3CR
 Community Radio 855am

THE RADIO-ACTIVE SHOW

With Eric Miller and Linda Marks

Saturday at 10.00am

24th April 1999

Hello and welcome to 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. (Hello) The Radioactive Show is a weekly program bringing you news and information on Nuclear, Peace and Energy issues.

On today’s show we speak to Green Senator Dee Margetts on an explosion at the Maralinga clean-up site. We also hear from Dave Sweeney from the Australian Conservation Foundation and Matt Fagan who is Policy Officer for the Gundjehmi Corporation. They are talking about the Government’s report on the World Heritage Commission.

Now to our first story. On the edge of the Great Victoria Desert in North West of South Australia lies the former British test site of Maralinga. Since the Royal Commission in the late 80s into the tests, the Australian and British Governments have spent 10s of millions of dollars in their attempts to clean up the site. And that work is still ongoing. Over four weeks ago there was an explosion of nuclear waste at one of the pit sites that contained plutonium and debris was scattered up to 70 metres. The explosion happened as the clean up contractors were using an experimental method called in situ vitrification. This is where electrodes are put into the desert sands around burial pits that contain all kinds of radioactive material left by the British after the nuclear tests in the early 60s. With a huge amount of electricity they try to turn the sand into glass to immobilise the radioactive material. Eric Miller asked Green Senator Dee Margetts, ‘How did the explosion happen?’

Dee Margetts: It is very hard to say. The official line is that it was unexpected release of gas. It actually forced material 70 metres. So we are talking about something that had considerable force. You have to take into consideration that they had a cover over the in situ vitrification process. So here we have something of the force that not only damaged the cover, an enormous 18 metre metal rubbish bin type cover over the process, but also expelled material of various sorts up to 70 metres.

Eric Miller: They don’t really know what’s in these pits at Maralinga do they? There could well have been plutonium in them.

Dee Margetts: Certainly and they haven’t ignored that prospect. In fact they are saying, ‘It was only 100 grams in 400 tonnes,’ but anyone who knows the radiotoxicity of plutonium would be concerned that there could be 100 grams of plutonium amongst what was exploded. We don’t really know what caused it and we don’t really know what the outcome was. They had been in the process of about 12 days creating solid lumps of an enormous pit of various materials and they hadn’t been sorted. They didn’t know what everything was in the pit and of course, that is an ongoing problem. You may have something that may explode in those circumstances. Obviously it is still, to some extent, an experimental process.

Eric Miller: This in situ vitrification is where they are putting electrodes into the soil and trying to turn the whole pit into a lump of glass.

Dee Margetts: Yes, that seems to be the process. And basically, they were, over time, getting to the bottom of the pit. They were saying there were two days to go before this all would have been a solid lump. But of course, we have to worry that if the explosion had occurred earlier, maybe that may have meant that more dangerous gas, radon, or some other kind of gas would have been expelled. We don’t really know, and I think the reality is that the authorities don’t entirely know what they are dealing with here. That creates a problem for the ongoing process.

Eric Miller: As it is right out in Maralinga, miles away from anywhere, it is very hard to actually find out what’s going on there.

Dee Margetts: Certainly. From our point of view we requested a briefing with the new ARPANSA, Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Authority. What we are also asking for that there is a full report that goes to the parliament. We know that ARPANSA will be required to present their quarterly report to the parliament and I don’t know when the next one is due because ARPANSA has just been set up. We are concerned that the report about the incident should be made available to parliament as soon as it is completed so there is some openness and some debate about the process and about any problems involved with the process.

Linda Marks: ARPANSA is the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Authority. It was set up over December/January of 1999 and is the Commonwealth regulator on nuclear matters. ARPANSA has been setting up within it a Radiation Health Committee and a Nuclear Safety Committee to regulate nuclear installations that come under the Commonwealth nuclear regulations.

Eric Miller: As you said, this is partly experimental and the whole operation of turning the pit into a large glass block means there must be huge temperatures created there and this is the sort of thing that you would expect to happen.

Dee Margetts: Well yes, and I think part of the situation is that there is the assumption that once you create the block then it is ‘set and forget.’ Many people for a long period of time have said that nuclear matter shouldn’t be placed in lumps or blocks underground and hopefully covered over, we should be looking for ways where the situation is understood. When you are dealing with nuclear waste, radioactive waste, you are really only dealing with a holding situation. It should be as visible as we can make it. It should be very accountable. And it should be able to be easily monitored. Of course with any kind of radioactive waste the preference for many people in the environment and the anti-nuclear movement has been that we should have above-ground, properly engineered solutions.

Now obviously, when you are dealing with an area like Maralinga you are dealing with a great deal of waste. But I am under the impression that just because there is a large amount of waste, whether at Maralinga or a uranium mine, it doesn’t mean that we have a different method of dealing with it, a different standard of dealing with it just because there is more of it. Different from the way for example we deal with radioactive waste at Esk in Queensland in a monitored, aboveground facility that has the proper safeguards and also seems to have a deal of community involvement and information available. I think we have to look at those kinds of issues because if we don’t we will end up with the kind of proposals that are shoved on us or from other countries to be their nuclear toilet in relation to things like to Pangea proposal.

