South Australia to aim for zero emissions by 2050
Premier Jay Weatherill Minister Ian Hunter Minister for Climate Change , 24 November, 2015
South Australia will adopt a target of zero net emissions by 2050, as recommended in a report by the Low Carbon Economy Expert Panel released today. The Panel consisting of John Hewson, Anna Skarbek of ClimateWorks and Frank Jotzo of the Australian National University recommends that South Australia:
SIGNALS the transition to a zero net emissions economy by 2050
SUPPORTS the community and industry to transition to a zero net emissions economy
IMPLEMENTS the transition by taking action now
PremierJay Weatherill said being the first to signal this intention to Australian and overseas investors will give South Australia a competitive advantage. “As we head towards the Paris Climate Change Conference, South Australia has an opportunity to place itself at the forefront as a leader in transitioning to a low carbon economy,” Mr Weatherill said. “The Expert Panel’s report is a roadmap for our State to reduce emissions in a way that supports job growth in new and emerging green technologies. “
One example is the potential for South Australia to be a low carbon electricity powerhouse and a net exporter of renewable energy. “The state’s abundant renewable electricity combined with its rich resource base and existing manufacturing expertise mean that the state could be a natural base for energy intensive mining and manufacturing industries in a low carbon world.”
Minister for Climate Change Ian Hunter said the Expert Panel also identified the state’s strengths in education and the potential for these to be applied to developing the skills and workforce for a carbon constrained future. “This means providing assistance for workers moving from industries in decline into new opportunities is critical as is support for communities affected by rapid change,” Mr Hunter said.
“There are also significant innovative market opportunities for energy storage solutions from the state’s high penetration of solar PV, with the potential to attract and develop technology suppliers and expertise in the state.” Minister Hunter said the Government would not seek to implement a State based emissions trading scheme – favouring a national scheme
“Consensus for global action on climate change should be a trigger for the Federal Government to revisit the important issue of a nationwide ETS,” Mr Hunter said. “We believe this is the most practical approach to this question and will not seek to implement an ETS at the State level.” Further details of South Australia’s efforts to tackle climate change, including responses to the other recommendations, will be detailed in the soon to be released new Climate Change Strategy for the State. The South Australian Low Carbon Experts Panel report is available at www.environment.sa.gov.au
Civil Contractors Federation SA want to save town Leigh Creek by hosting nuclear dump
Call to store nuclear waste at Leigh Creek http://www.9news.com.au/national/2015/11/24/10/29/call-to-store-nuclear-waste-at-leigh-creek A nuclear waste dump should be built at Leigh Creek in the South Australian outback before it becomes a ghost town, the state’s peak civil construction body says.The federal government has short-listed six sites – two on the Eyre Peninsula and another in SA’s mid-north – for Australia’s first permanent nuclear waste dump for low-level and intermediate domestic waste.
The Civil Contractors Federation SA says putting a nuclear waste dump near Leigh Creek would be a “no brainer” and guarantee its survival after Alinta Energy last week shut down the town’s coal mine, shedding about 200 workers.
Chief executive Phil Sutherland says the facility could also be used to store and convert other industrial waste into energy and fuel.
The proposal bypasses the commonwealth in favour of the state government, which is holding a Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission.
“All the SA government needs to do is simply show some mettle and bite the bullet to give Leigh Creek a purpose before the township transitions into a ghost town,” Mr Sutherland said.
Dr Edwin Lyman: Direct nuclear waste disposal is best: pyroreprocessing has dangers
In the second part of his evidence to South Australia’s Nuclear Royal 
Commission, Dr Lyman explains that direct disposal is the safest and the most prudent approach for nuclear power. In recycling, as in pyroreprocessing, the risks outweigh the benefits.
Dr Lyman has studied pyroreprocessing in great detail. The fact that its products are highly radioactive does not act to deter thieves, especially those aiming to use these products for weapons proliferation.
Also, “the IEA is still struggling to provide even technical approaches for how you would get weapons grade accountancy in pyroprocessing, and that’s a great concern”……”Many minor actinides that would be in the pyroprocessing product are also weapons useable “… “It’s also easy, if that combination were to be stolen, to separate out plutonium from the minor actinides”.
Lyman describes the pyroreprocessing process as an “unmanageable enterprise”. The United States decided not to pursue re-processing and fast reactors in the 1970s, for these very same risks of terrorism and weapons proliferation.
