Mirarr welcome role on Ranger task force
The Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation (GAC) has welcomed the formation of a task force to investigate the recent tank collapse at Ranger uranium mine. Federal Industry Minister Ian MacFarlane and Northern Territory Mines Minister Willem Westra Van Holthe announced the investigation today noting that a representative of the Mirarr Traditional Owners of the mine site will be invited to join.
GAC Chief Executive Officer Justin O’Brien said “We welcome the Government’s proactive closure of operations at Ranger and believe that mining should remain suspended until the completion of this investigation and the subsequent implementation of all recommendations.”
The investigation has been established to:
i) identify the immediate cause of the incident;
ii) examine the integrity of broader processing operations;
iii) identify any gaps in operating procedures or maintenance practices;
iv) undertake a comprehensive examination of corporate governance arrangements; and,
v) provide recommendations to the Commonwealth Minister for Industry and the Northern Territory Minister for Mines and Energy.
Mr O’Brien continued: “This inquiry must be given full access to ensure the condition of infrastructure and the rigour of procedures at this aging mine are fully scrutinised. We look forward to assisting with the appointment of an independent investigator.”
“We are hopeful that this process will set a strong precedent for government listening to and including aboriginal landholders in decisions about the management of their land” Justin O’Brien concluded.
Mirarr safety fears remain despite Ranger visit
Traditional owners in Kakadu National Park still fear for their safety and the health of their country after a technical team visited the Ranger Uranium mine today, following a series of pollution spills and safety breaches.
The Mirarr Traditional Owners – who do not feel safe to enter the mine area following Saturday’s tank collapse – sent a technical officer from the Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation (GAC) to visit the site on their behalf this morning.
GAC acting Chief Executive Officer David Vadiveloo said “ERA is telling the public that the area is safe but our officer reports that they are still conducting radiation testing in the area and there is still toxic slurry lying exposed, outside the containment area.”
“The Mirarr are worried sick about the safety of people, the land and the future of this World Heritage park – meanwhile ERA is worrying about getting roads cleared and getting this aging and incident-riddled mine-site, back to processing without an independent assessment being done” Vadiveloo said.
“There has been no independent testing so we are all left relying on the mining company’s testing to confirm the area is safe. We want a presence on the taskforce and an independent audit of plant and facility” said Vadiveloo.
A taskforce involving government regulators, departments and the miner has been appointed to investigate the recent radiological accidents but GAC was not invited to participate.
GAC has written to the Federal Minister for Industry, Ian MacFarlane welcoming the current halt to processing at Ranger and to request a seat on the taskforce.
Mirarr Senior Traditional Owner Yvonne Margarula will make a statement in coming days.
AUDIO: Fall of worker into Ranger uranium mine radioactive slurry pit
A
UDIO Worker ‘fell in’ to radioactive slurry pit, ABC Radio AM Michael Coggan reported this story on Saturday, December 14, 2013
SIMON SANTOW: The operators of the Ranger uranium mine in the Northern Territory are facing fresh allegations they are cutting corners on safety.
A worker told his union he sunk up to his armpits into radioactive slurry while helping to clean up a massive toxic spill caused by the collapse of part of the mine’s processing plant last weekend.
The company that runs the mine, Energy Resources of Australia, says it can’t confirm the workplace accident and is checking the validity of the claim. Michael Coggan reports from Darwin.
MICHAEL COGGAN: When a 1,400 cubic metre leach tank at the Ranger uranium mine fell apart last Saturday, workers had to evacuate to avoid being hit by the mixture of sulphuric acid and uranium it was holding…….
MICHAEL COGGAN: What does that say about the safety of the mine site?
BRYAN WILKINS: I think this is fairly typical of safety on that mine site. And it goes to show when the minister said the mine was safe the other day, he obviously wasn’t right. There still are safety issues on that site, and there needs to be that full independent inquiry that we called for…….http://www.abc.net.au/am/content/2013/s3911651.htm
Tony Abbott’s meaningless blather about jobs and Olympic Dam uranium expansion
South Australian jobs creation is focus of Council of Australian Governments following Holden closure NEWS.COM.AU DECEMBER 14, 2013 “……..Prime Minister Tony Abbott is set to make an announcement about the Federal Government’s response to the situation as early as Monday, but yesterday he made the surprising claim that BHP Billiton could reverse its decision to shelve the Olympic Dam expansion within months.
