Nuclear waster dump: 10 reasons for a referendum
By Jim Green
1. Sydneysiders have been told that long-lived intermediate-level nuclear wastes — including reprocessing wastes from the nuclear reactor in Lucas Heights — will definitely be stored in South Australia. South Australians are told these wastes might be stored in another state.
2. Senator Nick Minchin, federal minister for industry, science and resources, says the proposed storage site for intermediate-level wastes does not have to be in operation until 2015, but the federal environment department says it will be in operation by 2005.
3. The federal government claims that the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor in suburban Sydney is responsible for a minority of the radioactive wastes to be sent to the planned dump; the director of waste management at Lucas Heights admits the plant will provide "the major fraction".
4. Nuclear fuel reprocessing has been legally prohibited in Australia, so why is it acceptable for spent fuel from Lucas Heights to be "reprocessed" in Europe?
5. Minchin says, "Each nation should look after its own waste", so how can it justify sending the Lucas Heights spent fuel overseas?
6. Minchin says there is no contingency plan in the event that overseas reprocessing options for spent reactor fuel (as has happened in the past) fall through, but government departments and agencies have openly stated that there is a contingency plan — dump the spent fuel in SA. The department of industry, science and resources has said the store for long-lived wastes will not be designed to store spent fuel, thus there must be another contingency — indefinite storage at Lucas Heights.
7. The government says that reprocessing spent fuel in Australia is off the agenda, but a senior government bureaucrat said on ABC radio (29/3/98) that reprocessing is "an issue for another generation. Someone else can worry about it. And reprocessing is an option then."
8. The government claims to be open in its dealings on nuclear issues, but a senior government bureaucrat said on ABC radio (29/3/98) that the government's strategy to handle people concerned about the plan for a new reactor is "to starve the opponents of oxygen ... play the game and catch them totally unawares ... just keep them in the dark completely".
9. The government has tried to short-circuit the "thin edge of the wedge" argument by claiming that "a limit on total radionuclide activity" for the SA dump will be established, but the government refuses to say what the limit will be.
10. Minchin says that concerns about an underground dump for low-level wastes becoming the thin edge of the wedge reflect some people's "mindless determination" to stop any dump being built, yet government departments and agencies openly state that intermediate-level wastes will be dumped in SA, that the Lucas Heights reactors will be dismantled and dumped in SA, that there is a contingency plan to dump spent fuel directly in SA, and that a spent fuel reprocessing plant may be built in 10-20 years' time.