SA NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE ROYAL COMMISSION DR EDWIN LYMAN, Union of Concerned Scientists TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS ADELAIDE 7.30 AM, TUESDAY, 17 NOVEMBER 2015 DAY 23
The Commission’s first witness today, Dr Edwin Lyman, is a senior scientist in the global security program at the Union of Concerned Scientists in the United States. His areas of interests include nuclear proliferation, terrorism and nuclear power safety and security, and he’s published articles in a number of 5 journals and magazines on these topics. Dr Lyman is a member of the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management and has given evidence before the US Congress and Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the NRC, on multiple occasions. 10 Prior to joining the Union of Concerned Scientists, Dr Lyman was president of the Nuclear Control Institute, the CI, in Washington, an organisation concerned with nuclear proliferation. The Commission calls Dr Edwin Lyman……..
The transcript of Dr Lyman’s interview can be read at http://nuclearrc.sa.gov.au/app/uploads/mp/files/videos/files/151117-topic-14-day-1-transcript-full.v5.pdf
Dr Edwin Lyman at Nuclear Royal Commission, speaks on waste transport problems.
Dr Lyman’s evidence can be pretty heavy going for the non technical reader. First, he explained safety problems in standards for transportation casks for land or sea shipment of spent fuel, high-level radioactive waste and specially with materials like plutonium or plutonium oxide. These standards have not been updated over many decades, and the USA Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) has not yet carried out tests intended to address this problem.
If a transport package of radioactive material is lost in the ocean, it could lead to significant long term contamination, if the package is not retrieved.
With increased transport, and speed of transport, of radioactive wastes, the risk of such accidents is increased, and the NRC would have confidence in the current standard for transporting wastes.
Apart from accidents, the other big danger is terrorism.
SA NUCLEAR FUEL CYCLE ROYAL COMMISSION DR EDWIN LYMAN, Union of Concerned Scientists TRANSCRIPT OF PROCEEDINGS ADELAIDE 7.30 AM, TUESDAY, 17 NOVEMBER 2015 DAY 23
The Commission’s first witness today, Dr Edwin Lyman, is a senior scientist in the global security program at the Union of Concerned Scientists in the United States. His areas of interests include nuclear proliferation, terrorism and nuclear power safety and security, and he’s published articles in a number of 5 journals and magazines on these topics. Dr Lyman is a member of the Institute of Nuclear Materials Management and has given evidence before the US Congress and Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the NRC, on multiple occasions. 10 Prior to joining the Union of Concerned Scientists, Dr Lyman was president of the Nuclear Control Institute, the CI, in Washington, an organisation concerned with nuclear proliferation. The Commission calls Dr Edwin Lyman……..
The transcript of Dr Lyman’s interview can be read at http://nuclearrc.sa.gov.au/app/uploads/mp/files/videos/files/151117-topic-14-day-1-transcript-full.v5.pdf
ANSTO, Geoscience, Dept of Science to visit Kimba, South Australian site on shortlist for nuclear trash dump
Nuclear delegations to visit Kimba after release of toxic dump short list, ABC News 23 Nov 15 Two separate delegations are to visit Kimba on SA’s Eyre Peninsula, the tiny town shortlisted by the Federal Government to be the site of a nuclear waste dump.
Earlier this month the Government released a shortlist of six sites nominated to store low and intermediate level nuclear waste…….One delegation, including Geoscience Australia, the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, and the Department of Science, will visit councillors and landowners who have nominated their properties.
Greens MP Mark Parnell will also tour the community which has been divided by the issue.
He said there was no need for a new dump because waste could be stored at existing sites.
“When it comes to nuclear waste we have a responsibility to manage it properly, and safely,” Mr Parnell said.
“The waste has been stored at Lucas Heights for many years and can be safely continue to be stored there. There’s waste that’s in hospital basements that’s got people worried, but they’re still going to have to operate.”
He said local residents had good reason to be alarmed, especially in light of an accident last year at a New Mexico waste facility.
“The operators put organic kitty litter into the drums of nuclear waste rather than inorganic kitty litter. As a result, the chemical reaction burst the drum open and radiation spread throughout the facility,” he said.
“There were 22 workers who were contaminated, and the facility is likely to be closed for four years.” http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-23/nuclear-delegations-to-visit-kimba-after-dump-shortlisting/6962598
3 South Australian sites picked for nuclear trash toilet, but locals resist
The indigenous group Adnyamathanha Camp Law Mob says while the property is governed by a perpetual lease, meaning no native title claim can be lodged over the area, Aboriginal heritage legislation does apply.
