Green Left Weekly #415 - Article & rally details. South Australia says no to N-dump BY JIM GREEN What part of the word "no" does federal science minister Nick Minchin not understand? A poll conducted by Channel 7 in July last year found that 93% of South Australians oppose the siting of a national radioactive waste dump in the state. A 1999 survey, commissioned by Greenpeace and conducted by Insight Research Australia, found that 86% of South Australians (and a majority of Australians) opposed the federal government's planned dump. A poll conducted by the Advertiser, SA's only mass circulation newspaper, in July found that 87% of South Australians oppose a dump in the north of SA, 95% oppose an intermediate- to high-level dump in the same area, 96% would resist a privately owned dump that accepted waste from other countries; 78% want a referendum on the issue and 66% are dissatisfied with Minchin's handling of the issue. Minchin represents SA in the Senate. The fiercest opposition to the nuclear dump plan comes from traditional Aboriginal owners, especially those who were scarred by the British nuclear weapons tests at Maralinga and Emu Plains in the 1950s and 1960s. The lower house of the SA parliament voted 46-1 in July in favour of a bill to prohibit the storage of long-lived, intermediate-level waste in the state. The legislation is likely to pass the upper house of when it next sits, in October. Despite this overwhelming opposition, the federal government is proceeding with its plan for a low-level underground dump in SA -- which the SA Liberal government supports -- and it is threatening to override the SA legislation in order to "co-locate" a store for intermediate-level waste adjacent to the underground dump. Privatisation Later this month, Minchin's department intends to appoint a private corporation to manage the dump project. The project manager would then engage a contractor -- most likely a private company -- to construct and operate the dump. The federal government's tender document states "it is expected that the project manager will ... finalise a contract with the successful tenderer before the end of the environmental impact assessment and the relevant licensing application processes". According to the Australian Conservation Foundation's (ACF) David Noonan, "The plan to finalise the construction contract before the environmental assessment and licensing processes are completed show complete disregard for public consultation and would prevent any legitimate public role in decision making for the dump." The federal government's confidence in the outcome of the environmental assessment rests on the fact that the government will itself write, "review" and rubber-stamp the environmental impact statement. The ACF has condemned the secrecy provisions for the planned dump. "Commercial Confidentiality" exclusion clauses will be used by the federal government to prevent the disclosure of the commercial or financial affairs of the private dump operator. Thin end of the wedge Claims that a low-level radioactive waste dump will be the thin edge of the wedge are not "scare-mongering", as Nick Minchin has repeatedly claimed. Numerous government reports make it clear that the proposed low-level dump could be followed by an above-ground store for long lived, intermediate-level radioactive wastes (including wastes from the reprocessing of spent fuel from the nuclear reactor in the Sydney suburb of Lucas Heights). In addition, the federal government plans to dismantle nuclear reactors at Lucas Heights and dump them in SA. The Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO), which operates the Lucas Heights reactor, has said that if overseas reprocessing contracts fall through, spent fuel could be sent to SA for "extended interim storage". In the event of reprocessing contracts falling through, the federal government might also attempt to establish a spent fuel reprocessing/conditioning plant in SA. If the federal government succeeds in establishing a dump in SA, then Pangea Resources, the company which wants to dump high-level waste in Australia, can be expected to try its luck in SA. James Voss, president of Pangea Resources, visited Australia in 1998. Voss offered to operate the proposed low-level waste dump. Later that year, a leaked corporate video revealed that Pangea, with funding from British Nuclear Fuels Limited, was scheming to dump 75,000 tonnes of high-level radioactive waste in Australia. In 1999, Minchin apologised in the Senate for falsely claiming that no federal minister had met with Pangea. The SA Labor opposition jumped onto the no-dump campaign in late 1999. Federal Labor, however, continues to hedge its bets. In the early 1990s, the federal Labor government threatened to seize land for a national radioactive waste dump if no state government volunteered. In 1994, the federal Labor government moved 2000 cubic metres of low level waste to Woomera without public consultation. In 1995, 35 cubic metres of intermediate-level waste was moved there. In July, federal Labor science and industry spokesperson Martyn Evans and Labor leader Kim Beazley said that a nuclear dump in SA could not be ruled out under a federal Labor government. Since then, however, the federal party has changed its tune. On July 31, the national Labor Party conference unanimously passed a resolution, moved by SA Labor leader Mike Rann, that Labor would "respect community concerns