“The atmospherics and the economics and the decision will be substantially different I believe in a few months’ time,” he told the Australian Financial Review, adding that he was “moderately optimistic” that it was “doable”.
State Opposition Leader Steven Marshall spoke to the Prime Minister about Olympic Dam this week as part of discussions over how to strengthen the state’s economy.
The Advertiser yesterday revealed the State Government’s wishlist for infrastructure spending and a speeding-up of Defence spending to help the state survive Holden’s demise…….http://www.news.com.au/national/south-australia/south-australian-jobs-creation-is-focus-of-council-of-australian-governments-following-holden-closure/story-fnii5yv4-1226782915941
Australia’s Coalition government to crack down on political protest
New law to expand police powers to ‘move on’ protester, THE AGE December 12, 2013, Jane Lee Legal Affairs Reporter Unions say a plan to enable police to order people in picket lines and blockades to “move on”, and arrest those who do not, erodes the right to political protest.
The Coalition introduced reforms on Wednesday extending police powers to issue “move on” orders to people who prevent access to buildings, commit offences in public places, cause others to have a “reasonable fear of violence” or who behave in ways “likely to cause damage to property.”
Police would be able to ask such people for their names and addresses, and arrest and fine those who do not comply $720 under the new law. They could also apply to the Magistrates’ Court for an exclusion order, banning protesters from entering certain places if they have been given more than one “move on” order in the same place.
ACTU President Ged Kearney said the proposed changes were excessive and unnecessary: “Current legislative provisions governing industrial action are comprehensive and effective for unions and employers.”……
Liberty Victoria president Jane Dixon, SC, similarly opposed the reforms: “The anti-war demonstrations in the City of Melbourne may well have impacted on shops and businesses in the vicinity but Liberty [Victoria] believes that political protests in public places are an important feature of a functioning democracy……
The reforms follow long-running protests, including against the east-west link and builder Grocon.
They come a month after the Abbott government announced it would re-introduce the Australian Building and Construction Commission, which could fine people picketing building sites up to $34,000. The reforms follow long-running protests, including against the east-west link and builder Grocon. http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/new-law-to-expand-police-powers-to-move-on-protesters-20131212-2z8ip.html#ixzz2nP5F4ucS
In secrecy, Australian government about to sign up to Trans Pacific Partnership
Australia ‘stumbling block’ on tobacco law ,The Age, Peter Martin, Economics correspondent , 14 Dec 13, “…….Australia’s Trade Minister Andrew Robb has indicated he is prepared to trade Australia’s previous opposition to investor state dispute settlement clauses in exchange for greater access to markets for commodities such as sugar. He returned from the talks on Tuesday.
An Australia Institute survey released on Friday finds only 11 per cent of Australians ‘‘definitely know’’ about the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations.
Almost 90 per cent think the details of such deals should be made public before they are signed.
Told that the US wants the right for its corporations to sue governments, 75 per cent are opposed.
Asked whether they trust the Australian government when it says it will not sign an agreement which will push up the price of prescription drugs, 67 per cent say no.
http://www.smh.com.au/national/australia-stumbling-block-on-tobacco-law-20131212-2zae7.html#ixzz2nP2JxdzM
Shock of Ranger radiation spill in “sickness country”
Kakadu uranium leak: ‘I’ve never seen anything like it’ SMH,December 14, 2013 Tim Elliott To the Jawoyn people, of southern Kakadu, it’s known as buladjang, or ”sickness country”, pockets of land not fit for regular habitation.
It was here, they believed, that the creation ancestor Bula ended his travels and left his spirit underground. Only recently have scientists found a correlation between mineral deposits such as uranium and the location of major Bula sites.