“We demand that the Federal Resources Minister Josh Frydenberg publicly declare who he has consulted regarding these nominations, and who has the authority to nominate these sites,” spokeswoman Jillian Marsh said in a statement.
Cortlinye and Pinkawillinie KIMBA is known as “the Gateway to the Gawler Ranges”. But some residents fear the township would become known as “the Gateway to the National Nuclear Waste Facility” should it be selected as the future site to store radioactive waste. Local farmers Toni Scott, Sue Woolford, Helen Harris and their families have vowed to fight any move to build the facility in their district.
“They’re saying this is a voluntary process but how is this voluntary?,” Mrs Scott said.
“We’re not volunteering, we don’t want any money and we don’t want to live next to it.’’
The group vowed to be vocal during the Federal Government’s consultation in Kimba next week
Nuclear waste repository in SA: What do the locals think? The Advertiser, 22 Nov 2015 BRYAN LITTLELY, PAUL STARICK and MEAGAN DILLON PICKING a site for a nuclear dump is as contentious a decision as you will find. Whichever of the six Australia-wide candidates that is chosen to be the nation’s nuclear repository will acquire a degree of notoriety.
South Australia is home to three potential dump locations. Continue reading
Nuclear lobby hosts 5 Kimba officials in tour of Lucas Heights nuclear recator
Kimba officials take nuclear fact-finding mission to Lucas Heights after toxic dump short listing, ABC Radio 20 Nov 15 The World Today By Tom Fedorowytsch Officials from Kimba, the tiny town home to two possible sites for a radioactive waste dump in South Australia, have visited Australia’s only nuclear reactor in Sydney.
Mayor Dean Johnson was among the small group of five people to be shown the reactor and waste facility at Lucas Heights, southwest of Sydney’s centre.
“We feel the tour has provided us now with a much more thorough overview and an understanding of what a repository would look like, and probably some of the keys to properly and safely handling and storing that waste,” the mayor said.
Two of the Federal Government’s six proposed sites — Pinkiwilinie and Cortlinye — fall within the Kimba council region. Other sites making up the Government’s shortlist include Barndioota in South Australia, Hale in the Northern Territory, Sallys Flat in New South Wales and Oman Ama in Queensland.
A $10 million sweetener for infrastructure and community development will be given to the local area that accepts the waste.
……..’Everyone has right to say no’: farmer While Cr Johnson and the council weigh up whether to support a nuclear waste dump, some residents of Kimba — especially farmers — are deeply opposed to the idea.
As a farmer, the perception and stigma attached to a nuclear waste dump, could have ramifications on this clean and green reputation we have in agriculture.
Farmer Peter Woolford
“To be quite frank I think it’s totally irresponsible to be putting one of these in a food producing area,” Peter Woolford, a farmer who works land next door to one of the sites, said. “We obviously have the safety issue, but you know, we have things like land values,” he said.
“Who’s going to buy a property alongside a nuclear waste dump? I think we have to be real about that.”
Mr Woolford said he would not consider taking a tour of Lucas Heights.
“Well I don’t think I need to, at the end of the day surely everyone has the right to say no, and that’s what we’re doing. This has been forced upon us,” he said. “As a farmer, the perception and stigma attached to a nuclear waste dump, could have ramifications on this clean and green reputation we have in agriculture.”
Formal consultation will ramp up in Kimba in the next few weeks, and a decision to proceed will be made next year.http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-20/kimba-officials-take-nuclear-fact-finding-mission/6958734
South Australia bushfires: crazy to suggest nuclear waste dump there!
Bushfires threaten South Australia. After the hottest October on record, in what will be the hottest year on record, South Australia already faces an extraordinarily dangerous fire season.
Is it sane for the South Australian government and its Nuclear Fuel Chain Royal Commission to be contemplating setting up this State as the world’s radioactive trash dump?
Are they not aware of the agonies that went on in Ukraine over the forest fires threatening Chernobyl region. and radioactive waste sites in California?
It is simply crazy, in view of climate change and increasingly hot, dry , long bushfire seasons to suggest placing dangerous radioactive trash in South Australia
Catastrophic fire danger warning as SA faces extreme heat http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-18/hot-weather-forecast-sa-change-later/6952632 Another day of extreme heat has been forecast across South Australia for Thursday and total fire bans have been imposed for 10 districts, with catastrophic ratings in four of them.
