By Jim Green
The federal government has developed a plan to dump radioactive waste in the Billa Kalina region of South Australia. The 67,000 sq km area, in the mid-north of SA, includes the towns of Roxby Downs, Andamooka, and Woomera.
The dump will consist of one or more trenches, less than 20 metres deep, which will take low-level and short-lived intermediate level radioactive waste. The site may also house an above-ground "interim" storage facility for long-lived intermediate level waste.
The government hopes to begin construction of the dump in the year 2000. A "community consultative phase" is under way, which is likely to throw up some political obstacles.
There is the promise of an assessment under the federal Environmental Protection (Impact of Proposals) Act 1974; most likely this will involve a sham assessment.
In 1994 and again in 1995, the federal ALP government approved the relocation of significant quantities of radioactive waste from the eastern states to Defence Department land at Woomera, and refused to conduct an environmental impact assessment. Sure enough, liquid was found to be leaking from a drum containing radioactive soil while it was being trucked from Lucas Heights to Woomera.
The link between nuclear medicine and radioactive waste has been grossly overstated. In reality, the main generators of waste in Australia are, in order: the uranium industry, the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO), industrial users of isotopes, and the health-care system.
Leaving aside uranium waste, which is managed (or mismanaged) on site, there is about 3500 cubic metres of radioactive waste; the stockpile grows by about 60 cubic metres each year. The waste is currently stored in more than 50 locations, though ANSTO holds by far the largest store at Lucas Heights. Western Australia has a centralised facility, but it accepts only waste produced in that state.
Dumps and storage
The government likes to play a silly semantic game, distinguishing disposal in a dump from above-ground storage and claiming that the latter would impose an "unnecessary burden of management on future generations".
But it is precisely for the sake of future generations that we should oppose a national dump. Radioactive waste should be stored in above-ground dry storage facilities at the point of production/use. These are the reasons:
- producers/users are forced to deal with their own mess, and will therefore minimise radioactive waste production;
- on-site storage means no transport of radioactive waste;
- it is much easier to monitor above-ground stores; and
- if problems are discovered, such as compromised containment vessels, there is a much better chance of effective remedial action.
The government says current stockpiles of radioactive waste are potentially subject to vandalism, accidents, abandonment, the vagaries of climate and degradation of packaging. True, but some of these problems could be exacerbated by a national dump.
The government says that workers responsible for monitoring and maintenance of stockpiles may be exposed to radiation. But workers at a centralised dump might be subject to greater doses of radiation. And what breathtaking hypocrisy, given the expansion of the uranium industry, the plan to build another nuclear reactor and Australian guidelines which allow twice the exposure as do UK guidelines.
Another reason given for the national dump is that many small generators of radioactive waste, such as hospitals and universities, are not equipped to manage its storage. This raises the question as to whether these institutions are equipped to be dealing with radioactive materials in the first place.
That said, on-site storage must be waived in some cases because of practical considerations — one example is a disused incinerator room in the State Government Offices in Melbourne. But exemptions to the on-site principle would not justify a national dump.
Crash through
Through the 1980s, all state governments supported the idea of a national dump — but not in their state. In the early 1990s, the federal ALP government was threatening to seize land for a dump if the stalemate continued.
The strategy has been to find a state government which is (or may be) compliant, and then to use a crash-through-or-crash approach to force a dump on the local community.
In some respects, the strategy is working. The SA Liberal government supports the proposal, reversing its previous strong opposition. No doubt the re-election of the SA Liberals less than six months ago has dulled their sensitivities to community concern.
Keith Greenfield, a station owner/manager in the region, told the Adelaide Advertiser: "I'm happy with it .... As long as it's low-level and is in secure storage."
Don't bet on either. It is openly acknowledged by the federal government that the site may also host Category S waste — classified as high-level waste in the USA and some other countries — such as concreted waste returned from Scotland after the reprocessing of spent fuel rods from the Lucas Heights reactor.
