How Australian governments gave BHP special treatment, and free groundwater
Public resources for private profit: free water for the largest open-pit mine in the world Coober Pedy Regional Times, by: Nectaria Calan, 13 Oct 11 In August mining giant BHP Billiton announced record financial results for the 2011 financial year, recording a total net profit of US$23.95 billion, nearly double its 2010 figure of US$13.01 billion.Friends of the Earth call for transparency on proposed Whyalla In Situ Leach uranium trial
14 oct 11, Public submissions for Samphire Uranium’s application for an In Situ Leach trial mine closed yesterday. Better known as the Mullaquana project, the proposed trial site is located 20km from Whyalla, 3.6km from the Upper Spencer Gulf. Samphire Uranium is wholly owned by UraniumSA, a new entrant in the uranium mining industry.
In Situ Leach mines pump highly acidic substances into an aquifer to mobilise uranium. The liquid is then pumped out of the aquifer and processed to remove the uranium. The waste liquid is then pumped back into the aquifer.
Two grassroots environmental groups, Friends of the Earth Adelaide and West Mallee Protection, stated in their joint submission that:
“Given the number of risks involved with the proposed Mullaquana trial, particularly the routine contamination of groundwater by heavy metals and radioactive materials associated with In Situ Leach mining…we strongly recommend that this proposal is rejected.”
“Using…questionable, fuzzy logic, attempts are made to argue that low soil productivity and the low quality of groundwater negate potential risks and minimise the impact of contamination…this is essentially saying that it’s okay to pollute soil and groundwater with radioactive materials and heavy metals simply because it is of a lower quality.”
Friends of the Earth Adelaide and West Mallee Protection are calling on PIRSA to reject the application.
“The In Situ Leach method of mining has left numerous sites in Eastern Europe heavily contaminated. In South Australia, there have been over 20 spills at the Beverley In Situ Leach mine. In January 2002 a pipe burst, releasing 62, 000 litres of contaminated water. UraniumSA claim that they have recruited heavily from within this sector,” said Nectaria Calan, of Friends of the Earth Adelaide.
No commercial acid leach mine in the USA has ever been given environmental approval because of the high risk of contamination.
“Given UraniumSA’s public commitment to transparency, we are calling on the company to commit to making publically available the In Situ data that will be obtained during the trial, and the models they use to obtain it,” stated Ms Calan.
Soouth Australia’s Mike Rann gives freehold to BHP over Olympic Dam uranium mining lease
“They have a code of silence at that mining lease that’s stronger than any code in downtown
Calabria,” “They even have the government tied up because when BHP says jump, the government says how high.”
Yesterday, Rann again signed off on BHP’s powerful proprietary interests over the site. BHP gets freehold over the extended Olympic Dam mining lease. Few mining companies have this ultimate level of control.
The estimated mining royalties for South Australia ($350 million) from the “world’s biggest mine in human history” are around one tenth of what Western Australia pulls every year from iron ore.
Mike Rann delivers Kloppers’ Kingdom in Melbourne, Crikey, by Kevin Naughton of InDaily, 13 Oct 11,
“…….Rann was in Melbourne at BHP Billiton’s headquarters to sign the indenture agreement that specifies several of the terms under which BHP can expand its mine at Olympic Dam. Marius Kloppers, the busy global boss of the company with more than $72 billion turnover, held the whip hand on the Premier of a state with annual turnover of about $13 billion.
The indenture agreement goes before Parliament next week where there will be some token debate, but little in the way of exhaustive analysis of the terms of a deal that gives BHP 45 years of certainty, control and exclusive access rights that make this mine site look more like Kloppers’ Kingdom than a part of South Australia. Continue reading
Unlikely to succeed – Tony Abbott’s “pledge in blood” to repeal carbon tax law
Abbott’s gory pledge would be a legal bloodbath , Crikey.com 13 Oct 11, by Fergus Green, a lawyer and policy analyst specialising in climate change Abbott’s hyperbole has certainly attracted the headlines, but it betrays a curious tactic. By using such uncompromising rhetoric John Howard gave us the “non-core promise”. Now Tony Abbott has added a new category to the hierarchy of political commitment with his “pledge in blood” to repeal the carbon tax, which passed the lower house of Parliament yesterday (unless, of course, that was just an “unscripted remark” made “in the heat of verbal combat”.)
Abbott has left himself no room to move if repealing the nascent scheme becomes legally impossible or popularly unpalatable.
