Legal challenge against reactor

BY JIM GREEN

SYDNEY — Greenpeace is legally challenging the construction license granted for the new nuclear reactor, to be built at Lucas Heights in Sydney's southern suburbs. A Federal Court hearing has been scheduled in May.

The basis of the legal challenge is that the regulatory agency, the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA), had no right to issue a construction licence with so many radioactive waste management issues unresolved. ARPANSA issued a construction licence on April 5.

The challenge affects both ARPANSA and the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO), which wants to build the reactor.

Greenpeace nuclear campaigner James Courtney said, "There are serious problems with ANSTO's nuclear waste management strategy. The waste produced by the new reactor can't be reprocessed in France, it's illegal to send it to Argentina and no state in Australia will accept the waste for storage".

In issuing the licence, ARPANSA chief executive John Loy acted against the advice of his own Nuclear Safety Committee, which concluded in a recent report that "there has been insufficient evidence ... that systems for managing radioactive wastes are acceptable and in line with world's best practice".

From Green Left Weekly, April 24, 2002.

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From GLW issue 489