View of the FLT looking south-west towards Mt Painter (the hump just to the right of the FLT plant).
Fly the flags indeed - General Atomics and Australia........
The pipes carrying the toxic sulphuric acid and uranium solutions - despite Heathgate asserting there spill was due to the pipes being "the colour black" (and not due to lack of pressure control in the process plant and mining system), some pipes are still black (see the 5-Spot image page for more proof). Furthermore, the pipes are brazenly strewn across the land surface - in the USA it is required to bury the pipes in shallow trenches, even for pilot scale operations.
On the date of the visit, Heathgate stated they now have 24 tonnes of refined uranium stored on site, with a further three months of the Field Leach Trial to go. This equates to a total of about 32 tonnes of refined uranium, despite their Nuclear Safeguards Office licence to store up to 30 tonnes only. A classic example of the inherent difficulty of predicting the behaviour of an ISL mine (see Mudd, 1998).
View from the north-east corner of the FLT Plant, looking south-east. The stored uranium is on the right, the solution pipes in the foreground, the process plant in the middle, and the retention pond for liquid wastes to the left.
They admit - the pilot plant is a "RESTRICTED RELEASE ZONE" !!!! Are they expecting a spill ? Certainly their pilot plant is not completely sealed to minimise underlying soil contamination if a spill were to occur.
Although not readily visible through the fence, all Heathgate have done to try and prevent birdlife from using the pond as a water source, is place lines of red flags over the pond. Ask any orchardist or farmer, and they'll readily admit it's a minimalist approach that just don't work.....
All photos taken on October 2, 1998.
Page last updated October 20, 1998.
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