No amount of blood-pledging, pinkie-swearing, or scout’s-honouring will change the constitutional and political obstacles that an Abbott government would face if it tried to repeal (what will soon be) theClean Energy Act and its 18 associated acts of Parliament….. http://www.crikey.com.au/2011/10/13/abbotts-gory-pledge-would-be-a-legal-bloodbath/
Australia’s Environment Minister lying about safety of BHP’s Olympic Dam uranium mine
( Once again – so much news on Olympic Damn that we have put a selection of other items on http://nuclearnewsaustralia.wordpress.com/)
A headache of Olympic proportions The Drum, Scott Ludlam, 13 Oct 11 The concept of ‘environmental protection’ has taken on new meaning with the announcement of Commonwealth environmental approvals for BHP Billiton’s Olympic Dam copper/gold/uranium mine in South Australia.
“We have the toughest environmental conditions that you’ll ever find imposed on a uranium mine,” Commonwealth Environment Minister Tony Burke stated proudly.
This is known in the technical literature as a ‘bald-faced lie’. We know that, because the toughest environmental conditions found at a uranium mine are 2,000 kilometres northward, at the Ranger Uranium mine on a lease chopped out of Kakadu National Park in the NT. There, the company is required to backfill the mine voids with their radioactive wastes, removing somewhat more than a hundred million tonnes of the stuff from the surface and dumping it back in the pit to be capped and revegetated as best as possible. In Kakadu, the company is required to isolate these wastes from the wider environment for a period not less than 10,000 years. This is clearly an impossible task, but a worthy ambition at least.
No such duty of care will be applied for the benefit of South Australians. Mr Burke has earnestly reassured us that conditions will apply for 10 years after the life of the mine. He has granted approval for the mine tailings waste to be dumped and left out on the surface in apparent ignorance of the fact that the residual inventory of Uranium 238 has a half-life of 4.5 billion years, and that the mine wastes will contain a cocktail of unwanted daughter isotopes including radium, protactinium, radon gas and radioactive lead. Continue reading
Uranium is not much of an export earner for Australia. Do we really need this dirty industry?
Do we need the money from uranium? How does uranium compare to our other exports? According to the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics and Sciences (ABARES) export data, in the decade from 2000/01 to 2009/10, uranium exports averaged $596 million/year. Lamb, cheese, cotton, barley, sugar, wool, wine, other crops, wheat, and beef-veal, each averaged $664, $806, $955, $1,170, $1,286, $1,825, $2,309, $3,463, $3,665, and $4,002 million/year, respectively…..
Expanding Olympic Dam: with great power comes great responsibility, Gavin Mudd, The Conversation, 12 October 2011, “……..In a post-Fukushima world, the hard questions need to be asked: what is Australia’s role in fuelling nuclear disaster, creating high-level nuclear waste and feeding nuclear weapons risks around the world? Continue reading
Energy Resources of Australia begging shareholders for $500 million
ERA begging for $500m boost, The Age Barry FitzGerald October 13, 2011 THE fall from grace of Rio Tinto-controlled Energy Resources of Australia has become absolute, with the Ranger uranium miner going cap in hand to shareholders for $500 million in equity funding in a heavily discounted rights issue.
The 12-for-7 underwritten issue of new shares at $1.53 a share represents a near 30 per cent discount on ERA’s share price before the stock went into a trading halt. The funds will go a long way to overcoming ERA’s water-handling issues, as well as funding potential mine life-extending activities….. Rio is also to act as sub-underwriter to the equity raising. Should that role be fully utilised, its holding in ERA could increase to 82 per cent, reducing liquidity in what is an already thinly traded stock.
ERA has been producing uranium at Ranger for 30 years and is only the second mine in the world to have produced more than 100,000 tonnes of uranium. But its shares have been in free fall for the past 12 months on the realisation that despite the long production history, it has not been on top of the environmental threat that a record big wet in Kakadu poses.
The build-up of water around the mine and in its pits forced the decision in January to suspend processing operations as a ”precautionary measure” to ensure levels in the operation’s tailings storage dam remained below the authorised limit. More rain forced a further suspension to late July…..
Rio’s decision to back ERA’s equity raising suggests Rio is confident that ERA’s Jabiluka deposit near Ranger might one day be developed.
