3CR
 Community Radio 855am

THE RADIO-ACTIVE SHOW

With Eric Miller, Ila Marks and Cherrie

Saturday at 10.00am

7th August 1999

Hello and Welcome to the Radioactive Show brought to you by the Sustainable Energy and Anti-Uranium Service. I’m Cherrie and with me in the studio is Eric Miller and Ila Marks. The Radioactive Show is a weekly programme bringing you news and information on nuclear, peace and energy issues.

On today’s show we will hear what the students who went to the South Australian Exposure Tour heard at the Honeymoon pilot plant. But first we commemorate Hiroshima Day.

There were commemorations and demonstrations in Australia and around the world. On Friday in Melbourne at 8.15 am, the time the atomic bomb was dropped on Hiroshima, on the 6th of August 1945 there was a sound scape in Swanson Street in Melbourne. People formed a circle at the corner of Swanson and Burke Streets and this is what was heard. (Music)

Woman's voice: We are not expecting an air raid high up in the sky I heard a B 29 an American bomber … it was strange.

Man's voice: I saw a perfectly outlined city clear in every detail … coming in … the city roughly was about four miles in diameter by that time we were at our bombing altitude of 32,000 feet the navigator came up looking over his shoulder, he said, yes that's Hiroshima no doubt about that. We were so well on the target that the bombardier said I can't do anything, there's nothing to do he was just sitting there …. (Blast sound)

Another mans voice: I was trying to persuade the prince he should do his duty … and he says, no I have become the destroyer of worlds. I suppose we all thought that one way or another.

Speaker at Melbourne Commemoration: About this time 54 years ago an atomic bomb was dropped on the Japanese city of Horishima, this is the first time such a bomb had been used in warfare, 70,000 people died instantly another 70,000 died by the end of 1945. At the end of 1950 the total was 200,000. Even today people are dying who survived the initial blast.

Lest we forget

Cherrie: Lest we forget. That was part of the Hiroshima commemoration in Melbourne on Friday the 6th of August at 8.15 in the morning. There was also a rally at 5.30 in the evening that attracted about 4,000 people.

On the 17th of July 40 students from the Students for Sustainability Conference held just outside of Sydney set out for the South Australian Exposure Tour. Their first major stop was a public meeting in Broken Hill on Sunday evening the 19th of July. The meeting addressed the plan for a national radioactive waste dump and the Beverley and Honeymoon uranium mines. The next day the students visited the Honeymoon uranium pilot plant 70 km north west of Broken Hill in Northern South Australia. The company gave then hard hats, protective glasses, a cup and a sweet biscuit. Then they were shown into a room for a promotional video and an industry talk. All of this occurred while there was a massive sandstorm blowing around them.

Martin Ackland: My name is Martin Ackland, I'm the Chief Executive Officer of Southern Cross Resources, Pablo Vasquez, who is the Vice President of Operations, Dr Bill Bush, who is the Project Manager, Tom Hunter is one of the executive, Chris Every, behind you, he is the Plant Manager and there is Andre Masarenko, who's the Project Engineer on the site…. .

Ila Marks: Southern Cross Resources, a Canadian company, had flown out from Brisbane three of their senior employees to show us round the plant.

Martin Ackland: While you're filling those forms out I thought I would give you a bit of history of the Honeymoon Project. It was discovered in the 70's, it was developed and ready to go, and there was a fully approved EIS put out in 1982. The project was shut down as a result of the Labor Party's three mines policy. I understand last night there was some urban myths … pushed by the green groups that the process didn't work, it was out of control, and it was shut down by public opinion. That is errant nonsense, the facts of the matter on the files and with the South Australian government and the Labor Party of the time would dispute that, so that's one of the great urban myths that are going around the country-side. The reason I mention that, one of the people who were listening in to what was going on last night, and I'm not sure that you were all there. Um I just totally and utterly refute that particular point.

Ila Marks: Mining companies like to have their own particular version of history, but anti-nuclear groups, green groups and academics have theirs. Eric Miller asked Dennis Matthews of the Conservation Council of South Australia, he is a retired academic, and has been on the South Australian Radiation Protection Board. Eric asked him … why did the Honeymoon mine shut down in the early 80’s, when there was a pilot plant operating and a full Environmental Impact Statement has been passed?

Dennis Matthews: The State government closed it down which was a Labor government at the time, and it gave a number of reasons. But one of the major things was they struck problems with that ISL process, which is always a problem because it contaminates underground water. But they had blockages in their system and that meant they were not able to control the flow of the liquid, and further more they did not tell the Labor government they were having problems. But information was got to the state government about the problems this company was having. That was one of the most important things that influenced the State government. They also recognised the concern the public had that ISL, that underground process where you inject acid underground into the uranium ore, instead of bring to the surface, and general concern about uranium mining.

