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 Community Radio 855am

THE RADIO-ACTIVE SHOW

With Eric Miller and Linda Marks

Saturday at 10.00am

17th October 1998

Linda Marks

Good morning, this is the Radio Active Show brought to you by the Sustainable Energy and Anti-Uranium Service. I'm Linda Marks and with me in the studio is Eric Miller. The Radio-Active Show is a weekly program bringing you information on nuclear, peace and energy issues.

On today's show we hear from a public meeting in Coober Pedy on the proposed radioactive waste dump. We also have a report on ERA's AGM of shareholders which was held in Sydney this week.

As we mentioned last week, people from Friends of the Earth, the Roxby Action Collective, and Eric and myself from the Radioactive Show, went to Coober Pedy in the North of South Australia to participate in a public meeting on the proposed radioactive waste dump for Australia's radioactive waste. The Labor Federal Government began its search for a site in 1992 and the area that's been selected is a huge part of South Australia called Billa Kalina, and it stretches from Woomera all the way up to Coober Pedy. The present Government is now deciding on a one and half square kilometre site within the Billa Kalina area for the dump. Here's some of what was said by two of the speakers, Dr Dennis Mathews and myself. Ila Marks chaired the meeting and we were welcomed by Rebecca Bear Wingfield on behalf of the local traditional owners.

Rebecca Bear Wingfield

We'd like to extend a very warm welcome to everyone here tonight especially on behalf of all of the Kokatha, Arabunna and Kupa Piti Kungka Tjuta people whose country we're now in. I'm a little bit overwhelmed actually, to be asked to speak on behalf of my mother, my aunties and my family. And the reason I say that is that they're doing some magnificent stuff to try and get the energy going about what's been happening in this country.

Over the years I've been doing a lot of reading, very heavy reading. I've read a lot about the Royal Commission. I've read the books and gone through page by page and read some of the things that have been happening. One of the things I'd like to do, without talking for too long because there are other important speakers here, but one of the things that we're really concerned about is that the awareness. Public awareness about what's happening in this part of the world seems to be very limited to people who may have expertise in particular areas, or to people who are working in certain fields. And one of the things that we'd really like to happen, is that more people start to understand what happened here.

One of the stories that my mother told me about was that in the early 50's, and I'm telling a lot of you things that you already know, but I think that there might be some people that don't know. And she was at Mabel Creek which is out that way about eighty k. I think, don't quote me exactly on the distance but she was out there with my older sister who's now a grown woman with her own family and grand kids. But they actually were part of the group of people who stood under one of the first tests and it came this way. And even today they haven't been compensated. Because when they talked to people about it they said, "Well you didn't go to the doctor and ask the doctor to test you for radiation poisoning." So that's what we're really concerned about, it's all been brushed under the carpet.

That was many years ago, forty years ago I think we're looking at. Now talking about now and what has changed? People find out about Chernobyl but what's been happening in Australia? A lot of people don't know their own history here. I guess that's one of the concerns that we have, how much more do we have to take? People are just thinking and getting really tired. I think it's really great that you come here and as I said, I feel really overwhelmed. There's some really good speakers and I've come here to learn as much as anybody else here tonight and maybe we'll develop and few more strategies and a few more networks and I don't know that's about all.

Balya

Thankyou

Ila Marks

Thanks Rebecca for that welcome you gave us on behalf of the Kokatha Arrabunna and Kupa Piti Kungka Tjuta people and women. It was very nice to make us welcome and it is an honour to be here. I remember, we got a fax in Melbourne a few months ago. It asked us to come up here and help with this struggle with the radioactive waste dump. We're really pleased to do that because radioactive waste anywhere at all needs to be something that the community knows about and arid lands is just not a place for radioactive waste.

So my name's Ila Marks, I come from Melbourne and I'm from Friends of the Earth in Melbourne. I've been asked to chair this meeting tonight, so I welcome everyone. And I say how pleased I am to be able to do it again. Before I call on the first speaker I'd also like to thank the people from the group 'Coober Pedy Against A Radio Active Waste Depository' because they've put work into the meeting as well. And we thank those people too. Our first speaker tonight is Linda Marks and she's from Friends of the Earth

Linda Marks

Thanks Ila. Thanks for inviting all of us here tonight.

I just want to state what our position is as an environment group and maybe say how we can work together a little bit.

So first of all, Friends of the Earth as an environment group, rejects the concept of disposing of radioactive waste in a remote area, or so called remote area of Australia and as such rejects Billa Kalina as an appropriate place also.

