3CR
 Community Radio 855am

THE RADIO-ACTIVE SHOW

With Eric Miller and Linda Marks

Saturday at 10.00am

13th March 1999

Good morning, this is the Radioactive 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. (Good Morning) The Radioactive Show is a weekly program bringing you news and information on Nuclear, Peace and Energy issues.

On today's show we go to South Australia where we speak to Dennis Matthews from the Nuclear Issues Centre about the Roxby uranium mine's power arrangements. Then we speak to David Noonan. David is the Campaign Officer for the Australian Conservation Foundation in Adelaide. We speak to him about the Beverley uranium mine. We also go to South Sydney where it has come to light that recently there have been three accidents at the nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights. We speak to Genevieve Rankin who is a local councillor and convenor of People Against the Nuclear Reactor.

The South Australian power utility EDSA, has not been privatised yet, but the Roxby uranium mine in northern South Australia can buy its electric power from other states. And that is what is being done. Eric Miller asked Dennis Matthews from the Nuclear Issues Centre in South Australia, 'Has the Roxby mine made new arrangements for its power supply?'

Dennis Matthews: Yes it has. Since the expansion started up around January of this year, they've needed an extra 80 megawatts making a total of 180 megawatts power demand. That's more or less 24 hours a day, 52 weeks a year. This has put them in a very good bargaining position so they can actually go through the national electricity market, bargain and get a very good deal. The best deal you can get these days is from Victoria. So the cheapest electricity, sometimes a tenth of the price of what we have in South Australia, but always much less anyway, the best deal you can get is from Victoria through the inter-connector with Victoria.

About a third of our electricity can come, and often does come, through that inter-connector and Roxby now has a big share of that cheap electricity from Victoria. Not the whole lot by any means, only about a fifth, so other people can get some for the time being. At a very much reduced rate. Now what that means is that the people who had been getting their electricity from Victoria at this cheap rate will now no longer be able to get it and from now on a fifth of the electricity has been switched over to Roxby. And those people from, typically, South Australian businesses, small businesses and household consumers, will now have to pay a much higher rate.

Eric Miller: The South Australian people invested in all this generation now it is not needed.

Dennis Matthews: Not only did we invest in the generators in South Australia but we also invested in Roxby. And Roxby is showing how grateful they are by taking their business elsewhere.

Eric Miller: Does this mean that the greenhouse effect from Roxby will go up with the dirty brown coal that Victoria has?

Dennis Matthews: Yes. Victoria makes all of its electricity from brown coal that is not only very dirty, but it is also very energy inefficient. This means that it makes much more greenhouse gases than other pollutants per unit of electricity. In South Australia we use coal that is not very good grade either but we also use gas that is considered to be a lower emitter of greenhouse gases per unit of electricity. Roxby is already responsible for the biggest single amount of greenhouse gas emissions in South Australia, because of the power demands.

Eric Miller: Before this happened, Western Mining said they were going to generate their own electricity and were trying to bargain the South Australian company down.

Dennis Matthews: Yes, I think that was a bit of a bluff, part of the game. It was contradictory in a sense. They said, 'We want cheap electricity. If the Government is not going to privatise EDSA and Optima, we are going to build our own power station.' But the two are self-contradictory because if they were to build their own power station the electricity would have been a lot more expensive than the electricity in Victoria and even the electricity in South Australia simply because the other power stations in South Australia are already paid off. What they would be paying for is the cost generating and transmitting the electricity whereas Roxby would have had to pay for the cost of building and generating the electricity.

Eric Miller: It is really another downturn for having a uranium mine in your state!

Dennis Matthews: Well it is another negative affect. There are a heap of negative affects. They already use huge amounts of water from the artesian basin with the various affects on that area, on the Mound Springs, on the ecology of the area. Now they are using huge amounts of electricity with the negative affects that we have just discussed. They are also generating the largest amount of radioactive waste, probably in the world. And they are going to eventually have something like 800 hectares, 35 metres high, of tailings. It will be the biggest pile of radioactive waste anywhere in the world, I think, by the time it is finished.

