nuclear waste
24 Feb 2010
Ferguson To Dump Nuclear Waste On 'Soft Target'
The Government wants to go ahead with its radioactive waste dump plans — and it's no coincidence that those plans involve Aboriginal land far from marginal seats, writes Natalie Wasley
Federal Resources Minister Martin Ferguson announced on Tuesday that he intends to pursue plans for a national radioactive waste repository at Muckaty, 120 kilometres north of Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory.
Ferguson’s media release asserted that he was restoring "fairness" to the difficult issue of managing Australia’s radioactive waste. Elements of the Minister’s announcement do just that — in particular, the repeal of the 2005–06 Commonwealth Radioactive Waste Management Act, extraordinary legislation which permitted the imposition of a dump in the absence of any consultation with or consent from Traditional Owners.
However the Minister’s new legislation entrenches another unfair process which began under the Howard government. Section 11 of the National Radioactive Waste Management Bill 2010 provides the Minister with the power to override any and all State/Territory laws, which might in any way impede his nuclear waste dump plans. Ferguson said yesterday "Our new law will effectively have the same application as the previous government in respect of that area. In no way can we allow any state or territory government to get in the way of establishing a repository".
Overall then, the Minister is pursing an approach with is scarcely less draconian than that of the Howard government
Indeed, a reading of the Bill reveals that Ferguson also intends to override the Environment Protection and Biodiversity Conservation Act and the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Heritage Protection Act 1984 in relation to site selection. Thus Ferguson is denying the Environment Minister any role in the site selection process.
Ferguson claims that the Ngapa Traditional Owners support the nomination of the Muckaty site. He well knows that many Ngapa Traditional Owners oppose the dump. As well as numerous requests for meetings, he received a letter opposing the dump in May 2009 signed by 25 Ngapa Traditional Owners and 32 Traditional Owners from other Muckaty groups. When quizzed about the letter on ABC radio yesterday, Ferguson quickly changed the subject.
Ferguson is also well aware of the unanimous resolution passed by the NT Labor Conference in April 2008 which called on the Federal Government to exclude Muckaty on the grounds that the nomination "was not made with the full and informed consent of all Traditional Owners and affected people and as such does not comply with the Aboriginal Land Rights Act".
And Ferguson knows that Indigenous Affairs Minister Jenny Macklin among many others has acknowledged the distress and opposition of many Muckaty Traditional Owners.
Also, a joint ALP media release issued in 2007 by Senator Trish Crossin, Senator Kim Carr, Minister Peter Garrett and Minister Warren Snowdon said "Labor understands that many families in the area are strongly opposed to the waste dump idea, and that these families are concerned their rights have been ignored in the process."
The nomination of the Muckaty site hinges on a contract signed by the Northern Land Council (NLC), the Federal Government and the Muckaty Land Trust, but requests to view this contract — requests made by Traditional Owners and by a Senate Committee dedicated to the issue — have been denied.
The Australian National Audit Office was approached to assess the validity of the "commercial in confidence" status of the contract but merely referred the request to the Department which replied that the NLC had requested it remain confidential.
If the negotiations are truly to be "open, transparent and accountable", as the Rudd Government claims, the site selection study and site nomination deed must be available for independent scrutiny. If not, they will continue to be mistrusted by the Traditional Owners and stakeholders who have been shut out of many stages of the process to date.
The Traditional Owners opposed to the radioactive waste dump will continue fighting to keep their country clean and they may prevail after yet another protracted struggle. Muckaty Traditional Owner Dianne Stokes has been speaking against the proposal since its inception and is determined to see it through. "We have been writing letters to the government body signed by the Traditional Owners. We have been asking for someone to come and sit with us so that we can talk to them face to face. We want to keep talking about it and continue to fight it until we are listened to. The big capital N‐O."
Yesterday, while outlining his new dump process, Ferguson mentioned nuclear medicine repeatedly but the practice of nuclear medicine in no way depends on securing a dump site — let alone the hotly contested Muckaty site — and it is simply scare-mongering for the Minister to suggest otherwise.
How should we handle the contentious issues surrounding nuclear waste? It’s easier said than done but all we need is a little common sense. Firstly, as with the production of all other hazardous materials, it needs to be demonstrated that radioactive waste is not being produced unnecessarily. It is by no means clear that Australia needs to operate the research reactor at Lucas Heights — our sole reactor. Measured by radioactivity, the reactor (and in particular its spent nuclear fuel) is the source of well over 90 per cent of the waste in question. For its part, the Labor Party, when in opposition, was itself opposed to the construction of the new "OPAL" research reactor.