Adelaide is expecting a high of 35 degrees Celsius, after the mercury peaked above 40C on Wednesday….. The Education Department said catastrophic fire danger ratings meant it would close some state schools and preschools in bushfire-prone areas of the Riverland, mid-north, Flinders and North-West Pastoral regions on Thursday.
Some national parks and reserves would remain closed on Thursday, the Environment Department said, on eastern Eyre Peninsula, in the far north, and through the mid-north, Flinders Ranges, Riverland and Murraylands.
Firefighters will be on high alert and crews are still at a blaze south of Adelaide, which first broke out on Tuesday.
The Country Fire Service said the scrub fire at Yundi on the Fleurieu Peninsula was yet to be controlled.
Country Fire Service crews continue to tackle fires as South Australia goes on full alert for 2015 bushfire season, Advertiser, 18 Nov 15 POLICE are patrolling bushfire-prone areas and aerial bombers remain on standby as extreme fire conditions are forecast across the state just days into the fire-danger season.
Operation Nomad patrols and other police will target known firebugs and ask that anyone who notices suspicious activity or people in fire danger areas to contact the police assistance line on 131 444.
“Landowners are also asked to adhere to local harvest codes of practice which are available from your local council,’’ a police spokeswoman said.
Total fire bans are in place across most of the state as the temperature is tipped to soar into the 40s in the north and west of the state……. Continue reading
Australia’s really big radioactive waste dump is at Roxby Downs
Dennis Matthews, 19 Nov 15, In the 1980’s we were repeatedly told not to worry about uranium mining at Roxby, that Roxby was a copper mine and that uranium was incidental. Now we are being told that Roxby has the world’s largest deposit of uranium.
Despite strong public opposition, mining at Roxby got the nod from politicians. Soon radioactive water started leaking through the un-sealed base of the tailings dam, and now BHP is building an ever-expanding man-made stockpile of radioactive waste.
Paul Starick (The Advertiser, 13/11/15) downplays the fact that we have a nuclear reactor, stating that Australia has no nuclear power reactor, a distinction that has little to do with the issue. Using the “nuclear medicine” mantra, Starick downplays the main role of a nuclear waste dump, namely to deal with highly radioactive waste from Australia’s nuclear reactor, which will open the door to international waste.
The small amounts of relatively benign low-level waste being safely stored in institutions around Australia is trivial compared to BHP’s massive stockpiles of waste at Roxby and Australia’s nuclear reactor waste.
What are the radioactive risk of nuclear waste dump to a farming community?
Jim Green Friends of the Earth, 18 Nov 15 Responding to these questions: “So what are irradiation cans, ion exchange resins and aluminium ends of fuel rods and what dangers do they present to those living in a farming community? Is anyone able to inform me or direct me to where I can find such information please?”
They are harmless metals (irradiation cans + aluminium ends of fuel rods) and resins/polymers … but hazardous because of contamination with radioactive substances. For the contaminated metals they are likely contaminated with long-lived alpha-emitting radionuclides and would likely be classified as long-lived intermediate-level waste (LLILW) and would therefore be sitting in an above-ground shed at Kimba for an ‘interim’ period likely to last for many decades since absolutely no effort is being made to find a disposal site for LLILW (it is destined for deep underground disposal).
The risks …. pretty much anything you can imagine has happened at one or another radioactive waste repository around the world: fires, leaks, water infiltration and corrosion of waste drums, a chemical explosion, etc.
Fire would be a particular concern at Kimba, all the more so since the most hazardous waste (LLILW) would be stored above ground. Articles about recent fires at U.S. repositories are posted at: http://www.foe.org.au/fire
Water infiltration and corrosion is a difficult dilemma. Continue reading
South Australia’s radioactive threat: it’s not “medical” waste – it’s nuclear waste from used fuel rods
Freydenberg said the facility would ‘only’ house low and intermediate level waste. Perhaps he is unaware of the toxicity of this LLILW. Dr Green again: ‘When the spent fuel is removed from the reactor, it is high-level nuclear waste. After some months it cools down and falls below the heat criterion so is reclassified as LLILW.’
The farmer opponents of the Kimba sites are right to be concerned. The spent fuel reprocessing waste will be hazardous for thousands of years.
South Australia’s nuclear threat continues http://www.eurekastreet.com.au/article.aspx?aeid=45708#.VkuCE9IrLGh Michele Madigan | 17 November 2015
Last Friday 13 November, the federal government released the shortlisted sites of the proposed national radioactive waste facility. No surprise that three are in South Australia, the ‘expendable state‘: Cortlinye and Pinkawillinie near Kimba on Eyre Peninsula, and Barndioota near Hawker, north of Port Augusta.