Eric Miller: Thank you Dee.

Linda Marks: That bit of music was of course ‘Maralinga’ by Midnight Oil and before that Eric Miller was talking to Green Senator Dee Margetts about an explosion that happened over four weeks ago at the Maralinga clean-up site. We are waiting for that report on the explosion.

On the 15th April, the Australian Government released its response to the UNESCO World Heritage Committee’s call for the Jabiluka uranium mine to be stopped. Both Environmental and Indigenous groups said that the report was full of misinformation, misleading statements, dishonest omissions and outright untruths. Eric Miller spoke to Dave Sweeney who is Uranium Campaigner for the Australian Conservation Foundation. He spoke to him in his Melbourne office. He asked Dave what his concerns were over the report:

Dave Sweeney: The Australian Government’s response to the World Heritage Committee has been really deficient in relation to the environmental aspects. It is also deficient in relation to the cultural aspects.

With regard to the environmental aspects, some of the key aspects were things like the concerns about tailings, how they’ll be held, how they’ll be confined and restricted from the wider Kakadu environment. Concerns about a whole range of things haven’t been addressed. The Government is continuing with the fiction that the Ranger mine has a perfectly clean operating history when we all know, and have documented repeatedly, that there has been over 100 publicly documented leaks, spills and incidents from that mine. We know that there are continuing problems with that mine. We know that in February of this year there were elevated levels of uranium in the Magela Creek attributable to the operations of the Ranger mine. And yet we have the Commonwealth Minister for the Environment saying that Ranger continues to be a benchmark of good mining operations and shows that uranium is compatible with World Heritage. Well it is not. So on a whole range of short term, long term, site specific and general aspects of environmental protection and environmental practice, the Australian Government’s response that went to the World Heritage Committee on April 15th is severely flawed and severely deficient.

Eric Miller: The world community has been recognising this and this is reflected in the awards that the Gundjehmi are getting.

Dave Sweeney: Yes, I think that’s very clear. I think it’s increasingly evident that Senator Hill’s assurances and ERA’s assurances are not convincing anyone. They are not convincing their own shareholders. They are certainly not convincing the global community. Just recently there has been the joint award to Yvonne Margarula and Jacqui Katona of the Gundjehmi Corporation of the world’s foremost environmental NGO (Non-Government Organization) prize. It’s a significant prize called the Goldman Award. It has a significant cash value, it has a very significant public profile value and it is also a very serious award. It is rigorously chosen. The vetting practise for those getting this award is that it goes through 20 of the major environment NGOs, and it goes through a panel of 30 international independent environmental experts to choose who gets this award. Now it is not a quick, spur of the moment thing. This foundation, one of the largest of its kind, has sat down, has looked at the evidence at Jabiluka, the campaign to stop Jabiluka, the role played by Mirrar and in particular Jacqui and Yvonne, and has said, this is deserving of international recognition.

And it is significant international recognition. Their story has now been heard on CNN in America and on the BBC, they have been given an award in front of 2,000 dignitaries, shaking hands with the Governor of California this week at the San Fransisco Opera House, they had lunch with Hilary Clinton! They are seriously and fully on the international agenda and Jabiluka is now cemented on that agenda as a key issue of cultural and of environmental concern. And it is on the agenda as something that needs to be addressed, needs to be genuinely looked at and needs to be resolved. It can’t be talked away with a bit of rhetoric by Robert Hill.

And if Jabiluka were to go ahead, not only would it mean 20 million tonnes of radioactive waste effectively for ever in Kakadu, but it would mean radioactive waste and radioactive poison in every place where that Jabiluka uranium would go. It would mean Chernobyls and Gor Leibens wherever it ends up. It is a global problem and what is happening increasingly is that the implications, the seriousness and the failure of the Australian system to protect is increasingly being internationally recognised and addressed. And it’s a great pity that people outside of Australia and agencies outside of Australia take these responsibilities more seriously than Australian ones do. But the fact is that at the moment they do, the fact is that they are more receptive, and the campaign to stop Jabiluka has clear international components and they are being rapidly developed and built upon to stop what would be a great wrong.

Eric Miller: The Government and the company are in court again this week over the PER.

Dave Sweeney: Yes, basically the case in question was the adequacy of the environmental assessments and in particular the one called the PER, the Public Environment Report on to what was called the Jabiluka Mill Alternative.

ERA, the company behind Jabiluka, planned the whole thing on the premise that they would mine the ore at Jabiluka and then they would truck it 20 or 23 kilometres to the existing Ranger mine and use Ranger’s facilities to process it. Now the traditional owners have a legal right of veto to that option and they have exercised that right. They have told the Commonwealth and the NT Governments, they have told the company and the company’s parent, North Ltd and they have told the Northern Land Council that they are not going to let ERA mill Jabiluka ore at the Ranger mill. So that then means that ERA has to build another stand alone mill at Jabiluka.