Secondly, all options for radioactive waste management need to be considered — not just the option of "remote" repositories (which are always more remote for some people than for others). This includes the option of ongoing storage at the Lucas Heights site which is operated by the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation. ANSTO is the source of most of the waste and is host to most of Australia’s radioactive waste management expertise. All the relevant organisations have acknowledged that ongoing storage at Lucas Heights is a viable option. Those organisations include ANSTO, the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency, the Australian Nuclear Association and even Ferguson’s own department.
Additionally, requiring ANSTO to store its own waste is the best — and perhaps the only — way of focusing the organisation’s collective mind on the importance of waste minimisation principles.
Thirdly, if a site selection process is required it ought to be based on scientific and environmental siting criteria as well as on the principle of voluntarism. If a community gets a site like this, it should be because that community can see benefits in it. At the moment site selection is made for rather different reasons. In 2005, the Howard government chose the Northern Territory and ruled out NSW on purely political reasons.
When the federal Bureau of Resource Sciences conducted a national repository site selection study in the 1990s, informed by scientific, environmental and social criteria, the Muckaty site did not even make the short-list as a "suitable" site. The fact that Martin Ferguson now favours it isn’t about the site being genuinely suitable — it’s about Muckaty being seen as a politically soft target.
Delicious
Digg
StumbleUpon
Reddit
Newsvine
Facebook
Twitter
Discuss this article
To participate in the discussion Sign in or Register
I was wondering when this would surface.
Firstly the Darwin to Alice train, built for no purpose other than a nuke waste train (it certainly, at a cost of $2billion-the interest on which is around $300k/day- had no economic upside or value, with no rudimentary business plan, and with one tourist train/day, minimal tourism value also. Its current operators only have expertise in waste transport) Will that cost of the train line be included in the costs of this storage, or will this go down as just another hidden taxpayer subsidy?
Here we also run into the problem of allowing local communities to decide these things, for different reasons than Ferguson’s. This community clearly feels that this is not right - why would you put a waste dump at the confluence of 3 major rivers?- but that can change, unlikely as it sounds. It raises the question tho, should a community, or NLC, on receiving a bribe such as annual income and new housing, some jobs guarding a dump, sw pool etc, have the right to approve a dump when it is the next 1000 generations who may have to do repair work, or wear the impact of leakage? Who should decide?
Land rights are one thing, self determination another great principle, but what happens when the guardians simply want their people to have an acceptable standard of living and are sick of watching babies die, and sign anything?
I appreciate the author’s questioning of the existence of Lucas heights and whether we actually need to generate any waste anyway, but I feel he misses the main point, which is that the NT has been designated as an international dump, esp for the US whose 20-30 year Yucca Mountain project has just been abandoned. I am sure the specs to which (Halliburton subsidary) KBR built the train line were more to do with waste than people transport.
Where nuclear is involved, it never makes sense, and there are deals done out of sight. Always.
Interesting and I do acknowledge the points made re bullying communities, and more ominous for me, the involvement of Halliburton et al, which no sensible nation wants inside their borders. Neil Blue`s General Atomics are also well entrenched here now, and they will be up to no good either, almost by definition. I would not like to see either of these odious companies involved.
My general perspective is that radio-active waste management needs to be brought out into the open and organised to a reliable site with professional staff, and adequate government oversight.Australia is the natural place for that to occur, despite the knee jerk protest from many on the Left.
Our geologic stability is a pre-requisite for waste storage that not many parts of the world have. We do have vast, empty and stable areas out there; Indigenous populations are wise to be cautious about safety, but they also want jobs, training and economic development if their future is to be about thriving, not just surviving. It is good that the issue is being discussed and disputed amongst Traditional owners; I hope a constructive compromise can be reached, that will benefit people into the future.
Our political stability and relative isolation is also a must for this kind of waste storage. Nuclear by-products obviously have to be dealt with well and into the very long term future - Australia is the best option available to the world. We have the expertise, we have suitable sites, we are capable of carrying on such an operation and we should assume the responsibility, and the economic opportunity. South Australia is the natural place, certainly not anywhere around the Territory`s river systems. (good grief)
Think of the alternatives - such waste is being dumped into the sea in barrels, dumped in poorer countries desperate for cash, scattered all over in hospitals and labs. and god knows what else.
We export Uranium and we should assume responsibility for the by-products, not only out of duty - but because we can do it well, and if we don`t, who will ?
Nuclear waste from present day nukes is really nasty stuff. Happily if, you
sincerely want to get rid of it, then there may soon be a solution to the waste
problem. The waste can be used as a fuel in an IFR (Integral Fast Reactor).
