urg:::SA/NSW radwaste

[Jim Green]

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Who wants Sydney's nuclear waste?
Sydney Morning Herald.
June 25 2002
The search for a desert dumping ground for Sydney's nuclear waste pits state
against state. But nobody wants it in their backyard, writes Stephanie
Peatling.
South Australia's history affords residents greater familiarity than most
with the pros and cons of radioactive material. They have the Honeymoon,
Roxby Downs and Beverley uranium mines and older generations lived through
British nuclear testing out in the desert at Maralinga in 1956-57.
Many, led by the Federal Government, would argue such experiences make South
Australia the perfect place for the dump site for waste from Sydney's Lucas
Heights reactor.
Just as many, including the South Australian Government and 76 per cent of
the population last time anyone checked, say the Maralinga experience in
particular has taught them that this time they should just say no.
The federal and state governments are staring each other down as Canberra
eyes three sites near Woomera for a repository for low-level nuclear waste.
Meanwhile, the South Australian Government is pushing through legislation
that would make such a construction illegal.
The state's Environment Minister, John Hill, has been campaigning against
the waste dump for years and cannot think of another issue that would merit
the recent headline in the local paper: "Opposition to nuclear dump eases -
76 per cent still against". He is overseeing the passage through the South
Australian Parliament of the Nuclear Waste Storage Facility Prohibition
Amendment Bill. Progress is slow because just about every member of the
Parliament wants to say something about it.
The bill sets out to do three things: ban the building of a low-level waste
repository; outlaw the transportation of radioactive waste from interstate
or overseas in South Australia with the purpose of sending it to a waste
dump in South Australia; and make any Federal Government move to establish a
dump the trigger for a referendum on the issue.
South Australia is confident all its bases are covered, particularly since
it already has laws banning the construction of a medium- to high-level
waste storage facility. (The Federal Government is also casting around for a
site for one of them.)
While South Australians have taken an active role in the anti-nuclear fight,
their counterparts in NSW are noticeably quieter. Apart from environmental
and local groups around Lucas Heights, there is not much interest.
Even last week's discovery of a fault line underneath the site for the
replacement reactor was not enough to draw the Premier, Bob Carr, out. His
Environment Minister, Bob Debus, will write to the federal Science Minister,
Peter McGauran, seeking a full explanation.
Perhaps South Australia's new parcel of laws will spark some interest since
the waste from Lucas Heights has to go somewhere and if it does not end up
in South Australia then a site in the spinifex called Olary, near Broken
Hill, is high on the list of suitable locations.
While Debus was concerned about last week's fault line discovery, his
spokeswoman was pragmatic: "We don't want to raise people's expectations
that we can do something about it because it is a Commonwealth project and
there's not much we can do to stop them."
Most people seem to take the same attitude - they are concerned about a
nuclear facility in their backyard but, since construction on the
replacement HIFAR reactor has already begun, they feel there is little they
can do.
Although this is true of the construction of the reactor, the choice of the
site for the dumping of waste from Lucas Heights is far from settled. The
Carr Government frequently points out it has already legislated against a
dump and adds that the Federal Government has promised the people of NSW
they will not have to suffer the twin penalties of a reactor and a dump.
But the NSW Greens claim there is a loophole in the law. One of the Greens'
two upper house MPs, Lee Rhiannon, says the NSW Uranium Mining and Nuclear
Facilities (Prohibitions) Act 1986 prohibits building or operating a nuclear
waste facility and associated storage facilities unless they are operated by
the Commonwealth, which is what the Lucas Heights dump site would be.
Rhiannon has a private member's bill waiting for a hearing which would
remove this exemption as well as stop the transportation of nuclear waste
for dumping purposes. "Even if the second reactor is abandoned, Lucas
Heights will remain a key nuclear hot spot for hundreds of years because of
its radioactive waste, the unused uranium fuel rods and the irradiated
building itself," she says.
"NSW Labor is under increased pressure to formulate an ecologically aware
position since the election of Labor Premier Mike Rann in South Australia.
Bob Carr's spin policy of avoiding the Lucas Heights issue makes insiders in
the movement question his green credentials."
For their part, South Australian anti-nuclear campaigners are puzzled why
their cousins in NSW are not fighting harder. The Australian Conservation
Foundation's anti-nuclear campaigner in Adelaide, David Noonan, thinks NSW
has its head in the sand when it comes to the question of where the dump
will be.
"South Australia has the full support of the community and their government
to fight the Federal Government and what does NSW have? People in NSW have
to expect the transport corridors will never get out of the state. They
won't go past Broken Hill but will stop west of the Darling."
Hill says his constituents are all too familiar with the reality of allowing
anything nuclear into the state.
"What Maralinga taught us was that you can't trust the people who say [a
dump site] is foolproof," he says. "We have our own examples where so-called
best technology has left behind problems and that was only 50 years ago.
What the Federal Government wants to dump in South Australia will be around
for 250 million years."
Hill and his Premier campaigned hard on the issue in last year's state
election. They also extracted a promise from federal Labor that it would
back South Australia's opposition to the project.
Federal Labor's new environment spokesman, Kelvin Thomson, says the party
remains committed to that promise.
While South Australia is agitating against the waste dump, the Federal
Government is taking its time issuing an environmental impact statement for
the eight sites it has identified as suitable.
With the EIS also will come the release of the transport corridors that
would carry the waste from Lucas Heights to the dump site.
The EIS has been imminent for some time, with reports suggesting it was due
out in May, then by the end of June, and now there are whispers it might not
be until after July. By then South Australia is betting that its laws will
be in place and it is at this point that the conspiracy theory kicks in.
If South Australia has outlawed the dumping of nuclear waste within its
borders, this leaves the Federal Government with two options: put the waste
somewhere else or override the state's laws.
John Hill is talking tough but knows all the state laws in the world would
come to nothing if the Federal Government set its heart on locating the
waste dump somewhere near Woomera.
The three sites - one called Evatts Field West to the north-west of Woomera
and two others in the north-east - are all on land which could be acquired
under the Land Acquisition Act.
"There is nothing we can do legally if they do want to put it in South
Australia," Hill says. "But we will pursue them politically."
What Hill hopes will be the more persuasive part of the new law is the
provision that any move the Federal Government makes a move to establish a
waste site in South Australia would act as a trigger for a referendum.
"The [South Australian] Government, the media, the traditional owners and
the community would all be familiar with the `no' case and the Prime
Minister and his ministers would be forced to come here to argue the `yes'
case. We are prepared to hold that referendum one week before the next
federal election and fight it in that context," Hill says.
The ACF is readying for a fight over states' rights. As Noonan says, what
does a community have to do to convince the Federal Government that it does
not want the dump?
"States' rights is a huge issue as is environmental democracy. Do a
community and a state have the right to say `no' to a nuclear industry?"
Whatever the answer to that question, South Australia has decided it might
as well make some noise.