The dump might take components from the Lucas Heights HIFAR reactor when it is eventually decommissioned. If a new reactor is built, it is likely that its spent fuel will be transported to the national dump.
Conceivably, the Billa Kalina region could host a reprocessing plant, the main purpose of which would be to trial the Synroc waste immobilisation technology, under development for the past 20 years. The possibilities are endless: the idea of using Synroc to treat imported radioactive waste has some support within the nuclear industry, one nuclear cowboy claiming this would create "giga-dollars and kilo-jobs".
To head off the thin-end-of-the-wedge argument, the federal government's Bureau of Resource Scientists says that "a limit on total radionuclide activity for the proposed disposal facility will be established". When that limit is reached, a future government will have two options: increase the limit and expand the dump; or establish a new dump. The first option would be attractive given the political and financial costs of the second.
As for security of storage, the Bureau of Resource Scientists says that an engineered cover will be designed so that "very little if any water will percolate down to the depth of the buried waste". How much is "very little", and might it amount to "very much" over a period of time? Is there a risk that contaminated water will find its way into streams used by humans and animals? How will the dump handle severe weather?
There are literally dozens of unanswered questions on other aspects of the plan, such as packaging and storage of waste prior to and following transport to the dump; the nature and route of transport; the nature and time-frame for monitoring of the dump; operation by private or public agencies; and regulation by state or commonwealth agencies.
The international experience — glossed over in the government's propaganda — is that efforts to establish dumps have been notoriously slow and contentious. Recent protests in Germany over the shipment of radioactive waste provide a salient example. Surveys indicate that dumps are feared even more than nuclear power stations. A French survey found that 94% of respondents would not live near a nuclear waste disposal site.
In Australia, efforts to centralise radioactive waste storage have historically generated fierce opposition, not just from the environmental and anti-nuclear campaigners but also from landowners, local residents, local government and sometimes business. The South Australian ALP opposition, Democrats and various environmental and anti-nuclear groups have expressed opposition to the current plan.
One of the site-selection criteria for the dump is that it should not be located in an area where land ownership rights or control could jeopardise long-term control. However, this criterion has not yet been considered.
A number of Aboriginal groups live in the Billa Kalina region — the Kuyani, Barngarla, Kokatha, Arabunna and the Nukunu. Most of these groups are represented on the Port Augusta Native Title Working Party, which has already met with the federal Department of Primary Industries and Energy several times to discuss the proposed dump.
Andrew Starkey, a member of the working party and spokesperson for the Kokatha People's Committee, says that a number of native title claims are pending on land in the Billa Kalina region.
How can the existence of native title claims be squared with the site-selection criterion concerning long-term control? "A very good question", I was told by the Department of Primary Industries and Energy, but there isn't a very good answer. Native title claims could be jeopardised by the dump.
ANSTO's interest
The government's propaganda fails to mention the main reason for establishing a national dump. Richard Mills from Greenpeace characterises the planned dump as a "clearing exercise" for ANSTO.
ANSTO plans to move most or all of its radioactive waste to the remote dump, or to the USA and Scotland in the case of spent fuel rods. The removal of radioactive waste from Lucas Heights will make it easier to overcome public opposition to the planned new reactor.
ANSTO has played a significant role in the whole exercise, both as Australia's biggest producer of radioactive waste (excluding uranium mines) and as a technical adviser to the government on radioactive waste strategies. ANSTO has a simple policy on radioactive waste: out of sight, out of mind.
Such is ANSTO's clout that when it was directed by the NSW Land and Environment Court not to store radioactive waste of non-ANSTO origin, and to remove 2000 cubic metres of CSIRO-origin radioactive waste, the federal ALP government enacted the ANSTO Amendment Act 1992. This made ANSTO immune from NSW laws on land use, environment protection and sundry other matters.
The Liberal Party supported this legislation — so much for "states' rights". It is possible that if ANSTO is designated as the proponent of the SA dump, the ANSTO Amendment Act could be invoked to override state opposition.