If your knowledge of nuclear power is stuck in
60’s slogans and you haven’t noticed that the world hasn’t stood still and
that we have a serious climate problem then …
First, read James Hansen’s book, his first “Storms of my Grandchildren”. This will
explain why the risks of not having nuclear far outway the risks of having it. Then,
for an introduction to why you need to rethink your views on nuclear, then
have a look at how I changed mine:
http://bravenewclimate.com/2009/04/30/rethinking-nuclear-power/
So the prudent course, if all else fails and you or anybody you know
gets stuck with nuclear waste on their land, just make sure that the fine
print gives you ownership rights so that you can sell it when IFRs come on line … it
will be worth a bundle in a decade or two!
We dig it up so we do have to take some responibility for it. What problems could be caused by sealing the waste in something like synroc and then sticking it back where it was mined from in the first place?
My Gawd, there are so many Nuclear boosters out there. People who will live only short lives, and their children, and their children’s children and on and on will have to live with this odious and noxious stuff, spending billions of dollars for hundreds of thousands of years, guarding an absolute monster.
We sell Yellow Cake because our Corporate Masters and their bought Governments want to make billions now, and because these greedy organisations know that they will be long gone before the very nasty poo his the fan. They do not give a stuff about any future problems…their only focus is PROFITS NOW!
And their Top Slave and Booster in Australia is the odious Martin Ferguson, who pushes his type of drug dependency at every opportunity, egged on by the equally odious Krudd.
I mean, these people are only trying to make a quick buck out of the knowledge that if they can sell this stuff off now by claiming it is Carbon Neutral (which it is NOT!) and SAFE, (which it is also NOT) despite also knowing that if they do nothing to stop Global Warming, and this is their absolute intention, the world will end anyway, and no one will be left to sheet home the blame to them.
This is real short-termism, even worse than the usual ‘democratically elected government’ short-termism.
Krudd/Ferguson may go down in history as Australia’s only Government in the last 70 years or so to be a one-termer, he has been so out of touch with reality, but he intends to leave us with a terrible legacy, a lingering and terrible death from radiation poisoning.
Like Coal, which he also boosts, he and Ferguson (and NSW and Vict. and Qld) seem to think that if he sells it to someone else to burn, he can wipe his hands of responsibility. Oh, our Heroes!!! Pshit!
And of course, who invited Halliburton into Australia. I think Howard and his mob of skunks, wanting to cozy up to Dick Cheney, one of the worst of whom is likely to be our next PM, on present trends, unless Krudd and Co, start to actually stop being always sneaky (their natural state) and to work for the PEOPLE instead of the Corporates.
Some of the conspiracy theorists out there seem to have forgotten that Haliburton and some others lost a mint on the NT rail line, but (unlike the government shareholders) got out before the GFC bit hard, with a fire sale on their share of the assetts.
The talk above of $300,000 interest being paid per day is highly fanciful, given that the major investors have now written off their losses and moved on to try their hands in more profitable pastures.
The whole deal with the railway was a classic Territory scam - one more in the long sequence of Federal Government-funded white elephants foisted on the taxpayers by conniving Territory politicians, some of whom were carpet baggers, whilst others were deluded idealists.
Much of this connivance is motivated, predictably, by political greed: the NT politicians and their advisors want to renew their hypnosis of the voters before each election, with some shiny new mirage of future riches, making them forget about the inconveniences of Territory life and the collapse of the hopes surrounding each previous elephant’s arrival.
(Some of these previous elephants assumed the forms of government subsidised luxury resorts, such as Yulara and Seven Spirits; the string of unsustainably expensive hotels and extravagant casinos and cultural centres; the Darwin seaport and wharf precinct; and the illusory export drives into Asia, with their endless first class travel and courting of dubious business partners).
The business plan for this rail was about shifting ore, about opening up new mines by providing transport options. It was not very convincing, but it wasn’t about nuclear waste or tourists, and relied on 50% public contribution to entice the likes of Haliburton in to the unclever trap.
The Howard Government listed defence options as one of its motivations, and possibly had ideas about nuclear waste in the back of their minds.
What Dick Cheney may have had to do with it I’m not sure - as I recall he was fully occupied manipulating Bush, Blair and the UN, dividing up Iraq amongst his mates, annoying his daughter and shooting grouse in Texas. Some people may be confusing his 1990s role in Haliburton with events years later in the NT. I suspect he had bigger fish to fry at the time.
Bob Durnan
I shall not stand up for Indigenous Australian property rights, for I am not an Indigenous Australian…
Advance Australia Fair - unconscionable ethnocidal Acts from a Parliament which does not have a single indigenous person as a Member.