I wonder if South Australians aren’t beginning to feel like nuclear particles themselves, bombarded on all sides by the nuclear industry. This announcement from the federal government about its nuclear repository plans comes as the state government continues to consider, through its Royal Commission, whether, when and where South Australia will offer to host the world’s high-level nuclear waste.
The six names on the federal government shortlist (the remaining three being Sallys Flat in NSW, Hale in the Northern Territory and Oman Ama in Queensland) are taken from an original list of 28 properties that were offered by their landowners. It’s disturbing to find that the owner of the Cortilinye site, at least, has been misinformed,believing ‘It’s basically only a medical waste facility.’
In reality, only 10–20 per cent of the radioactive waste is medical in origin. And nuclear medicine is in no way affected by the lack of a national repository.
Resources and energy minister Josh Freydenberg’s Friday announcement included a masterly sentence of understatement: ‘Low level waste is those gloves or those goggles or the paper or the plastic that comes into contact with nuclear medicine, and intermediate waste could be, for example, those steel rods that are used in the reactor to actually create these particular products.’
It’s interesting to notice what’s different and what stays the same from the 1998–2004 ‘dump’ campaign in SA. Continue reading
Indigenous Australians fight Liberal bigwig Grant Chapman’s plan for radioactive trash dump
Indigenous groups to fight plan for Flinders Ranges nuclear dump THE AUSTRALIAN NOVEMBER 18, 2015 Michael Owen Aborigines in the northern Flinders Ranges of South Australia are vowing to fight any move to make a site owned by a former senator the home of a national nuclear waste dump.
A group representing the Adnyamathanha people yesterday said it was fiercely opposed to any expansion of the nuclear industry. The group was shocked that Barndioota, along the Leigh Creek railway to Port Augusta, was one of six sites, including three in South Australia, being considered by the federal government to store low and intermediate-level nuclear waste.
Former senator and state Liberal Party president Grant Chapman jointly owns the long-term lease to
Wallerberdina, a station near Barndioota in the Flinders Ranges. If the site were chosen, it would house a storage facility over about 100ha in the northern section of the 25,000ha property.
Adnyamathanha Camp Law Mob spokeswoman Jillian Marsh yesterday said there was no support for the “imposition of a radioactive waste dump on Adnyamathanha country”.
“We are shocked that one of the three nominated sites in South Australia … is 377 Wallerberdina Road, Barndioota,” Ms Marsh said. “We understand that ex-Liberal senator Grant Chapman is the current owner of the nominated site that is a perpetual lease property and therefore no native title claim can be lodged.”
Total Environment Centre’s legal challenge to South Australia solar tariff proposal
Solar penalty tariff proposal for SA households subject of Federal Court challenge, ABC News By Candice Marcus, 16 Nov 15, An environment group wants the Federal Court to uphold the energy regulator’s decision to reject a penalty tariff on South Australian households with solar power.
The Total Environment Centre has intervened in a court case in which SA Power Networks is challenging the Australian Energy Regulator.
The regulator rejected a pricing proposal for households to face a solar tariff and a social tariff, which SA Power Networks said would have been directed toward helping low-income earners facing hardship in paying their bills.
It was estimated the solar tariff could cost the average solar-powered household about $100 annually.
The Total Environment Centre lodged submissions with the Federal Court urging it uphold the regulator’s rejection of the penalty pricing proposal.
Extra tariffs would be solar ‘disincentive’
Mark Byrne from the environment group said imposing additional tariffs would be a disincentive for people to install and use solar power.
“We’ve got half a million people living under solar roofs in South Australia already though and it’s going to negatively impact on them as well as making it less advantageous for new customers to install solar,” he said.
“Obviously in the long run we want to see more solar because it helps reduce greenhouse emissions as well as household electricity bills.”
He said SA Power Networks had a flawed argument.
“Their argument effectively is that solar customers should be paying more because they use less energy and the network is entitled to a fixed amount of revenue,” he said.
“The unfortunate thing about that is it discriminates against solar customers and will result in them paying about another $100 a year.
