The Sydney Morning Herald http://www.smh.com.au/news/9812/22/text/pageone8.html Cattleman set for a backyard nuclear dump Date: 22/12/98 ON THE ROAD by ANTHONY HOY There's a good chance that Barry Durham's place in South Australia will be chosen as the site of the world's nuclear waste dump. Officials from the Department of Primary Industries National Radioactive Waste Repository Project (NRWRP) have called three times at Mr Durham's leasehold, Andamooka Station, for "a cup of tea and a yarn". They have "chosen a few sites" within the boundaries of his 2,500-square-kilometre cattle run on which they could possibly bury "about three semi-trailer loads" of "low level" nuclear junk a year. They want to annex a 2.25-square-kilometre area of the remote cattle run on which to dig "one or more trenches less than 20 metres deep". A special cover would be put over "the safely packaged waste" as a barrier against radiation and rain, to control erosion and "keep the waste secure". Sitting on the sidelines, lobbying State and Federal governments for access to the site, is Pangea Resources, funded by the British and Swiss, hoping for a chance to dump high-level radioactive fissile remnants of the United States and Soviet Cold War nuclear arsenals. Eminent Australian scientist Sir Gustav Nossal and Liberal Party pollster Mr Mark Textor have been recruited to the cause, and Canberra's Access Economics has been commissioned to report on the Pangea proposal's economic benefits. Andamooka is the epicentre of a 67,000-square-kilometre region known as Billa Kalina, long ago written off by the Australian Government and ceded for nuclear explosive testing (Maralinga), rocketry and weaponry development and military exercises (Woomera), global satellite eavesdropping (Narrungar) and uranium mining (Roxby Downs). The NRWRP project has short-listed Billa Kalina as the most suitable of eight sites including Jackson (Western Australia), Mount Isa (Queensland) and the Tanami (Northern Territory) in terms of rainfall, drainage, groundwater, population, geotechnical considerations and land use. Crown title to Andamooka Station has conveniently been transferred to freehold title held by none other than the nuclear knight Sir Arvi Parbo's Western Mining Corporation (WMC) as a buffer to Australia's largest infrastructure project, WMC's billion-dollar-plus Olympic Dam uranium-cum-copper mine, about 60 kilometres from the remote cattle run. The deal for Crown title transfer required WMC to accept Mr Durham's terms for continuity of his existing leasehold tenure, enabling him to run his 3,400 hereford-cross breeders possibly for another 15 years. Sprawling cattle properties involved in the rest of WMC's pastoral land grab - Roxby Downs, Purple Downs and Stuart Creek were, according to Mr Durham, "virtually shut down". A nuclear moderate, Mr Durham believes "Australia ought to be responsible enough to identify areas suitable for the storage of radioactive waste in the long term ... where the hell else in the world are we going to put it?" He's used to dealing with the Government and military complex. His lease was eventually removed from the restrictions of the Woomera Prohibited Area "because we were behind the north-west rocket trajectory ... something would have to be drastically wrong for them to bounce one here". The 60-year-old cattleman has "enough confidence in the scientists" to accept their findings on the dumping of high-level radioactive waste within his boundaries. His only concern is that "opponents could spread nasty stories about contaminated beef", disrupting his access to domestic and export markets and tarnishing his "clean green" production image. Drilling starts early next year to "prove up" Andamooka Station's potential waste pits, to confirm the "suitability of their geological make-up". What's in it for Mr Durham? The farm lobby, he says, advocates the purchase by the authorities of properties to be used for storage of radioactive waste. "It seems to me to be too drastic. They could put a big fence around 10 to 15 square kilometres, to keep the protesters out, with very little loss of production." Military and uranium mining investment on his doorstep in recent years has been "marvellous". "It has been great to see the money poured into Woomera by the Americans. It gives us another town to visit and shopping and medical services." 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