Time to change all that.
Graeme - sounds like a good idea to me; if they`re still mining the stuff, though, it will need to be parked somewhere. In principal though, you agree that we should take it on ?
Bob - yeh, the NT government are pretty good at sucking in federal funds - when I lived there (72- 1984) we used to chuckle that Darwin had the best roads in Australia. On a visit last year, I was agog at the forest of high rises that has grown up just outside the city; where did the money come from ?
Come on, the wharf`s brilliant and seemed busy enough to me.
re Haliburton mm, they`re hardly innocents and likely had a plan beyond the railway. Maybe something along the lines of nuclear energy and maybe enrichment here - which would need development, security and safe transport. Howard certainly put nuclear development back on the agenda, rot him, and I`ve little doubt he was up to his neck in their nefarious plans.
The rest of you, please try and transcend jingoism and juvenile names; it really doen`t help the discussion.
Should Australia take on nuclear waste disposal, for the reasons outlined above ?
I remember quite clearly back when the Darwin to Adelaide Railway was being sincerely discussed by the Howard mob, that the fact that the Yanks had stopped all work on their Yucca Mountain depository, (NIMBY reared it’s head) and that discussions were under way with the Yanks to store the US Nuclear Waste in Australia, and transport it with the Railway to ‘secure places’ in the NT Centre. This was going to be a Golden Goose for Australia, with money coming in for hundreds if not thousands of years. Some people have very short memories.
If I remember correctly, the Greens everywhere raised objections, and very loudly questioned the transport of this stuff all over the bloody world, let alone parking it in Australia. Don’t remember anyone else raising a peep!
That business of us mining it and thus having the responsibility for storing it was also raised. All Nuclear waste must have an origin signature, hey!
All the boosters ever see, as they do with ‘pushing’ coal, is Big Dollar signs. Wonder where they reckon their children are going to live before they die? On the Moon?
mm interesting, dazza ; yeah I guess they could identify origins LOL and I see your point about transport. Still the bloody stuff is hauled all over he world now, and I still think that Australia would do this well, and who else could at this stage ?
This new push for nuclear energy is simply creepy - in Australia WTF ?
Endless space for wind, endless sun for solar, and no bloody water - essential for nuclear power. People advocating it for here must be deluded or bought, I reckon.
I agree with you re Big Dollar signs; I notice that opposition is mobilising in the US, Obama having promised $endless billions for nuclear energy and a very dodgy, tax-payer underwritten deal for development and `profits` and accidents. The endless problems and cost blow-outs mean that they are not financially viable for the private sector unless massively subsidised.
They also have a number of older stations leaking Tritium, and just managed to get the license renewal stymied for one of them. Local organisations in affected areas are also opposed, not surprisingly.
It`s about time Silkwood and the China Syndrome were shown again :)
Really though, having taken part in the protests against `yellow-cake` exports and the achievement of the mining moratorium, it is quite unreal to see the whole biz crawl out of the slime again and being talked up here as a `new saviour` what a crock.
From Alternet:
//Meanwhile, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission has reported that at least 27 of America’s 104 licensed reactors are now leaking radioactive tritium. The worst case may be Entergy’s Vermont Yankee, near the state’s southeastern border with New Hampshire and Massachusetts. High levels of contamination have been found in test wells around the reactor, and experts believe the Connecticut River is at serious risk…//
//Energy experts at the Rocky Mountain Institute and elsewhere estimate that a dollar invested in increased efficiency could save as much as seven times as much energy than one invested in nuclear plants can produce, while producing ten times as many permanent jobs.//
http://tinyurl.com/yeat7v9
graeme f. if you eat food at macdonalds are you allowed to take the faeces back and dump it on the counter? we dig up uranium and it comes back as a different more dangerous product just like what happens to food after its digested. plutonium and nuclear waste has no place at muckaty
(This comment has been deleted)
Hey, NM censors, is not that comment by ‘beanz’ personal abuse?
And just for the record, I agree with ‘nathan h’. Hear, hear!
This is another case of Martin Ferguson bulldozing people objecting to his dangerous practices.
Seems it was Howard’s mob who actually selected “Muckaty” Station in the first place, and convinced some of the Traditional Owners with a little $12 million bribe to give up their land and rights forever. As usual, divide and rule is the order of the day. Those who object are ignored.
A repository for all the waste Nuclear stuff from all over the world, which was and probably still is contemplated, would bring in billions of dollars over a long period. Never mind that we would thus make us forever radiated, and probably a terrorist target.
How can Ferguson and his mates sleep? No morals, no ethics, no conscience, I guess.
Just greed!