“What the network should be doing is introducing a tariff that affects everyone equally and recovers more of their revenue during those peaks, when they’re worried about the impact on prices because they have to build more to meet peak demand.”……..http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-16/court-hears-challenge-on-sa-solar-penalty-tariff-proposal/6944870
Indigenous Adnyamathanha Camp Law Mob shocked at selection of South Australian site for radioactive trash dump
Response from the Adnyamathanha Camp Law Mob regarding the Federal Resources Minister’s announcement of 3 sites nominated for a nuclear waste dump in South Australia.
The Adnyamathanha Camp Law Mob are a group of Adnyamathna people who meet regularly to discuss issues relating to our land and culture.
The Camp Law mob share this message on behalf of all Adnyamathanha people and other South Australians who are opposed to any further expansion of the nuclear industry. We have taken part in the SA Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission, and our views along with many others are clearly stated in our submission that we do not support any expansion of a nuclear industry this includes the imposition of a radioactive waste dump on Adnyamathana country at Barndioota.
We are shocked to hear on Friday 13th November 2015 that one of the 3 nominated sites in South Australia for a national nuclear waste dump is 377 Wallerberdina Road, Barndioota. We understand that ex-Liberal Senator Grant Chapman is the current owner of the nominated site that is a Perpetual Lease property and therefore no native title claim can be lodged over this area. It must still be governed according to the requirements of the Aboriginal Heritage legislation.
We demand that the Federal Resources Minister Josh Frydenberg publicly declare who he has consulted regarding these nomination, and who has the authority to nominate these sites.
We want to know who are the experts with local knowledge that took part in the advisory panel prior to these sites being nominated as waste sites? Who are the Traditional Owners that took part in this process? What Traditional knowledge from thousands of years of occupation has been incorporated into the decision-making?
Our involvement is this industry is nothing new. We were concerned by the government agreeing to uranium mining activities that have now permanently contaminated our land and our groundwater. We want no further expansion of the nuclear industry and we will continue to fight for our rights as Traditional Owners in respect of the wisdom of our old people that came before us.
That’s what Traditional Owners do. We care for our country. We only wish governments and industries would do the same. Stop playing with our future and care for our country.
Former Liberal Party presidnt and Senator Grant Chapman offers Grant Chapman land for high level nuclear waste dump
Proposed Flinders Ranges nuclear site identified as pastoral property belonging to former Liberal senator Grant Chapman, ABC News, By Daniel Keane, 16 Nov 15 A former South Australian senator and Liberal Party president who jointly owns one of several proposed sites for a nuclear dump in the state said he would be willing to allow high-level waste to be stored on the property in the future.
Grant Chapman owns the long-term lease to Wallerberdina, a station near Barndioota in the Flinders Ranges about 40 kilometres north-west of Hawker, which is currently used to graze cattle.
It is one of six sites across the nation, including three in SA, being considered by the Federal Government to store low- and intermediate-level nuclear waste.
News of its potential future use has alarmed some neighbours, who are opposed to a nuclear dump and said they had not been consulted.
Mr Chapman said if approved, a proposed nuclear storage facility would eventually occupy 100 hectares in the northern section of the 25,000-hectare property.
He said he nominated the site several months ago…….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.
“If it was shown to be safe for that high level waste to be eventually transformed into a form that was safe to store in that situation then certainly the property would be a potential site for that,” he said…..
Neighbour angered and concerned by location
Artist Regina McKenzie, who lives on neighbouring Yappala Station, which shares a boundary with Wallerberdina, said she and her family were angry and frustrated they had not been consulted.
Ms McKenzie said she had heard rumours Wallerberdina was being considered but was shocked when that was confirmed by the Federal Government.
She said Aboriginal people have suffered greatly as a result of the Maralinga nuclear tests and she feared history would repeat itself.
“The water here that we use, the aquifers that are under the earth, what if they get contaminated by some leakages or something?” she said.
“I don’t care how safe they say it is. If it’s so safe, why don’t they take it back and put it in their own back yards. If it’s so safe, have it in Canberra there where all the pollies sit.”
Ms McKenzie said the area was culturally significant to the Adnyamathanha people.
We don’t want [waste] in the area. We didn’t want them to take it out of the ground in the first place, it’s against our culture, and now they’re sending it back to the country,” she said.
“It’s not right. If they take it, they should keep it. It’s poison. We don’t want the poison back.
“I’m a little bit scared about it. My grandchildren are going to come back here and visit as well.
“I just don’t want anything coming back on our communities.”………http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-11-16/proposed-nuclear-site-identified-as-wallerberdina-station/6944636?section=sa
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