to believe that it was for LLW only. Even politicians seemed to need to have it explained repeatedly that ILW was to be “co-located”.An inquiry should look at bringing Australian definitions of HLW and ILW into conformity with international definitions.
5) BROAD COMMUNITY SUPPORT
Why is the definition of this only now being questioned? For an honest straight forward process it should have been defined at the outset. Leaving it vague has caused uncertainty, confusion, and ultimately angst and division in previously harmonious districts..Whoever decided that small remote townships should be targeted to become willing hosts for the most toxic waste ever produced, and to make a decision which would affect all of us and future generations for thousands of years? South Australian land and people have already suffered contempt and abuse from nuclear /military actions and we will not accept disenfranchisement now. Both State and Federal Govts. (lab and Lib), ape the Finnish with a mantra of “not imposing” on any unwilling community. But this is disingenuous. Finland is a nuclear nation reliant upon nuclear power, so a small local community can have some sense that it is acting in the public interest in hosting a dump. Most Australians do not want Australia to be further implicated in the nuclear fuel cycle:this is probably why we are not being asked about this dump, or given the relevant information. This is not democracy. Finland also has very different geology, with plenty of water and has an absolute veto on the transport of nuclear material across its borders (which we do not have).
This is not a local issue but a National and a State one.
6) FINANCIAL BENEFITS
Small communities are easier targets for bribery and this has been shameless, and benefit to the local community is the most often cited reason for local acceptance. Public money has also been used to fund paid staff to have a constant pro- dump presence in town,and a “local project office” in Kimba. This use of funds means that the pro-dump people in town are supported and can be seen as pillars of the community, positive in attitude, while those against lack funds and support except from volunteers. The current ICAN tour of remote nuclear sites and the target dump sites of Kimba and the Flinders Ranges , is in response to this isolation. ARPANSA has not and does not intend to appear in Adelaide to explain what they are presenting to Kimba and the Flinders communities. I recommend that they should complete an inventory of what is intended before people can be expected to consider the proposal
7) INSUFFICIENT INFORMATION
This is the most serious defect of the ARPANSA campaign. Target communities of Kimba and the Flinders Ranges are being asked to make a decision on a project that is not described or defined. Attached is an appendix of questions asked of ARPANSA . After a year most of these questions are still not answered satisfactorily .They are basic questions about the waste and the need for an
8) PERCEPTION OF “SAFETY”
All the local people who accept the dump proposal think that it is “safe”,although they do not know what it actually would or could be.(none of us do , it is an open ended process it seems). This is a result of ARPANSAs campaign to create a “perception “of “safety”, an example of which was their hosting of a French pro-nuclear delegation from the Aube. The mayor and others told locals at Kimba and the Flinders ranges how they felt comfortable living and producing near a nuclear waste store, and how tourists flocked to see it. No mention was made of France,s terrible problem with ist waste. When asked about the tritium that leaked(irreversibly) into the water system it was explained that this was only because the facility originally did not have a roof. So contamination and accidents belong to the past, and are not expected in the thousands of years of future storage.
9) MANIPULATION
“In its pursuit of a “willing community”within a year, ARPANSA is manufacturing consent in the same way as the S.A. NFCRC tried to do with its accompanying Road Show”, and the Citizens Jury. The techniques are quite usual nowdays but I submit they are inappropriate for major decision making. They include: -No genuine public meetings ie. No independent chair -Casual style consultation instead, with individuals usually addressed in ones or twos – -low attendance at ARPANSA consultations is normal, similar to roadshow”attendances -questions from the floor usually relegated to private discussion after the meeting.
In conclusion I submit that the site selection process shows pro-nuclear bias and avoids democratic scrutiny. Therefore an inquiry by the Senate into the process should not only condemn the process,but ask for a judicial inquiry into its inception and the basic assumptions it makes about Australia,s further nuclear involvement
. Mnemosyne Giles 2/4/2018
APPENDIX:
Further questions to ANSTO, ARPANSA & the DEPARTMENT OF INDUSTRY, INNOVATION and SCIENCE (DIIS) from ENuFF (Everybody for a Nuclear Free Future SA) Continue reading
Sydney’s Opal nuclear reactor’s High Level Wastes off to France, later to return to planned Federal Nuclear waste Dump
Guarded nuclear shipment to secretly depart Sydney SBS News, 1 June 18 Any day now a decade’s worth of heavily guarded nuclear cargo will be secretly transported through Sydney’s streets and sent to France for reprocessing. ….. Any day now a decade’s worth of spent nuclear fuel assemblies weighing 24 tonnes will be moved out of Sydney’s Lucas Heights facility in a highly sensitive transport mission months in the making.
specific timing of the operation remain classified with the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) only disclosing it will happen mid-year.An ANSTO spokesman has assured the public of the operation’s safety, saying the radioactive materials will be enclosed in specially-designed transport casks reinforced with lead and made to withstand almost anything, including a jet fighter crash.
“There is no credible chance of any accident or incident that could result in the cask being compromised,” an ANSTO spokesman said.