Jabiluka is one of the biggest undeveloped uranium deposits in the world but its development is being vetoed by traditional owners. http://www.theage.com.au/business/era-begging-for-500m-boost-20111012-1ll13.html#ixzz1ahltBWq2
Not all smooth sailing for BHP’s plan to expand Olympic Dam uranium mine
agreement is conditional on the Indenture Act passing through South Australia’s Parliament. And with the Greens and Opposition poring over the details, that progression is far from assured.The company has signed a preliminary agreement with the state’s Premier Mike Rann. BHP Billiton now has a year to reach a final investment decision. Mr Rann says today will go down in history.
But the Opposition says he has compromised important negotiations. Nance Haxton reports. Continue reading
Never mind Australia’s nuclear non-proliferation policy – Ferguson, Minister For The Uranium Industry is out to sabotage it
‘‘Opening up uranium sales to India would fuel the nuclear arms race under way between India
and Pakistan, which has potentially catastrophic consequences,” ICAN’s Australian director, Tim Wright, said yesterday. ”The threat of a regional nuclear war between India and Pakistan is real. Selling uranium to India runs counter to Australia’s own security interests, and makes a mockery of its stated commitment to a world free of nuclear weapons.”
The briefing note was written after Mr Ferguson met Indian Foreign Minister S. M. Krishna in January…
The note was dated February 7, three days before The Age revealed a cable leaked to WikiLeaks that asserted Mr Ferguson had told the United States embassy in Canberra that a deal to supply India with nuclear fuel could be reached within three to five years.
Australia, India in talks over uranium sale, The Age, Michael Gordon, October 13, 2011 AUSTRALIA and India have already begun a ”dialogue” that is likely to canvass the sale of uranium to the nuclear-armed nation if Labor dumps its opposition to the trade at the party’s national conference in December.
A confidential briefing note to Resources Minister Martin Ferguson in February says the dialogue ”may prove a useful avenue to communicate any policy shifts on the issue” of uranium exports, which are banned to India under existing government and ALP policy. Continue reading
With Diesel rebates, BHP’s Olympic Dam Royalties likely to return poorly to South Australian Government
Mike Rann has claimed that the new open-pit mine will be his “economic legacy to the state.” However, a consideration of the financial return to BHP through diesel rebates alone indicates that this legacy may be somewhat overstated…
BHP stands to gain $128 million per year in diesel rebates in the initial development period of the mine, $144 million per year in the intermediate stage, and $178 million per year at full production.
Public resources for private profit: free water for the largest open-pit mine in the world Coober Pedy Regional Times, by: Nectaria Calan, 13 Oct 11, “………With approval of the new mine announced on Monday, the next stage of the approval process is the negotiation of a new Indenture Act which will apply to the new mine. It is expected that the revised Act will be introduced into the South Australian parliament next week, given Mike Rann’s commitment to finalising the indenture agreement before his retirement on October 20.
It is within the power of the South Australian government to negotiate a substantially different indenture agreement, or to repeal the Indenture Act completely. Continue reading
Call for moratorium on uranium mining in Australia
Australian Nuclear Free Alliance calls for a moratorium on uranium mining, 11th October 2011 In the wake of the approval of the Olympic Dam expansion, the Australian Nuclear Free Alliance (ANFA) is calling for a moratorium on uranium mining due to the long term impacts associated with the nuclear industry. Uncle Kevin Buzzacott, Arabunna elder from Lake Eyre and President of ANFA, addressed a rally at Parliament House in Adelaide yesterday held in response to the approvals announced by the State and Federal government:
“Today is a very sad day, but it’s not over yet. We are not going to rest until the government reverses its decision. We want BHP Billiton out of the desert. If we have to bring this town to a standstill, then so be it.”
South Australian Minister for Mineral Resources Development Tom Koutsantonis said yesterday that the mine will be subject to the most “stringent environmental conditions.”
“If 8 million litres of radioactive waste per day leaking into the underground rock and aquifer, and almost 9 billion tonnes of radioactive waste left in the desert at the mines closure, is acceptable under these conditions, then the South Australian government is setting the bar extremely low,” said ANFA Committee member Nectaria Calan.
“The radioactive waste will remain on Kokatha and Arabunna Country long after the former ‘Big Australian,’ now 76 per cent foreign owned, packs up its business and moves on.” The expansion means an increase in shipments of uranium oxide and copper concentrate railed through the Northern Territory and shipped out from East Arm wharf on Larrakia land.
Donna Jackson, ANFA co-chair and Larrakia woman said, “the transport and export of these goods puts additional pressures on our emergency services, if we increase the volume, we increase the chance of an accident happening.” “We stand by the Kokatha and Arabunna who oppose this expansion and we repeat our opposition and distress to the approved increase of two trains a day transporting radioactive materials through the NT and out from our Darwin Harbour.”
