The Sydney Morning Herald http://www.smh.com.au/news/9812/26/text/national6.html Hill ready to approve uranium mine Date: 26/12/98 BY JULIA BAIRD The Federal Government is likely to approve development of the Beverley uranium mine in South Australia, despite claims that it could contaminate surrounding water supplies. Although he has recommended further testing on the site, the Minister for the Environment, Senator Hill, announced that there was no environmental reason to prevent the granting of Commonwealth approvals for the mine, located between the Flinders Ranges and Lake Frome, more than 500 kilometres north of Adelaide. The testing will be done on the boundaries of the underground water body to ensure no hydraulic connection exists between the Beverley aquifer and surrounding ground water. The tests should be completed in a few months and are not expected to delay the start of commercial production in 2000. The Beverley deposit, discovered in 1969, contains about 21,000 tonnes of uranium oxide in sands and clays between 100 metres and 140 metres and could produce about 900 tonnes of uranium oxide a year. It is significantly smaller than Jabiluka in the Northern Territory, which has an estimated 150,000 tonnes. Heathgate Resources, a subsidiary of the giant Californian nuclear company General Atomics, has signed agreements with four Aboriginal groups with native title claims in the area. Heathgate calculates that it will pay the groups more than $1 million a year for the mine's life, estimated to be at least 15 years. Senator Hill called the project "great economic news for South Australia", quoting estimates by Heathgate that the project would create 400 jobs. The controversial extraction method to be used is in-situ leaching, which has not been used before in Australia. The Australian Democrats' spokesman on the environment, Senator Andrew Bartlett, said this method was "world's worst practice" which "involves the pumping of 274 tonnes of sulphuric acid into the ground to extract one tonne of uranium". Raising concerns that Beverley would contaminate the Great Artesian Basin, Senator Bartlett said it was "the absolute height of arrogance and idiocy" to approve the mine. A spokesman for the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF), Mr Dave Sweeney said international experience with in-situ leaching had demonstrated "a real possibility of contamination of underground water supplies". Adding to the ACF's concerns was the confidential nature of the advice provided by experts on in-situ leaching. "This proposal would be neither acceptable nor permitted anywhere else in the western world," Mr Sweeney said. The foundation was cynical about the timing of the announcement just before Christmas. A spokesman for Senator Hill defended the decision, saying the Government had been "ultra cautious" in its approach to assessing any environmental dangers. "We have had a rigorous environmental assessment, had the best possible advice from experts in Australia and from the [United States] that this is safe, and now we have even decided to do additional tests," he said. "The Democrats and the ACF would oppose it on any grounds. They say there should be no uranium mining at all, which is not the Government's position. We say they can go ahead provided it meets the world's best standards". This material is subject to copyright and any unauthorised use, copying or mirroring is prohibited. ********************************************************************* **** This posting is provided to the individual members of this group without permission from the copyright owner for purposes of criticism, comment, scholarship and research under the "fair use" provisions of the Federal copyright laws and it may not be distributed further without permission of the copyright owner, except for "fair use." Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List http://www.alexia.net.au/~www/mhutton/index.html The Year 2000 Bug - An Urgent Sustainability Issue http://www.peg.apc.org/~psutton/grin-y2k.htm