It will be the 10th transport mission of spent nuclear fuel assemblies, with the last shipment sent to the United States in 2009.
The spent fuel has come from Australia’s multi-purpose OPAL reactor…..The reprocessing project will cost $45 million, including the contract with France, equipment, staff and other costs.
Once the uranium and plutonium are extracted, they will be recycled into overseas civil power and research programs, with the remaining materials vitrified into a safer form for waste storage and sent back to Australia…..
The spent fuel assemblies, which would have been considered high-level waste, become transformed into an intermediate level waste, Hef Griffiths, ANSTO’s Chief Nuclear Officer told AAP.
But the question of where it will be stored remains.
The waste from this year’s transport mission will be returned from France in many years’ time and sent to the yet-to-be-built National Radioactive Waste Management Facility where it will be kept in storage for several decades.
Eventually, the waste will need to be moved again to a permanent disposal facility. https://www.sbs.com.au/news/guarded-nuclear-shipment-to-secretly-depart-sydney
Leanne Lienert not necessarily opposed to nuclear waste dump, but very critical of the process
There are far too many discrepancies in the information, consultation process and long term impacts to have such a facility based at Kimba (or Hawker).
the consultation process has been an insult to the intelligence of rural people.
Leanne Lienert Submission to Senate, re National Radioactive Waste Management 
Facility in South Australia Submission (Submission No. 50) I wish to offer my thoughts to the process currently occurring within two regional areas of South Australia with an emphasis on the Kimba area. From the outset I wish to say that I am not opposed entirely to such a facility being built within South Australia – but I am extremely concerned about the process of consultation, the logisitics and location of such a site and the long term effects on vibrant farming/rural communities.
Financial Compensation interestingly the offer of substantial money to individuals to offer up their land plus the supposed ongoing dollars is the driving force locally for the facility to be placed at Kimba. Kimba farming district, as all farms across the world, are being farmed by fewer people as technology and modern machinery changes farming practices. It also often means that individual farmers are buying up more and more land for their own needs as smaller farmers can’t compete. Interestingly those buying up land are also the ones now edging to gain financially from this current waste facility proposal. I read one article where a farmer who has offered his farm considers it will drought proof the Kimba District to have the $2 million dollars – This amount of money divided between those affected by a drought would be chicken feed where the costs each year to produce a crop is significant. This community is not poor – it is creative and community minded with little unemployment. Nowadays many young people gain a trade to supplement the farms where they live and work – and as happens across the world others gravitate to the cities
While this money is a huge enticement, logically, the big picture cost of transporting radioactive waste from all over Australia to a small rural community doesn’t seem to be discussed in the consultation! If this waste is as safe as promised why is there a need to move it such long distances when it could presumably be located closer to the source with smaller facilities within each state or shared states?
“Broad community support” –how has it played out currently and will continue into the future I spent my childhood up until early adult years in this vibrant rural community where community participation, comradery, innovation and support has always been paramount. I still have a brother and his family on the farm plus my mother. I specifically know people who have been affected on both sides by this whole process and it is beyond me with the ongoing extent of the consultation that this disconnection and destruction of the community fabric has not been the deciding factor in saying this location is inappropriate on so many levels – socially, emotionally and mentally. It is sad that locally and politically at a Federal level that the lure of money (greed) has risen to hold such a high position in exchange for a totally altered community ethos!
This process has divided the community to such an extent that (people I know well)
- – sporting teams have been affected because people will not play with those of differing opinion.
- – people have moved out of Kimba because they no longer feel comfortable in long term friendship groups who are now split by differing opinions
- – people do not patronise business who are known to have opposite views to each other e.g. supermarkets, coffee shop, cafe – a distrust of information given to support the facility
- – queries that there is too much wider information that has not been disclosed or has been misleading e.g. the locations were deliberately local farm names or Hundred names to disguise it not being at Kimba – such as Pinkawillinie, enticements to visit Lucas Heights in an attempt to ‘prove’ and market how safe it is while choosing to locate it so far away in a rural community, and also emotionally tagging people who are against it insinuating that they will have xrays or nuclear medicine treatments and are therefore hypocrites to not support it.
- – voting for the facility only included those in the Kimba District
- – interestingly a farmer who borders a proposed property and who is opposed to the waste facility idea is in the next council area and he didn’t get a say – I consider this an injustice. Even to the extent that he was told that it wasn’t ‘adjacent’ because it was across the other side of a dirt road – I wonder if the same person on a city block would think this was fair if a facility was built on a vacant block over the road from them!!
- – A person I know very well owns a sheep stud – he has chosen not to disclose his own opinion of the facility for a real fear that those with an opposite view will not by rams from his stud.
- – The need to remain neutral has caused some tensions between a son and mother (who is opposed to the facility) for fear he will be linked publicly to her views and it will reflect on his business and therefore affect those who patronise him.
- – The notion that many jobs will be created also doesn’t ring true
- – with a world of fly-in, fly-out employment it doesn’t seem logical that many jobs would be permanently located at Kimba. – I have heard locals say it will attract tourists!!