Ranger uranium mine, north of the Jawoyn, unleashed its own kind of sickness last Saturday when a leach tank burst, spilling 1 million litres of highly acidic uranium slurry that engulfed the mine and breached containment lines. The mine’s operator, Energy Resources Australia, said no one was hurt, and that the spill had no effect on the World Heritage-listed Kakadu National Park, which surrounds the site.
But photos obtained by Fairfax Media for the first time show the extent of the damage. ”I’ve never seen anything like it,” says Melanie Impey, environmental officer for the Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation, which represents the local Mirarr people. ”The tank was just a mangled mass of metal.”…..
Ranger has experienced more than 200 spills, leaks and breaches since opening in 1979. In 2002, ERA detected high uranium levels downstream from Ranger but failed to inform the traditional owners for five weeks. In 2004, 28 Ranger workers were found to have drank and showered in water containing 400 times the legal limit of uranium. Later, an excavator covered in radioactive mud was taken to the town of Jabiru for cleaning, contaminating a mechanic and his children.
Ranger’s chief regulator is the Northern Territory government, which takes advice from the Supervising Scientists Division, a Commonwealth agency that oversees environmental standards within Kakadu. ERA says its record is good, pointing out the SSD has always given the mine a clean bill of health …. http://www.smh.com.au/national/kakadu-uranium-leak-ive-never-seen-anything-like-it-20131213-2zcy5.html#ixzz2nU8DGzF
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/national/kakadu-uraniu
Ranger uranium mine: greying, fraying and needing more review than its getting
13 Dec 13, ACF has called for a widening of the scope of the planned review into safety at Energy Resources of Australia’s Ranger uranium mine in Kakadu following last weekend’s equipment failure and spill of a million litres of highly acidic uranium slurry.
Today the federal and NT Mines Ministers have outlined the terms of reference for a joint investigation but many questions remain unclear, including:
· Details on the ‘independent expert’ who has the key role to ‘review the broader integrity of the processing plant’
- · How stakeholders including environmental NGO’s and trade unions will engage with this process and whether there will be a public hearing and submission process
- · Whether operations at Ranger mine will remain halted pending the outcome plant integrity assessment
- · How the adequacy of the remediation and clean up works and related OHS response will be assessed
- · The extent of dependence of company supplied – as opposed to independently obtained – data and monitoring results Continue reading
Senator Nova Peris doubts Abbott’s commitment to Aboriginal development
Nova Peris questions Abbott’s dedication to Indigenous affairs, SBS News 12 Dec 13, The parliamentary year has officially ended for Tony Abbott and the Coalition government, but questions still remain unanswered for Indigenous ministers. By Brooke Boney
Source
NITV News “……The new government established an advisory council headed by Warren Mundine, which will focus on community economic development in the coming parliamentary year.
Prime Minister Tony Abbott declared his dedication to Indigenous Australians, saying “I want to be the Prime Minister for Indigenous affairs.”
However, recent events in mining and tourism have lead Aboriginal communities to believe otherwise…….. the government is still in its infancy and plans to conduct three separate reviews aimed at closing the gap early next year.
The first review will assess all government expenditure in Indigenous Affairs, the second will review training and employment programs, and the third will focus on the merge of Indigenous Business Australia with the Indigenous Land Corporation.
In the final days of the 2013 election, Minister Joe Hockey announced that the Coalition would cut $42 million from the Indigenous legal aid budget.
Northern Territory Senator Nova Peris revealed her distress following this announcement in Parliament today where she questioned the attorney general during senate estimates and question time.
Nuclear veterans failed by Australian Human Rights Commission
The Australian Human Rights Commission shot down on Tuesday the nuclear veterans’ last legal avenue on a technicality – after 10 months they have just decided they can’t do anything as they don’t think they have jurisdiction.
Can you imagine finding out that our military personnel, our diggers, were sent into the desert, into the sky and out into our oceans to supervise, watch and secure, the explosion of radioactive nuclear weapons with little more protection than the shirt on their back?