Ila Marks: Even if Martin Ackland is right, the three mines policy was brought in because of peoples' concerns about uranium mining and the nuclear industry. Back to Martin Ackland.

Martin Ackland: After the Howard government was re-elected and the three mines policy went out the door, we elected to resurrect this project. And in the interests of total transparency, and in spite the fact there is a fully approved EIS we are in fact re-publishing another one … it should come out in a couple on months. You, as all the population of Australia, have access to it and that will cover a myriad of details that go with projects like this.

On the technical side, the uranium that is in the Honeymoon deposit has been leached by way of an old paeleo channel that has been deposited where it is by weathering over millions of years. And we are in the process of re-mobilising that uranium by oxidising it, pumping it to the surface and selling it into the nuclear power business. That's our business and this operation will stop the emissions somewhere in the world as 33 million tones a year of carbon dioxide about a million tons a year of SO2 and million and a half ton of nitrous oxide. So while nuclear power may not be popular with you if people are worried about global warming I've got to tell you there is no alternative.

The alternative of a solar powered station out here would involve an area of about 60 kilometres by 20 kilometres of solar panels. And to power storage the only known way of storing power is in lead acid accumulated at the moment. So you would in fact be in a position where for a million tons of battery tons of batteries to get this thing going you would be replacing about a quarter of a million tons of lead acid batteries which in the parlance of many people is also toxic waste.

So all I say is when you look at nuclear power I don't think that there is any hope for the future if the world is going to continue to use power at the rate that it does. And nuclear power currently accounts of about 18 per cent of the worlds power and the carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere the moment would probably be about 450 ppm at the moment rather than 300 if these weren't operating. So that's just a little fact to reflect on. In the mean time I’m not about to try and convert you all we are here to tell you what we are doing, why we're doing it, and how we're doing it.

Ila Marks: I suppose Martin Ackland is talking about a photo electric solar power station equivalent to burning a 1,000 ton of uranium a year a year. But we agree that the amount of energy that the world uses has to be cut down.

Here Eric Miller asks Dennis Matthews if nuclear power is the answer to the greenhouse problems

Dennis Matthews: We have done without nuclear power in the past and I don't see why we can't do without it in the future. And nuclear powers not the answer to environmental problems like the greenhouse there is not point in solving one environmental problem, or trying to solve one environmental problem by imposing an even worse environmental problem. Out of the frying pan into the fire type of approach to the problem. So what needs to be done in terms of removing any dependants on nuclear electricity is to recognise first of all there are ways of producing electricity that are greenhouse friendly and are environmentally friendly in general. And that includes things that are now gaining considerable momentum like floatable tanks and wind power. There are ways of replacing electricity with other forms of energy for example heating water and other uses can be done with solar quite economically and then there is ways of doing without. That is being more efficient with the ways we use electricity.

Ila Marks: Solar power is used in different ways to nuclear power and coal power. You can put a photo electric cells on your roof or on a lamp post, or in a remote area to power a telephone or the lights on a rail crossing. You would not use nuclear of coal power in the same way. Back to Martin Ackland, Chief Executive Officer of Southern Cross Resources, who run the Honeymoon uranium pilot plant in northern South Australia. Then Pablo Vasquez, the Vice President of Operations, they explain what in situ leeching is: the mining method used at the Honeymoon plant to get at the uranium some 100 meters below the ground.

Martin Ackland: And when we have finish here within a few years of finishing the ground water and the conditions here will be such that no-one could detect that we have been here. We're not interested in the business of living in a muck heap and we are not in the business of creating one so at this stage of the game I will hand over to Pablo Vasquez.

Pablo Vasquez: In the area where we are at present you can see here in South Australia, and you can see that these red areas are know as palaeo channels. A palaeo channel is simply an old riverbed, we are talking about in geological times … those rivers essentially flowed north and of course the uranium has deposited along the old river channels. What that means is then that these old riverbeds and certain portions are mineralised with uranium. And the uranium has deposited itself, has precipitated, in those old riverbeds. What we are doing at the present as Martin pointed out we are actually reversing the process. We are adding oxygen to the water, and then we are bringing that solution to the surface and we are treating it. But for the solution to contain uranium it has to have a certain amount of sulphate. The basic chemistry of the leaching process is such that the oxygen mobilises the uranium, but then the uranium has to attack itself to something and there is where the sulphate comes in and there the use of sulphuric acid.