And just a few figures and facts here, Australia has about 3,500 cubic metres of low-level radioactive waste and that's been accumulated over the forty years of medical, scientific and industrial use. This is now stored in dozens of locations around the country.

Friends of the Earth believes that the problem of how we can deal with this radioactive waste can only be tackled realistically when we stop producing it because its too dangerous to muck around with and the risks are just too great. Only when that happens can we work out how we'll store it. At this stage, we believe that it should be stored above ground, it should be kept dry, it should be monitored by the community and it should be packaged appropriately because there are different categories of waste. It should be repackaged when the storage method begins to fail over the years as it surely will because every storage method so far has failed in the 50 or so years that we have as a world we have been producing radioactive waste.

We don't believe that it should be in a so-called 'remote area' because that encourages an 'out of sight out of mind' attitude to the waste. We believe that the Australian community as a whole needs to develop the idea of a guardianship. This is where the waste is never lost, it's never misplaced or forgotten, and that's over the hundreds of years it will need to be kept separate from the environment.

So no community wants radioactive waste. There's an example from the late 50s. The CSIRO generated quite a bit of waste in the form of contaminated soil and this was stored on site. People realised that it was stored under the car park where the scientists' cars were parked and they were probably being irradiated. People thought this wasn't a very good idea and it was put into barrels and sent up to Lucas Heights to be put with the used fuels rods that were up there waiting to go to Dounreay. In June 1992 the residents in that area went to the Land and Environment Court. They said that Lucas Heights was not an waste repository and that the waste needed to be cleared out of that area because the community of the Sutherland Shire shouldn't have to bear the responsibility for it. They won that and were given 3 years to move the waste. In 1995 the waste was trucked from Lucas Heights to Woomera and that's where it is at the moment. You've got all that contaminated soil at Woomera. But during the shift, one of the barrels was seen to be leaking. It was liquid that was bubbling out of it when they were told that they were transporting dry material! So they didn't know where it was in the first place, they found it by accident, they didn't really know what it was when they put it into the barrels and they didn't know what was happening to it when it was in the barrels.

So where do we go from here? I'll just repeat our position at Friends of the Earth. The waste should be stored above ground, it should be stored at the point of production at present, it should be stored where it can be monitored, it should be packaged appropriately according to the category of the waste, it should be repackaged when necessary. Friends of the Earth wants to continue working in this area. We want to continue lobbying government. We want to continue working with communities that are also working to have this waste properly managed and appropriately managed. This is the best way to ensure that we all bear responsibility because it the responsibility of all of us to look after it. We at Friends of the Earth want to know what we, a city based environment organisation can do for people living in the area, living at the coal face so to speak of where they want to keep this very dangerous substance. We are a resource and its on your doorstep or could be on your doorstep. Thank you.

Ila Marks

Thankyou Linda

Now the next person to speak is Dr Dennis Mathews who was a senior lecturer at Flinders University and he's also an expert in Radiation and Dennis is going to speak on the radiation issue connected with the radioactive waste dump.

Dr Dennis Mathews

First of all let's go through what the dump is for. I refuse to call it a repository because that's just garbage. It is just the government's way to hoodwink people, to confuse them. It really is a dump and that's exactly what this thing is. It's a dump. Stuff nobody else wants. They don't want it in their backyard so they put it in somebody else's backyard.

First of all, the time scale for that dump is getting shorter. By early next year they hope to have identified a site in the Billa Kalina region for that dump. By the year 2000 they hope that dump to be actually in place. We're rapidly running out of time.

So what's the dump for? We've been told that it's for low-level radioactive waste, and low-level means relatively harmless. It's all dangerous, relatively speaking. And it's for intermediate level radioactive waste. There's only one other level and that's high level radioactive waste. So we're two-thirds up the scale. We haven't got the most dangerous, according to that information, but we've got the second most dangerous and the third most dangerous. But if you actually look through the government literature, that's how out you find that in their so called fact sheets, you find that that same dump is also going to be the home for higher level waste. What they call 'S' waste. They use the term co-locate, which is just a fancy term for 'they're going to put it in the same place.'