Eric Miller: Which South Australians will have to look after for eternity.

Dennis Matthews: Yes, forever, essentially. We are talking thousands and tens of thousands of years and for all intents and purposes, that's eternity.

Linda Marks: And that was Dennis Matthews from the Nuclear Issues Centre in South Australia and he was telling us how Roxby uranium mine is now buying power from Victoria.

Still in South Australia, we go to the Beverley uranium mine that is in the Lake Frome area in northern South Australia. The Beverley mine is still going through the EIS process although it has had a pilot plant operating there for over a year. Beverley is wholly operated by an American company, the nuclear giant, General Atomics. With overwhelming evidence that the aquifer could be contaminated by the mine, Senator Hill and the South Australian Government brought in an independent expert in the in situ leaching method of mining the uranium last year. Hydrologist Ms. April Lafferty of the American Science Inc visited the site late last year. David Noonan, Campaign Officer for the ACF in Adelaide has been trying to get a copy of the Lafferty report through the Freedom of Information Act. Eric asked David if he had been able to get a copy of that report yet and if so, what was in it?

David Noonan: The Commonwealth had to release the Lafferty report. Someone leaked it before they were legally obliged to provide it to ACF under the Freedom of Information Act. The Lafferty report in effect confirms that it was only the opinion of General Atomics that the local aquifer that the mining will take place in is actually said to be confined. Lafferty confirmed that the available studies and the available information was insufficient to support the assumptions being made by the company. Therefore there was a risk of contamination, especially of near surface aquifers, local aquifers, from waste and from mining liquids used in this sulphuric acid in situ leach uranium mining technique. Should there be a hydraulic connection between those aquifers, and the evidence wasn't really there to support the company assumption that there was no such connection.

Eric Miller: So it is possible that this mining operation could contaminate the other aquifers in the surrounding area.

David Noonan: Should there be a connection between them that could certainly be the case that they are at risk. The company and the government have gone ahead with the trial mine for some 12 months without even having the base line environmental information. They had given those approvals, including the approvals from Senator Hill, to allow the trial mine to go ahead without an EIS. This was on a level of information that would not have been unacceptable, or would have been contrary to the standards for a similar mining operation in the US.

Eric Miller: So this would not have complied with US mining regulations.

David Noonan: Certainly not on the level of information that has been provided by the company as proponents of the project to government. In the US they would have been required a great deal further information, a lot more thorough studies. In the case of General Atomics they were often relying on single monitoring tests whereas in the US you would have to have a series of tests. And much of the information cited by General Atomics here for Beverley had come from previous mining companies' operations. The supposed results of those tests could not be substantiated because there was insufficient information available, left available or ever available as to what standard they had carried out those tests.

Eric Miller: Where does the process go now with the EIS

David Noonan: Well, Senator Hill has falsely claimed that there are no environmental reasons why the project should not go ahead. However, he's had to order further tests of the ground water system as recommended by Laffery, the consultant. And he has to take the very interesting unique step of not allowing the company to discharge liquid wastes to ground water until those tests are in and until government has assessed those tests. Those tests of the ground water system.

In effect he has had to take back an approval he gave to General Atomics at the start of last year to allow them to discharge all their liquid wastes, including radioactive wastes, to ground water at that site. So that's a win for the conservation movement. It's a small one compared to the damage that the project will bring.

One of the fundamental points from Lafferty was that the failure of the government to order rehabilitation of ground water was one of the substantial points that placed other aquifers at risk. If they failed to rehabilitate ground water then there is that continuing risk in the long term for these toxic, now highly mobile materials, radioactive and heavy metals and sulphuric acid etcetera, to move from the Beverley aquifer into adjoining near surface aquifers. So it is the failure of government to have credible standards in the first place. Their failure to require adequate environment base line information, their failure to put the trial mine through an EIS process that would have exposed these sorts of things. That's where the problem really is laying. Now, once the studies are in, the more thorough studies of ground water, the government will assess those studies again. They will have Lafferty's advice on those studies, and at that point they will decide whether the company has to submit a new plan of management of liquid wastes for the mining proposal. And again they would get advice from Lafferty as to what conditions they might place on such a plan.