Now the solution that is extracted from the ground is brought to the surface. Then the solution is added to those two key components that are part of the face. The solution is given the necessary oxygen, returned to the ground. And then the oxygen starts mobilising the uranium. The uranium attaches to the sulphate, and then once the cycle has started, then the capture of uranium happens at the plant. The fluid then is stripped of its uranium component, its regenerated and then sent back to the formation. So in reality there is no real net consumption over one per cent that's withdrawn from the formation in this process. So the fluid that is extracted from the ground, brought to the plant and then returned to the ground. This process is repeated until the uranium values are depleted in the formation, or below an economic level at which point again the process here my cease. In terms of time it may take some order between six to eight months and it depends on a multitude of factors, such as the permeability of the formation and so on.

Martin Ackland: Let me just point out also when the oxygen is turned off and reducing conditions prevail then the ground water rapidly approaches equilibrium with what was already there. We have done substantial monitoring of the well field, modelling of the well field demonstrating …. what's happening in there and as I said earlier when we finish here basically it will be very difficult to determine that anyone has been here. I might also point out that the upper aquifer, the 10,000 parts per million material, also contains some uranium … which generates the water we use around the plant. So the we are not in business of using any water resources that can be used for stock to otherwise.

Ila Marks: So it sounds easy to just pump a liquid into the ground water, the uranium is dissolved and the water is pumped to the surface, the uranium is extracted, the liquid is returned to underground minus the uranium. Eric asked Dennis Matthews … If the difference between acid based in situ leeching and oxygen based in situ leaching was just semantics?

Dennis Matthews: Yeah, I think they are sensitive to the word acid because they realise that the public is sensitive to it and so then this is part of a strategy to try and stop the public from being alarmed at what they are doing. They used to call it the sulphate process in fact and now they are calling it the oxygen process. If it was only an oxygen process they would only need to pump oxygen under ground and they would not need any acid at all. The fact that they are pumping thousands of tons of acid, sulphuric acid under the ground. They need both they need the acid and the oxygen that forms a corrosive solution and what they are doing is in effect a corrosion process. They leach out the uranium. The trouble is with this particular corrosive solution they leach out a lot of other things as well as the uranium. A lot a toxic heavy metals.

Eric Miller: Now they said that it was only a small amount of acid they were using, A very weak solution. But over all they are going to use a lot of sulphuric acid?

Dennis Matthews: They are using a lot of sulphuric acid and the term weak is relative. If you compare the strength of their acid to the acidity of the underground water it's something like more than a hundred thousand times more acidic than the underground water. And what one has to focus on is not the terms weak or strong which are subjective but the total amount of acid they are putting underground - hundreds of thousands of tons. Then to look at the effect that has when they put it underground the effect is to dissolve a lot of toxic heavy metals which instead of treating them properly, extracting them above ground they are actually putting them straight back into the ground.

Eric Miller: That brings me onto the next question. They said that it was a closed system. And then once they took the oxygen out of the system the solids would precipitate out and form around the granules of sand, just like it was without the uranium.

Dennis Matthews: Yeah, well that claim has been made for a year or two now, and although challenged to give evidence to support that claim, they have not come up with any evidence. And I see from a theoretical point of view let alone a practical point of view I don't accept that. The acidity of the ground water will take a long time to return back to anywhere near normal and will probably never get back to normal. As shown by trials in the US where they have deliberately tried to flush the mining area with fresh water in order to flush out the acid and they were unable to do that. So the acidity will always remain high this means there will always be in solution much greater quantities of heavy metals and radioactive materials before they started mining.

Ila Marks: Dennis Matthews. … The mine operators were questioned further about the liquids poured back underground into the aquifers …. Back to Martin Ackland.

Martin Ackland: Well ….. lets be pretty careful about this, now consumption is probably a gram or two per litre and you run into pH we do mobilise in the course of thin minor amounts of other metals and you are probably concentrating on radium, I think that's one that's come up and that builds up in the solution because it is not removed. But all of those metals drop out when you return the pH, when the pH runs up again. They precipitate as the pH goes up, up to 6 and a half or seven and they come out and we have a wad analytical data, test data to indicate that that's happening. So, the popular myth that we are leaving a great pool of vast quantities of any metal you would like to mention is not supported by either the chemistry or the factual information. To get the acidity into perspective, around about a pH of two at two grams per litre … a bottle of red wine usually runs at about 8 grams per litre, just to get it into perspective. In total acidity So while we do have elevated levels at the end of a cycle on say radium, .. you might get a bit of zinc in it, there is some zinc in the deposit and that .. when we have got the pH back up it has all come out and gone back to where it was in the first place. …. . in two years you will be flat out detecting it"

Ila Marks: Overseas there has been damage done to aquifers and the environment by the loss of liquid, so there were questions asked about monitoring to detect any loss of corrosive liquid.