So it is scheduled for this higher level waste and where is that higher level waste coming from? It's coming from the Lucas Heights Nuclear Reactor in NSW and in fact that's where most of the waste is coming from. It's coming from NSW. The stuff that I just referred to, the higher level radioactive waste is going to be in two forms. It will be in the form of the used fuel rods either intact as fuel rods, or… (and these are actually the rods that make the reactor generate the heat and generate the steam and electricity, or not the electricity in their case, but it generates the heat. So they're the active part of that reactor. They're like the coal or the gas or the oil that you'd put in the power station. Without that the thing wouldn't work and after a time those fuel rods are burnt out. They're just not radioactive enough to do their job. They don't contain enough of the important, important for them, radioisotope.) Those fuel rods, those highly radioactive fuel rods, will either come here directly to this dump, or they will be processed to extract some of the useful material. The material they want to keep. And then it will come here in a much higher volume again as very high level radioactive waste, about the highest level that we'll ever see in this country, hopefully.

The other things that we'll see ending up in this dump, which haven't been spoken of much, I'm sure, by the government people who came earlier this year, is that that nuclear reactor of Lucas Heights in NSW is eventually going to be broken up. Decommissioned. Broken up. It's had its day. In the year 2005, when they intend breaking this up, so that's only 7 years away now, they intend breaking this reactor up because its too old and too dangerous to be used any more. And when they break it up they are going to have a lot of radioactive material that will end up in the same place as all the other radioactive material, and at the moment they are fingering the Billa Kalina region for that. We also mentioned that you won't find much said about that in the government literature. But it starting to appear and you have to know where to look for it. This very thick document it is called the Replacement Research Reactor Nuclear Research Reactor. They want to replace the reactor at Lucas Heights with a new one and therefore they tell in there what they are going to do with the old one. And what they are going to do with all the radioactive waste from that nuclear reactor in NSW? It's all going to go into the national waste dump, the national repository.

The same sort of information we can find in these other documents. Like this one. It's the Beverley Uranium Mine. It's another mine in South Australia in the Adnymathanha area. They mention in there the same thing about the option for dealing with their solid radioactive waste. That mine has a lifetime of about 15 years and when it is finished all the equipment there that was handling the radioactive material will have to be dumped somewhere. The prime option at the moment is the national radioactive waste dump scheduled for the Billa Kalina region.

On top of that, we have another uranium mine starting up at Honeymoon. The same thing will happen there if it's started up.

We have a very old uranium mine at Radium Hill and a lot of radioactive material has just been thrown in a hole at Radium Hill. That will no longer be acceptable and that material will also have to be dealt with. At the moment that would mean putting it in the National Radioactive waste dump for the Billa Kalina region…

Linda Marks

That was Dennis Mathews speaking on behalf of the Conservation Council of South Australia and he was speaking at a public meeting at Coober Pedy three weeks ago on the Nuclear Waste Dump that is proposed for South Australia. And before you heard myself addressing the public meeting. We were introduced by Ila Marks and welcomed by Rebecca Bear Wingfield on behalf of the local traditional owners. The public meeting was followed the next day by a meeting where activists and traditional owners worked out how we could work together on stopping the waste dump being placed on their lands. And they were objecting strongly to the concept that where they lived was remote. After all, they said, if you live in Coober Pedy, Sydney is quite remote

That was a terrific experience going to Coober Pedy and working with people and it was a reflection of how strongly anti-nuclear sentiments are shared right across Australia. And so we move from the desert back to the city... On Thursday in Sydney, ERA, the company that owns the Jabiluka project in Kakadu National Park, had their AGM. Dave Sweeney from ACF was there and Eric Miller spoke to him this week.

He asked Dave "What was happening at the meeting?"

Dave Sweeney

Well, it was as you would expect. It was a quite well attended and quite controversial event. There was a big group of people, probably around a hundred people, very colourful, very noisy, a lot of banners and lot of noise, and lot of chanting outside. They were greeting shareholders as they arrived at the hotel where the event was being held. Distributing leaflets and information about ERA's Jabiluka operation. There was a host of security about, both company and police, private and hotel. And that made it very difficult for the people that were identified as with the protest group, irrespective of whether those people were with the shareholders or not. Inside there were about 25 people who went in as concerned shareholders of ERA. About 10 or 12 people were ejected, and that's forcibly, carried out still sitting on their chairs, with 2 or 3 or 4 security guards at a time. And they were ejected for making comments for interjecting all the time during the presentation being given by the chair of ERA, Campbell Anderson. When it came to question time, the question time went for at least 90 minutes, possibly 2 hours. They say it was dominated by comments and questions and statements in relation to, and in particular to, the Jabiluka development. And it was very, very obvious that there were serious and ongoing issues that ERA are a long way away from resolving and that aren't going to go away, and that this project remains and indeed grows as a desperately controversial and unpopular one. It was very hard work for the ERA board today.