Olympic Dam an unprecedented attack on Australia’s environment
BHP Billiton’s Olympic Dam mine expansion will leave an uprecedented environmental legacy THE AUSTRALIAN, BY:PAUL CLEARY October 11, 2011 FUTURE generations of Australians will have to contend with an unprecedented environmental legacy from the expansion of Olympic Dam’s copper-uranium mine, but our system provides no way of compensating them.
BHP Billiton’s open-cut expansion of mining to extract an estimated $800 billion in mineral wealth will leave behind an above-ground heap of radioactive tailings spread over 44sq km and as high as the Sydney Opera House.
After 40 years of production, the mine will also leave behind a toxic crater measuring 4km wide and more than 1km deep.
Both legacies pose significant risks to ground water, according to BHP’s environmental impact statement . . . although these were dismissed yesterday by Environment Minister Tony Burke.
Under Australia’s federal-state system, the South Australian government has no incentive to set up a future fund so that it can compensate future residents for having to live with much less mineral wealth, and with the environmental costs of this development. Nor has the federal government or opposition shown any interest in measures to compensate our grandkids, and their descendants, for having used our inherited mineral wealth to inflate our standard of living….. the mineral resources rent tax won’t collect any of the above-normal profits earned from developing one of the world’s biggest ore deposits, because it only taxes coal and iron ore production. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/opinion/counting-the-cost-of-bhps-olympic-dam/story-e6frg9if-1226163362958
You’ve heard of Penis Envy? Now Rio Tinto brings Dirty Great Uranium Hole envy
Under today’s announced agreement, Tasman will get an immediate cash injection of A$10 million from Rio Tinto and that would see Tasman undertake a A$5 million search programme over Vulcan in the next 12 months. Tasman’s executive chairman Greg Solomon said Rio has the right but not the obligation to earn up to 80% in the project by committing to a two-stage farm-in arrangement by spending up to A$75 million and, in addition, paying Tasman up to A$17 million including the initial A$10 million payment….
The ambitious programme would see Olympic Dam transformed from a big underground mine to an open pit, but the ore system is under about 400 metres of sterile cover and would involve creating mountains of stockpiles in the pancake-flat terrain.
The market is awaiting a decision on Olympic Dam going open cut and it was considered imminent given the fact that South Australian Premier Mike Rann, who is soon to depart, indicated that he wanted to stay in the chair to be able to announce the mine upgrade…. http://www.mineweb.com/mineweb/view/mineweb/en/page103118?oid=137193&sn=Detail&pid=102055
A sad day for Australia – government approvals for world’s worst practice uranium mine
76% foreign owned, BHP Billiton made such huge profits that it’s almost an embarassment. How to spend all that money? Why let’s dig the world’s most gigantic toxic status symbol!
Let’s spend $20 billion of BHP’s huge profits, and untold billions of Australia’s tax-payers money – over the long life of a dirty great mountain range of radioactive dust. Australians will learn to pay for the carcinogenic dust that perennial dust storms will spread widely from Olympic waste mountain. They will learn to pay for the water schemes needed, as BHP Billion plunders our artesian water – at no charge. All Australians, not just the Aborigines, who have always been the first to be ripped off by Australian governments cowardly nuclear ventures. The Menzies government started it off in the 1950s, secretly agreeing to let the British test their atomic bombs in South Australia. Now we have a Labor government again kow-towing to a foreign multinational uranium miner, allowing it exemption from state and national laws.
A better plan for South Australia than accepting BHP Billiton’s toxic radioactive plan at Olympic Dam
“There is an alternative model that would see a lower greenhouse footprint and skilled jobs retained in South Australia. A peer-reviewed study by Monash University’s Dr Gavin Mudd demolished the myth that uranium is central to the mine’s expansion. His model for the expansion is safer, would use much less water and energy, and would mean more jobs and greater economic return for the local economy.
Scott Ludlam, 10 Oct 11, The Federal Government’s approval of the Olympic Dam expansion will see the creation of a carcinogenic mountain range of finely powdered radioactive waste in South Australia, the Greens warned today. Australian Greens spokesperson for nuclear issues Senator Scott Ludlam said the proposed expansion of the BHP Billiton site to will be a disaster for the environment, human health and local jobs.
“BHP Billiton has designed a world’s-worst-practice uranium mine. Continue reading
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