- – what would they see? How big will this facility actually be?
- – What is the impact to transport this type of waste such long distances through populated areas all across Australia to some tiny area on Eyre Peninsular?
- – again if it is so safe why haven’t areas much closer to the source of radioactive waste been considered? It doesn’t seem to make logical sense?
Broad Community Support
- – what does this mean? Initially it was promised that any opposition to such a facility would mean it wouldn’t go ahead. The goal posts changed dramatically in a short space of time so that a vote with a slim majority of 2-3% meant the second round of consultation went ahead and if this continues it’s possible that as few as 300 people will make the decision for all of South Australia to have such a facility here. Is it a fair process if there is not a majority of at least 70:30 to allow this facility to go ahead especially in a decision that has an ongoing impact for many generations to come in terms of governance, changing definitions of “medium’ levels of waste, possible mishaps etc. Community Benefits Program
- – If community benefits programs were to eventuate I am wondering how this would happen constructively in a community divided by the process – will the damage created continue to foster antagonism in gaining support for initiatives?
- – Who would manage the money within the community and how would allocation of funds be decided? Would it be at a local level or would it become a political football?
- – How would such a small community have a voice in changing political processes into the future?
- – Would ‘medium level’ waste alter as the years go on? How would this be guaranteed and trusted?
Eyre Peninsular and state wide considerations
– The wider implications of a radioactive waste facility being located within a vibrant grain growing area and its impact on a clean and green agricultural area cannot be dismissed.
This issue is not just for this productive region but all of the Eyre Peninsular and South Australia as a whole therefore the consultation needs to be widened and include both the region and the state in any final considerations. – I feel that the whole economic impact area needs some dialogue and debate because once this process begins it cannot be reversed. – In a country where the greatest population and food growing areas are positioned relatively close to the coast it doesn’t seem logical to locate such a facility in an area known for its quality and quantity of agricultural produce – there is a massive land mass that could be utilised instead of impacting on a small vibrant farming district.
Other related matters
I wonder why (and would like to see the reasons ‘why not’) places such as Leigh Creek (already exposed areas that could be covered within the open cut mine areas to the degree needed), Roxby Downs (already radioactive, with large areas that could house such a facility with easy access via rail or road), Woomera (where the government already utilises vast areas of land and with ready access) or even the Defence Force land at El Alamein near Port Augusta (where the area extends all the way to Iron Knob) – because once again it is promoted as being extremely safe.
In conclusion, after following the progress of the consultation in the Kimba district over the last two years, I feel that there are far too many discrepancies in the information, consultation process and long term impacts to have such a facility based at Kimba (or Hawker).
I also feel that the consultation process has been an insult to the intelligence of rural people. That it was considered (especially in the earlier parts of the consultation), this was one small, insignificant community who could be bluffed/lured into such a facility with money and would really have no idea about radioactive waste and probably wouldn’t care!
If South Australia decides to take on the responsibility of a radioactive waste facility then I hope that this enquiry can honour the true spirit that makes a rural community flourish and not set up processes that will continue to drive wedges between its people in the name of money. Please find a place that does not interrupt genuine people who lives are entwined with the land – whether that be our Aboriginal people, farmers or country towns.
Japanese companies join in starting storage battery business in South Australia
TEPCO JV to enter Australia battery biz
http://the-japan-news.com/news/article/0004473933May 30, 2018
TOKYO (Jiji Press) — Jera Co., a joint venture between Tokyo Electric Power Company Holdings Inc. and Chubu Electric Power Co., said Tuesday that it will enter storage battery business in Australia.
The thermal power and fuel company agreed to explore opportunities to deploy energy storage solutions in the Asia-Pacific region with Australian power company Lyon Group and Fluence Energy LLC, a U.S. storage battery maker partly held by German industrial giant Siemens AG.
Under their plan, the three companies will spend a total of ¥120 billion to build solar power plants equipped with lithium-ion batteries in three regions in Australia.
Their combined power generation capacities will reach some 550,000 kilowatts.
One of the power plants will be built in South Australia. It will have a 100,000-kilowatt battery system, one of the largest in the world.
The generated electricity will be sold locally. The companies aim to start running the power plants in 2019.
Jera expects to invest around ¥10 billion. The company hopes to learn know-how about the storage battery business, as the renewable energy market is forecast to expand.
South Australian Parliament Bill to protect whistleblowers
SA parliament to debate whistleblower laws https://www.news.com.au/national/breaking-news/sa-parliament-to-debate-whistleblower-laws/news-story/8f7d5ba0d9a0fba3619d027096423c6c
A law shielding South Australian journalists from liability for refusing to reveal their sources has passed state parliament’s lower house.
Laws to strengthen protection of whistleblowers have passed South Australia’s lower house of parliament.
The Liberal government on Wednesday passed legislation to shield journalists from criminal or civil liability if they do not disclose the identity of their sources when the information is in the public interest.
The proposed legislation would make the default rule that journalists cannot be compelled to answer a question or produce a document that may disclose the identity of an informant.
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