Now when they put forward that proposal, the level of assessment that was declared necessary to decide whether this was a good idea and the degree of consequence it would have, was picked at what it termed an intermediate level of assessment, a Public Environment Report. Environment groups and Traditional Owners and the Northern Land Council and others had called for a full Environmental Impact Statement as a minimum. We had received formal assurances by senior Commonwealth officers that that would be the case and then at the last moment, Senator Hill turned around and ordered an intermediate level of assessment that has a very, very significant area of ministerial discretion.

It is inappropriate that an area like Kakadu, facing the threat of long term radioactive pollution, and with such a controversial issue that there should be anything but the most transparent and rigorous form of assessment, and the PER certainly isn’t.

So this case is examining all of that. Basically where it is at now is that the Commonwealth and ERA have wheeled out some very high-powered barristers, QCs and they are attempting to stop the case getting to court on procedural ground. So there is a whole lot of legal positioning and manoeuvring around whether or not the court, in this case, the Federal Court of Australia, has indeed the jurisdiction or the necessity to even hear this case. So we will see over the coming months whether the argument is able to clear those technical hoops of standing and then we will get to the real core of the issue.

And that is that there has been signed off on, a project of immense impact and a project of growing controversy in Australia. And it has been signed off on at the result of an extremely shabby process that would be of great concern to the majority of Australians if they knew just how little genuine assessment, just how biased and rigged this whole process has been. I think most Australians knew, that figure of 67 – 75% of Australians who are against Jabiluka would go up another 25%.

Eric Miller: Thanks Dave

Linda Marks: That was Eric Miller speaking to Dave Sweeney. He then spoke to Matt Fagan who is the Policy Officer for the Gundjehmi Aboriginal Corporation and Matt is confident that the Australian Government’s attempts to mislead and deceive the World Heritage Committee will be exposed with great embarrassment to the Howard Government. Eric spoke to Matt on his mobile phone and asked him what his concerns were regarding the Government’s report:

Matt Fagan: They are too numerous to go through now on your program unfortunately Eric. Suffice it to say what the Government has done is to present a report that is an advocacy document for the mining company ERA. It has failed to disclose crucial information to UNESCO on dozens of different points throughout the report. It seeks to mislead UNESCO as to both historical and current events and attempts to develop an image of the Kakadu region in which the mining company ERA has never done anything wrong, never will, and are the benevolent party in that area. And the Mirrar are some kind of minority group of trouble makers who should just put up and shut up and fade quietly off into the distance. For that reason, I think the report is going to backfire on the Government terribly and only strengthen the case for an ‘In Danger’ listing come July.

Eric Miller: Will you be able to put these points to the Heritage Commission now?

Matt Fagan: Absolutely. We are in the process of consulting with the Mirrar People, with the Clan and putting together a submission for UNESCO to consider. We will be pulling apart the Government’s report line by line. I can tell you now that our critique of what the Government has put into the report will run to some 25 – 30 pages. As succinctly as we can, we will point out where the Government has either lied, misrepresented situations or omitted crucial information. Information that points to the indisputable fact that the Jabiluka uranium mine, the second uranium mine on Mirrar country, will destroy a unique culture, a unique language, to the loss of the entire planet.

Eric Miller: So it will really point out the way the Government and the company is right out on a limb on world opinion on this subject.

Matt Fagan: Absolutely! The international community has been shocked at the way that the Australian Government appears to them to not have ever considered how the cultural survival of the Mirrar People and other Aboriginal People in the Kakadu region is incompatible with the development of the mine. The situation is that when the Australian Government found that promises of money, media representation and other inducements were not going to see the Mirrar give up their fight for survival of their culture, they adopted the policy of systematically attacking the Mirrar. Attacking their credibility as a people struggling for survival. Now the international community sees that and is shocked. They increasingly view Australia as some throwback to the 1950s, some colonial power that refuses to recognise the legitimate right for people to survive. This report does nothing to dispel any of those opinions about the Australian Government.

Eric Miller: I suppose that evidence of this is the number of awards that the Gundjehmi have landed, and that the latest award is one of them I suppose?

Matt Fagan: Yes, Jacqui and Yvonne are over in the United States at the moment. They are receiving the Goldman Prize that is perhaps the most prestigious environment award. It carries with it a prize of $US100, 000 which will be put back into the campaign and moreover it has enabled them to meet with political, social and other leaders in the United States. Tomorrow they will be meeting with Hilary Clinton and putting their point of view on Jabiluka to her and seeking the American Government’s support in their campaign. They have met with Ethel Kennedy, the matriarch of the Kennedy family in the United States. They have met with the Secretary of the Interior. So meetings at a very high level and the response so far has been very positive from the Mirrar point of view.

Eric Miller: Thanks Matt

Linda Marks: And that music was ‘Are You Gunna Let Them Mine Jabiluka?’ by Zippy and it was recorded at the gate of the Jabiluka lease at the blockade last year and before that Eric was speaking to Matt Fagan who is Policy Officer for the Gundjehmi Aboriginal Corporation.

Eric Miller: And that’s all 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 May 18, 1999.
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