BY ALEX MILNE

Work is continuing at the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor, despite calls for the government to reconsider the project after an earthquake fault line was discovered there.

The fault was found during a routine examination at the reactor excavation site in south-western Sydney. Peter Russell, spokesperson for the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, the federal government agency responsible for the reactor, said a full report would not be available for several weeks, but maintained that the nuclear reactor “will proceed at the site — there's no doubt about that”.

Science minister Peter McGauran played down the discovery, urging the community to wait until scientists had delivered their full report. “It appears that everything was done by the book and this setback was entirely unpredictable”, McGauran said. “These issues will be quickly resolved and the project will proceed posthaste.”

Democrats Senator Natasha Stott Despoja said, “It beggars belief that this kind of basic information was not found as part of the lengthy, but obviously not very effective, assessment and approval processes. The Australian community was told that safety and health concerns are paramount, while the reality is entirely different. Lucas Heights may be the most mismanaged development in Australia.”

The Labor Party called on the federal government's nuclear regulator, the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency, to immediately state everything it knows about the fault line. “There is a proposal to build a nuclear reactor … on an earthquake fault line, that's a matter I think of deep concern to the citizens of Sydney”, said Kim Carr, Labor's spokesperson on science.

Sydney has never been struck by a serious earthquake, but a strong 5.6 magnitude quake shook the city of Newcastle, 150 kilometres to the north, in 1989, causing widespread damage and killing 13 people. In February, a 3.8 magnitude quake hit Wollongong, only about 50 kilometres south of the reactor site and was felt in southern Sydney. No damage was reported.

The new $300 million reactor was approved in April by the federal government, despite protests about safety from environmentalists and residents living nearby. The reactor will produce radioactive materials for medicine and science but will not generate electricity. It is being built near an ageing reactor that will be decommissioned once the new reactor starts work in 2005.

From Green Left Weekly, July 3, 2002.
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