Martin Ackland: When you come out here and have a look at the holes we've got you will probably find there are three times the monitoring holes today that are actuarially in the demonstration well field ….. North, south, east and west … on a regular basis. We're required to do this. Just bare in mind that this business is the most regulated mining business in the world. We're not up here making assertions, we've got the Health Department on us, we've got the Feds and so on. And we're generating this information and we will continue to do, you know, and we don't have a problem with it.. ...

Pablo Vasquez: Just to give you a feeling …. on a localised basis, right at a perimeter within a 100 to 300 metres of where the leaching is taking place we have a ring of monitors, so that ring of monitors, monitors the water quality right immediately next to where leaching activities are happening. Beyond that we are also have regional wells and regional waters that we monitor on a regular basis. Those monitors wells that we're speaking both on upper aquifers as well as adjacent solutions to our mining activity. Those are monitored every two weeks. So we monitor those fortnightly, and you can appreciatively that's a pretty decent frequency. Now, there's different frequencies to which we have attached the monitoring of waters on a regional basis to ensure that there is absolutely no question about as to where our business has any impact on the surrounding aquifers at all.

Ila Marks: Eric Miller asked Dennis Matthews if the monitoring bores would detect any loss of liquid.

Dennis Matthews: They have to realise that those bore are there for their benefit, they're there to make sure that they use their acid efficiently, that they don't waste any of it. In other words there's no excursion of acid outside the mining area because that's just a waste from their point of view and cost them money. But those bores are not feet apart they're many, many metres apart, which means things can, material can of course get passed them. It's not like a fence. It's a limited number of monitoring bores around the area. But the thing that one should really concentration on is that solution may escaped from the area which is I say a commercial loss to them, but the fact that they are deliberating damaging, destroying in fact, the aquifer which they are mining. And that's the key problem is the deliberate destruction of a water body. A secondary problem is that that process may also contaminate other adjacent water bodies

Eric Miller: They said that the water bodies were saline and that they weren't any use to anyone. That they weren't any use so really they were damaging anything.

Dennis Matthews: No .. Twenty years ago one could have said that about all sorts of water bodies and now the mining companies are themselves using that water bodies because they purify it by reverse osmosis. What they are doing at places like Honeymoon and Beverley is so heavily contaminate that underground water that I don't think that there will be any technology around for the next hundred years which will purify that. Where as there is technology now and its improving all the time which will desalinate and purify the water which they are deliberately contaminating.

Eric Miller: Right, what we have really been talking about is just the mine and I suppose the real problem begins for the world once that uranium leaves our shores.

Dennis Matthews Yes, there are local, national and international ramifications of mining uranium, not the least of which of course, is that some of the uranium ends up in weapons. At the moment we have no real way of, safe way of handling that material and disposing of the waste products. We don't have the social and political systems to ensure its not made into nuclear weapons and other weapons being used in Kosovo and the Gulf War. So until have both social, scientific and political systems in place to deal with it, it should be left just where it is.

Cherrie: Thanks Ila and Eric for that report on the Honeymoon part of the Exposure Tour, now Ila, because you are sitting right next to me can you tell us more about the Exposure tour.

Ila Marks: Well, yes I'll tell more about what happened at Honeymoon … as you could hear it all happened in the middle of a sand storm and I could hear that sand storm blowing in the background when I was listening to that report again. When we were there Southern Cross Resources set up the industry talk and question sessions and that's where that dialogue came from. They took our visit very seriously, they flew out some of their top executes and engineers from Brisbane to speak to the students. And so they should take the student seriously because they are talented people and its people like these students that are going to close the mine. … Their actions that could lead to the closure of the mine.

First, in the promotional talk they tried to baffle us with science, and talk about technical matters. But the students were quite up to it and asked a lot of questions that showed that they weren't being thrown by the technical language and also they asked further questions to show that they did not think what Southern Cross Resources was saying was very convincing. And then, as you heard in the interview, in that session Eric later asked Dennis Matthew about some of the points raised by Honeymoon. That's how we put that little piece together.

Cherrie: Thanks, it sounds like it was a very valuable Tour, thanks very much.

That’s all from the Radioactive Show now being heard on the Community Radio Satellite Network.

The Radioactive Show is produced in studios of 3CR. You are able to contact us if you have an issue you want raised or any comments about the programs, you will find us at ra3cr@hotmail.com. And of course our web address www.sea-us.org.au.

Eric Miller: And good bye from Eric,

Ila Marks: And Ila

Cherrie: And Cherrie

Transcript produced by Ila Marks - with much thanks!!!
Page last updated September 1, 1999.
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