Unfortunately Senator Hill doesn't recognise the main problem. The cause of all these problems is that he is allowing uranium mining on that site and he is allowing this first use in the Western world of commercial sulphuric acid in situ leach uranium mining. So, we've yet to get Senator Hill to understand those point. But he hadSbeen forced in effect, because of the errors they have made up to now, to take back his initial approval to liquid discharge at Beverley.

Eric Miller: In South Australia you have another uranium mine, the Honeymoon mine, using the same process.

David Noonan: It's very much the same situation where they were allowed to discharge liquid wastes to ground water throughout last year. Given that Senator Hill has had to recognise that that was never acceptable in the case of Beverley. Now after the event, he should be taking back the approval to Southern Cross at Honeymoon to discharge their radioactive wastes, including all their liquid wastes the mining operations into ground water there. He hasn't yet taken that step and we intend to force him to do so.

Linda Marks: And that was David Noonan from the Australian Conservation Foundation office in Adelaide. The Honeymoon mine also uses in situ leaching as a way of extracting the uranium. This is where sulphuric acid is pumped through a bore into an ore body, and then sucked out. We understand that the EIS for Honeymoon has been written but they are waiting to see what happens at Beverley before presenting it.

And the music was 'Suicide System' by Jennifer Sommers. It was recorded at the Jabiluka camp last year and you could just hear the crickets in the background. It was taken from the CD 'Uranium, Don't Dig It.'

On last week's show we spoke to Genevieve Rankin, who is a councillor for Sutherland Shire and the convenor for 'People Against the Nuclear Reactor.' We spoke to her about how Environment Minister, Senator Hill has delayed the announcement for the approval of the new nuclear reactor for Lucas Heights until the 29th March and that's the day after the NSW elections. Undoubtedly this is to minimise public comments on the issue during the election period.

On Thursday it came to light via the public-spirited staff at ANSTO, that three accidents have occurred at Lucas Heights in the last month. ANSTO is the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation and runs the nuclear reactor at Lucas Heights in the south of Sydney. Eric asked Genevieve, 'What happened?'

Genevieve Rankin: There were three accidents. The first involved the fuel rods that they are planning to ship overseas. These have been stored for so long and they are in such bad condition that one of the canisters came apart and the fuel rod was dropped onto the floor. Four workers were involved and they moved very quickly to cover it up with the transportation canister. And it is sitting there now with really no solution as to what to do with it because these things emit massive doses of radiation.

It also shows that they are not in a condition to be able to sign contracts to ship them out overseas or ship them anywhere. They will be a real danger in transportation. And of course what that means is there is no solution of what to do with these wastes. To be talking about building a new reactor when we can't deal with the current wastes is just ludicrous.

The second accident involved a release of radioactive iodine, iodine 131 where a big amount of radiation was released. They had as much released in one incident as the whole emissions for the preceding 12 months. That was 15 giga becquerels, that's the way they measure it. What that means for the community is that it could potentially affect people's health depending on which way the wind was blowing. The iodine 131 goes straight to the thyroid and causes thyroid cancer and other health related problems.

The third incident involved staff being exposed. There was also a plant shut down because the monitors were set off by a release of krypton and argon from another building.

So there are three different sites, all within the Lucas Heights facility, that are experiencing problems and this is come to light because the staff out are upset because the proper procedures were not followed. There should have been a site emergency declared and the people should have been notified. This was not done. It has been attempted to be totally hushed up. ANSTO didn't want any public awareness of these issues, particularly when they are still waiting on Senator Hill to announce the go ahead for the new nuclear reactor. The secrecy is appalling, the people feel really badly that they don't even have a right to be told. It is like living in a bureaucratic state where they are not even told things that affect their health and safety particularly when their children could be affected at the local school.

Eric Miller: It seems this is going the same way as the nuclear industry all around the world. It is shrouded in secrecy and it hides behind national interest clauses and defence clauses to get away with murder.