You need not imagine because 61 years ago the Australian government, under the guise of former Prime Minister Sir Robert Menzies, approved radioactive nuclear weapons to be detonated on Australian soil, and in our oceans, not once but hundreds of times between 1952 and 1963.
The result is a generation of our diggers lost to horrific radiation related cancers and illnesses. Out of the 8000 servicemen sent to Maralinga, Emu Field and the Monte Bello islands, some 2,000 remain living, fighting and suffering amongst us.
To think of the prospect that any human being, let alone our diggers, would be knowingly exposed to the effects of radiation after seeing the consequences of atomic weapons just seven years earlier in Japan is unforgiveable. Continue reading
Government team investigating Ranger radioactive spill excludes Aboriginal owners
Ranger clean-up ignores traditional owners 9 News, December 12, 2013 Aboriginal traditional owners have been left off a taskforce convened by the government to investigate a massive leak of uranium and acid at the Ranger mine in Kakadu National Park.
At 1am on Saturday a leach tank with a capacity of about 1.5 million litres collapsed, spilling out a mixture of uranium, sulphuric acid, and mud at the mine site, which has operated for 30 years inside the boundaries of one of Australia’s largest protected areas.
The federal government suspended operations at the mine and has formed a taskforce with regulators and the mine operators to respond to the incident, but traditional owners have not been invited to participate, says David Vadiveloo, acting CEO of the Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation (GAC), which advocates on the behalf of the Mirarr people.
He told AAP the lack of an invitation to play a role “goes to the heart of our calls for the desperate need for independent oversight of that mine”.
“The regulatory procedures are just as archaic as the mine,” he said……..
an on-site GAC representative says radiation testing is still being carried out, with a large volume of contaminated material sitting on the ground outside the contaminated area.
Mr Vadiveloo said he was “stunned” to see ERA reassuring the community before testing was complete.
“Through good fortune – clearly not good planning – it hasn’t rained here since the accident, but what would ERA have done had the skies opened up and a huge dump of rain come in?”
Traditional owners did not feel safe on their own land, he said………GAC is calling for a fully independent review of the leak, along with a full audit of operations at Ranger.http://news.ninemsn.com.au/national/2013/12/12/18/42/ranger-clean-up-ignores-traditional-owners
ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENDERS OFFICE NT to monitor Government response to Ranger radioactive spill
EDONT to watch regulator response with interest in wake of Ranger Uranium Mine incident. ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENDERS OFFICE NT, DECEMBER 11, 2013 “………What can the Commonwealth and Territory Government do to respond to the spill?
Clearly an incident of this nature demands a strong response from regulators of the mine. Currently the Office of the Supervising Scientist and the Northern Territory Government are investigating the spill.
Commonwealth –
Under the AEA the Commonwealth Minister has the power to impose an indefinite suspension of operations at Ranger if ERA refuses or fails to comply with or observe a condition or restriction provided in its Authority. It is unclear whether the Commonwealth Minister has given a direction under the AEA or whether he has directed ERA to cease operations pending investigation and ERA have voluntarily complied.
It is interesting to note that while ERA have stated that the spill was contained on site, Ranger Environmental Requirement 1.2 requires that:
the company must ensure that operations at Ranger do not result in environmental impacts within the Ranger Project Area which are not as low as reasonably achievable, during mining excavation, mineral processing, and subsequently during and after rehabilitation.
Additionally, Environmental Requirement 12 requires the use of Best Practicable Technology (BPT) at Ranger. While it is contemplated that equipment on site may be able to fulfill its serviceable life, in light of this weekends events ERA appears to be failing in its duty to adequately review and update its equipment in line with Environmental Requirement 12.
Given that preliminary reports have suggested that the tank was over 20 years old, EDO NT would suggest that a full scale review of the mines equipment to ensure that there are no further equipment failures at the mine and compliance with the BPT requirement of ERA’s Ranger Authority is achieved.
Under the Atomic Energy Act it is an offence for a person to fail to comply with a condition of their authorisation. The maximum penalty for this offence, in the case of a body corporate like ERA, is $10,000.