Eric Miller

So did they come up with any new things about the project?

Dave Sweeney

Not really. There was really more of the same on a key level. Yvonne Margarula, as the senior traditional owner, is being manipulated, that we can deal with everything, every waste problem, nuclear power is safe and green house friendly. Ranger has operated in Kakadu for 18 years and its always been safe. The mine site or proposed mine site is not actually in Kakadu, legally it's different. The same litany that ERA have been coming out with for a number of years. The thing that was very clear today, was that on specific questions on the escalating cost overruns, specific questions about procedural irregularities, specific questions about the status of approvals, the board was very patently and very clearly hedging and fudging. And to all but the most single mindedly, pro nuclear, pro company shareholder, there would be really significant and concerns raised by today's performance. The other thing about all of this that listeners should recall Eric, is about ERA's share price. This is their bonanza project, the project that's going to make us all rich. Now ERA's share price has gone from$5.60 following the 1996 election of the Howard government, to $2.20 following the 1998 election of the Howard government. In rough figures they've dropped 60% of their share value in 30 months and its plummeting. It is literally dropping. At the same time, their time frame of construction is running behind and their costs are significantly blowing out. And it was very clear today that the project has a very long way to go before it is approved and it has an even further way to go before it is viable economically even by the most reductionist and functional of economic yardsticks. So I think it's clear that ERA are in trouble with those who are raising concerns about the denial of indigenous rights and the rights of Traditional Owners to control and manage developments on their country. And those raising concerns about radioactive waste and the generation of a long-lived problem. And for those who were raising concerns about the lack of capital investment into sustainable and renewable and forms of energy. A whole host of issues come together including the protection of the cultural and the natural values of Kakadu. I think people who were raising those questions today have left that meeting thinking "Well, a number of things have happened." It's been put very firmly on the company's map. They have admitted that 1998 was a hard year for the company. They admitted that they were looking and expecting a hard year in 1999 and I think it's very clearly on the corporate agenda. That's exactly what they are going to get. The other thing is that the company has an enormous range and an enormous divers threads of opposition facing it on environmental, on economic, on aboriginal, on procedural, on legal and on domestic and on international fronts. Really what happened, the chair of ERA said that there was not as much optimism about the project now as they was when they bought the lease site from Pancontinental mining back in the start of this decade. I think what we'll do is this. The election of the Howard government has meant that, rather than a speedy resolution, the campaign will continue to go on. But there are so many unresolved issues, there are so many grave concerns that the environment groups are not going to walk away from it, the aboriginal traditional owners cannot walk away from it, and we will continue to run and develop and grow this campaign.

Linda Marks

And that was Eric Miller speaking to Dave Sweeney on Thursday of last week. Dave was speaking from the AGM of ERA up in Sydney. And the blockade up at Jabiluka has come to a close because the wet is pretty close upon us and that area will be under water pretty soon. But the blockade has actually come to Melbourne and there are a lot of things happening here in Melbourne. Tonight there's at the Esplanade Hotel, 'A New Clear Reaction' it's called in the Gershwin room. And on Wednesday, the 21st October from 7am, you can blockade North limited again at 476 St Kilda Road. On Sunday, the 1st November, rally at the State Library of Victoria at 1pm and then sleep over in the Botanical Gardens opposite the Art Centre, because on Monday there's the shareholder's report back from the North's AGM which was on Thursday last week. So lots of things to keep the blockade happening in Melbourne.

Eric Miller

And a news item after that bad report for ERA. They reported that their shareholders won't be looking for an increase in dividend next year. And there was going to be a premier event. I've got a glossy brochure in front of me, there was going to be a science and nuclear engineering conference in Sydney from the 19th - 21st October and that's been cancelled. Just like the one earlier this year that was meant to go on in Darwin. They have cancelled them because, they say, because of lack of interest. This is the state of the nuclear industry round the world today. It's a dinosaur industry and they're a thing of the past. They can't drum up enough enthusiasm for people to come along to their conferences.

Eric Miller

That's all we have time for the Radio Active Show for this week, so it's goodbye from Eric

Linda Marks

And goodbye from Linda.

Transcript produced by Linda Marks - with much thanks!!!
Page last updated November 11, 1998.
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