Genevieve Rankin: That's right and it is getting away with murder because if they get away with this when they have exposed people to this, to cancers basically, they can get away with anything. To think that in this day and age, in the late 1990s, we have a situation in Australia where we can have our government running a nuclear reactor in this slip shod manner. And then not even informing people when their health has been affected by it. There is no way that we can say that this is living in a democracy. It is the nuclear industry's typical tactics of what they do all over the world as you say. People around Sydney at the moment are feeling very angry that their government can do this to them, using their own taxes and get away with it. They still haven't disclosed what they are going to do with the fuel rod. They don't really know. And they still haven't disclosed exactly what time and whether it was in school hours and what the weather conditions were when the iodine was released.

Eric Miller: Is this fuel cell sitting where it fell last month?

Genevieve Rankin: That's right, about a fortnight ago. It has just been sitting there and they are not clear what to do with it at all.

Eric Miller: And I suppose it's not in a really safe position where it is at the moment?

Genevieve Rankin: No. If they were safe there they wouldn't have been trying to move them in the first place. They are trying to get them ready to ship elsewhere. They are supposed to be dry storage and they have been so poorly handled over the years that they are finding water and rust and problems with all the canisters. If there is water going into them it means that it is leaching into the water table. So we have radioactivity mixing with the soil of the area and going down to the local waterways. It is a major problem. It is a time when we all should be saying this plant can't go on any longer.

There was a national TV programme this morning and we had a woman ring from South Australia saying that she just can't believe that this kind of thing is going on in Australia and she made a donation to the campaign. I really think it is time that Australians will realise that this industry is not what we need for our county. It is not just the contamination. It's the attitudes and the way they are treating people and the lack of democracy in the whole process.

Eric Miller: Thanks very much, Genevieve.

Linda Marks: And that was Eric Miller speaking to Genevieve Rankin who is a councillor for Sutherland Shire and the convenor for 'People Against the Nuclear Reactor.' They were talking about the 3 serious accidents at the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor in south Sydney in February.

And Eric, we have a lot of news items today.

Eric Miller: Yes. And sad news at that too. It's been announced that the Senior Traditional Owner, Yvonne Margarula, has lost her case against trespass against ERA and the Northern Territory Government and she is set to pay $500 for trespass on the Jabiluka lease or she has to appeal to a higher court. And this comes when Australia is deemed to be in breech of human rights in the UN human rights document. Another Aboriginal person, Michael Anderson has been over there talking to the UN and talking to the German Greens. The German Greens have given notice that they want the German Government to stop buying uranium from Australia because of the human rights issues and the environmental damage that uranium mining is doing in Australia. Australia is on the nose and it is really sad that Yvonne didn't win her case.

Also this week documents became available that prove that the entire Marshall Islands in 1945 became contaminated by the first atom bomb test, the first H bomb test. This was a 15 megaton bomb that was named 'Bravo' that was detonated in the Marshall Islands, on Bikini Atoll. It contaminated the whole of the Marshall Islands. Although Washington at the time said that only 4 of the atolls were contaminated. But from this test, people in America were complaining about the high radiation and they traced that radiation back to the test. So this radiation went around the world. It was detected in places tens of thousands of kilometres away. It is becoming more and more clear that the Americans used the Marshall Islanders as guinea pigs.

Also in America, it has come to light that the Chinese have got secrets from the Los Alamos research centre in America to develop small atomic bombs. So in the 80s they stole these secrets from America and that's how they have produced a small atomic bomb that they can set off a number of bombs on one missile because they are so small and it is easy to deliver them. This has happened several times with America. The hydrogen bomb was developed in Russia from secrets from America as well.

So that is the news this week Linda.

Linda Marks: Time for one more 'What's On' before we go. On the 28th March don't forget Palm Sunday. Meet at the State Library steps at 1.30pm and march to North Ltd.

Eric Miller: That's all the time we have for the Radioactive Show this week, so it's goodbye from Eric.

Linda Marks: And it's goodbye from Linda.

Transcript produced by Linda Marks - with much thanks!!!
Page last updated April 2, 1999.
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