Northern Territory –
The Northern Territory Government’s powers to regulate Ranger arise from the provisions of the MMA, which as stated above provides for the General Authorisation for Ranger, the Schedule to which set out the way mining operations are undertaken and the requirements for environmental protection.
In the event that the NT Government believes ERA has contravened an environmental obligation under the MMA and caused environmental harm, it is able to commence proceedings under the MMA.
The MMA provides three tiers of offences, namely for conduct causing:
- serious environmental harm (level 1 and 2);
- material environmental harm (level 1 and 2); or
- Environmental nuisance.
The penalties for the various tiers (and levels) range from about $55,000 for a body corporate who causes environmental nuisance to over $2.75 million for a body corporate that causes serious environmental harm.
The way forward
The time for taking a strong legal stance against lack luster performance at Ranger would appear to have come. The Northern Territory Government must send a message to ERA, and other mine operators within the Territory, that the Territory community will accept nothing less than strict compliance with the laws put in place to protect the environment.
http://edont.org.au/edont-watch-regulator-response-interest-wake-ranger-uranium-incident/
Australian National Radiation Dose Register to be exxpanded
Expansion of the Australian National Radiation Dose Register http://medical.wesrch.com/paper-details/pdf-ME1AU7TU3NJWR-expansion-of-the-australian-national-radiation-dose-register#page1 13 Dec 13, This medical presentation is about Expansion of the Australian National Radiation Dose Register. In the International Best Practice exposure records for each worker shall be maintained during and after the worker’s working life, at least until the former worker attains or would have attained the age of 75 years, and for not less than 30 years after cessation of the work in which the worker was subject to occupational exposure. This requirement has been adopted in Commonwealth, State and Territory legislation across Australia.
New report shows rise in renewable energy, decline in coal-powered
AEMO sees coal sidelined as renewables dominate new capacity REneweconomy By Sophie Vorrath on 12 December 2013 The need to add more ‘poles and wires’ to Australia’s electricity transmission networks has again been questioned, with a new report by the Australian Energy Market Operator (AEMO) predicting future oversupply of generation capacity in the National Electricity Market and signalling potential generation reductions.
The 2013 National Transmission Network Development Plan (NTNDP), released on Thursday, also predicts that only renewable energy generation will be added to Australia’s grid out to 2020; 84 per cent of which would come from wind, 13 per cent from large-scale solar PV, and 3 per cent from biomass. (graphs)
The report, which considers the impact of changing dynamics in the NEM over the next 25 years, including the effect of the Large-scale Renewable Energy Target (LRET) and of a carbon price – or the absence, thereof – finds that the LRET remains the main driver of national electricity generation investment up to 2020.
This includes 168MW of new wind generation that has recently come online in Tasmania, and a further 131MW in Victoria, 270MW in South Australia, and 386MW in New South Wales committed to come online from 2014-15. AEMO says it is aware of close to 15,800MW of proposed wind generation projects…….http://reneweconomy.com.au/2013/aemo-sees-coal-sidelined-as-renewables-dominate-new-capacity-19726
Westpac Bank cautiously promoting renewable energy
Westpac focuses on renewables, Ecogeneration, 13 Dec 13, “In an exclusive excerpt from the February 2014 edition of EcoGeneration, Westpac Institutional Bank Director of Infrastructure and Utilities David Scrivener discusses the Bank’s approach to clean energy financing and the key things financiers look for when investing in clean energy projects……….Westpac is committed to financing the development of clean energy solutions and best practice pollution controls. Today, more than 50 per cent of our lending to the energy sector is to renewable energy generation, including hydro, wind and solar. Continue reading
1 This month.
20 September –National Day of Action in Melbourne on the International Day of Peace
Help Aunty Sue Protect Her Land and Sacred Sites From Destructive Rocket Testing.
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Australians deserve the truth
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AUKUS – https://aukuspublicinquiry.com/
PETITION – To: Prime Minister Anthony Albanese and the Australian Labor Government
of the week – Australians for War Powers Reform (AWPR)
To see nuclear-related stories in greater depth and intensity
Antinuclear 