and state legislation" when dealing with "medium- to high-level nuclear waste storage". The resolution said nothing about the planned low-level underground dump. Minchin said the Labor resolution was "a complete humiliation" for Evans who should resign "because his policy has been thrown out the door. This is clearly a short-term, populist attempt to curry favor in SA and give Mr Rann some comfort in his attempt to win government." SA Labor's opposition to a nuclear dump is "cynical, short-sighted and irresponsible manipulation of this issue in pursuit of short-term political gain", he added. And without doubt it is, but Minchin and his party are in no position to be casting the first stone. In 1995, SA Liberal Premier Dean Brown wrote to Labor Prime Minister Paul Keating suggesting that if the federal government dropped its proposal to list the Lake Eyre region as a World Heritage site, the state government would "reconsider" its opposition to a low-level dump. It appears that a deal was struck. Recent scandals surrounding the federal government's botched "clean-up" of the Maralinga weapons-testing site -- which left at least 120 square kilometres uninhabitable -- further undermine the Coalition's credibility in SA. The federal bureaucrats responsible for the Maralinga "clean-up" are also driving the waste dump plans, the same minister is involved, as is the same "regulatory" agency is involved. As engineer Alan Parkinson, writing in the July 24 Canberra Times, noted: "Those with responsibility for the proposed national waste repository are the same people who have recently buried long-lived plutonium waste (half-life 24,000 years) in an unlined burial trench only 2-3 metres below ground -- slightly deeper than we place human corpses. If accepted, this precedent should now allow the Commonwealth to place all radioactive waste in shallow, unlined burial trenches, with no regard for its longevity or toxicity, and no regard for the suitability of the site." Reactor The federal government asserts that the plan for a centralised waste dump and store are driven by scientific and safety considerations. The real agenda is political: moving radioactive waste away from Lucas Heights to reduce local opposition to the planned new reactor. The proposed new reactor would generate another 1600 fuel rods, and according to ANSTO documents, annual generation of radioactive waste would increase up to 12-fold depending on the waste category. Minchin's mantra is that South Australians should accept the waste because they will benefit from medical radioisotopes produced. However, the lie that a new reactor is needed for medical isotope production has been exposed from an unlikely source -- Dr Barry Elison, president of the Australian and New Zealand Association of Physicians in Nuclear Medicine. Elison issued a press release in June saying a new reactor was "vital" for isotope production. Yet a month later, when asked how doctors coped during the February-May closure of the Lucas Heights reactor, Elison admitted he was not aware that it had been down! The federal government disputes claims that most of the radioactive waste sent to a national dump or store would come from Lucas Heights. However, the director of radioactive waste management at ANSTO has acknowledged that the "major fraction" of Australia's radioactive waste is generated at Lucas Heights. The federal environment department acknowledged in 1999 that ANSTO is a "major contributor" to the national stockpile. The government downplays ANSTO's contribution by calculating waste by volume. As British Nuclear Fuels Limited said on June 23, "Because [radioactive] discharges contain many elements with varying impacts, the volume of what is actually discharged is almost irrelevant -- it is the radiation dose impact which must be considered." Channel 7 populism Adelaide's Channel 7 (part of Kerry Stokes' extensive national television network) is organising a protest against the nuclear dump outside Parliament House at noon on August 16. The populist nature of Channel 7's move is revealed by the station's involvement of 80-year-old Ivy Skowronski, an Adelaide resident who gained some notoriety last year for a law and order crusade. No-one can remember the last time Channel 7 organised a rally -- not even Ivy. [Channel 7 has set up an "I'm with Ivy" web site at <http://imwithivy.on.net> and is hoping to get 300,000 signatures on a petition protesting against nuclear dumping in SA.] The socialist youth group Resistance is organising a high school walkout. Participants will meet at 11am on August 16 at Adelaide University's Barr Smith Lawns and then join the "I'm with Ivy" rally. The demands of the "Students against the Dump" walkout are: No waste dump in SA, no waste dump anywhere; Land rights, not uranium; Close existing uranium mines; and No new mines, no new reactors. For more information about the Resistance high school walkout, phone (08) 8231 6982 or email <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>. Visit the Resistance web site at <http://www.greenleft.org.au/resistance>. -- Leftlink - Australia's Broad Left Mailing List mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.alexia.net.au/~www/mhutton/index.html Sponsored by Melbourne's New International Bookshop Subscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=subscribe%20leftlink Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]?Body=unsubscribe%20leftlink
