Woomera nuclear dump provides 'opportunities'

BY JIM GREEN

On July 26,
the federal government released a draft environmental impact statement
about the planned national radioactive waste dump near Woomera in South
Australia — and a fine farce the EIS is, too.

The government claims that the approval and licensing process for the
dump is both “comprehensive and rigorous”. However, the government itself
will “review” and then rubber-stamp the EIS. It is nothing more than an
expensive, bureaucratic whitewash.

The EIS begins with: “No warranty or guarantee, whether expressed or
implied, is made with respect to the information reported or to the findings,
observations or conclusions expressed in this EIS.” In other words, don't
believe a word of it.

The report skates over the alleged “need” for a national dump, stating
that: “A national repository is required to dispose of Australia's accumulated
and expected future low level and short-lived intermediate level radioactive
waste. Without a national repository, radioactive waste would continue
to be stored in over 100 sites around Australia, largely in facilities
that were not purpose built. This poses potential public health and safety
risks, including possible theft or misuse by terrorists.”

That rationale ignores numerous points. Even with a national dump, most
of these 100 sites — comprising hospitals, research institutions, and industry
and government stores — will remain as radioactive-waste storage sites
(even if only for interim storage pending transfer to the dump). So inadequate
storage arrangements ought to be improved whether or not the Woomera dump
proceeds.

In some cases, waste is being more or less adequately managed and the
advantages of moving it to a centralised dump are outweighed by the risks
associated with moving it. Waste is usually best managed at the site it
is produced because that minimises transport risks. It also encourages
less radioactive waste production.

The EIS does not justify the proposal for an underground dump as opposed
to above-ground storage. Advantages of above-ground storage can include
easier monitoring and problem fixing.

The EIS invokes the threat of nuclear terrorism — and specifically mentions
the September 11 attacks in the United States — to justify a centralised
dump. However, terrorists would have no interest in the relatively small
radioactive inventories stored at more than 100 sites around Australia
(nor is a dump at Woomera likely to pose a terrorist target).

The EIS provides nothing more than an “indicative design” and “preliminary
design layout” of the planned dump, along with an “indicative borehole
design”. While identifying “operational hazards” associated with the dump,
it dismisses them with the assertion, “Appropriate procedures would be
developed to address these issues”.

For some years the government has tried to deny that, once the dump
is established, more waste than is currently proposed could be stored there
by asserting that a “total radionuclide inventory” will be established.
However, the EIS does not specify the limit, stating only that it will
be established by the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety
Agency (ARPANSA).

The EIS attempts to justify the dump with vague references to the “national
interest” and tenuous, inaccurate attempts to link the dump to the production
of medical radioisotopes. The EIS says that the Australian Nuclear Science
and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) estimates that “in 2000-01 there were
about 525,000 people in Australia who underwent a nuclear medicine procedure
for the treatment of medical conditions such as cancer”. The real figure
is 50-100 times lower.

The EIS reveals that more than three quarters of the waste to be trucked
to Woomera — including dismantled nuclear reactors — will come from ANSTO's
reactor plant in the southern Sydney suburb of Lucas Heights.

Woomera residents might take some comfort if, as the government claims,
the region was found to be the safest site for a dump on scientific criteria.
But it was not. The government's own siting study found equally suitable
geology in the Olary region of western New South Wales. The Olary region
also has the advantage of being closer than Woomera to the main waste source
— ANSTO's reactor plant.

The dump proposal could not possibly survive a risk-benefit analysis
because the project will provide no benefits whatsoever to Woomera.

Radioactive racism

The EIS says: “The siting phase has involved consultation with Aboriginal
groups on heritage, and the engagement of relevant individuals and advisers
to report on the heritage values of possible sites. Further opportunities
for the involvement of Aboriginal people may be available during the construction
stage, including involvement in fencing or other works, or through site
visits.”

Aboriginal groups are overwhelmingly — perhaps unanimously — opposed
to the dump. The federal government has attempted a number of manoeuvres
to override Aboriginal opposition to the dump. One ploy in the late 1990s
was to negotiate with some Aboriginal groups but not others, but widespread
opposition nullified that manoeuvre.

Another ploy — this one more successful — was to threaten to compulsorily
acquire the land short-listed for the dump. Aboriginal groups gave permission
for test drilling on short-listed sites in the late 1990s, but only because
they were between “a rock and a hard place” according to Stewart Motha
from the Aboriginal Legal Rights Movement. “If Aboriginal groups do get
involved in clearances [for test drilling] they face the possibility that
the government will point to that involvement as an indication of consent
for the project. If they refuse to participate, who will protect Aboriginal
heritage, dreaming and sacred sites?”

Missiles

The preferred site for the dump is in the Woomera Prohibited Area owned
by the federal defence department, which is just three kilometres from
the Range E target. The EIS states that the risk of missiles inadvertently
striking the dump is “medium” using a US Department of Defense methodology.
The EIS says that “larger or higher velocity weapons may strike with sufficient
kinetic energy to penetrate the five metre soil cover of the waste”.

These risks were highlighted by a failed rocket test on July 14 at Woomera.
In October 2001, an experimental supersonic scramjet launched at Woomera
veered off course and crashed.

The EIS says that the defence department “advises that there are on
average 60 weapons firings per year that could potentially strike the repository”.
According to state Labor MP Lyn Breuer, whose electorate covers Woomera,
defence personnel have privately expressed concern about the potential
impact of storing radioactive waste near the rocket range.

The staging of an automatic landing flight experiment at Woomera by
the Japanese government in 1996 was delayed due to concerns about nuclear
waste stored near Woomera.

One of the many problems with the latest “clean-up” of the Maralinga
nuclear weapons testing site in north-western South Australia was the failure
to establish “waste acceptance criteria” before vitrifying contaminated
debris. The EIS justifying the Woomera dump defines waste acceptance criteria
as “the set of requirements that must be met before radioactive waste can
be accepted for disposal”, but it fails to specify the criteria, merely
asserting that they “would be developed for the facility before operations
begin”.

Nuclear engineer Alan Parkinson, who was involved in the Maralinga “clean-up”
until his criticisms of the project saw him removed from it in December
1997, has drawn a parallel to the planned dump.

“The disposal of radioactive waste in Australia is ill-considered and
irresponsible”, Parkinson wrote in the August edition of Australasian
Science. “Whether it is short-lived waste from Commonwealth facilities,
long-lived plutonium waste from an atomic-bomb test site on Aboriginal
land, or reactor waste from Lucas Heights. The government applies double
standards to suit its own agenda; there is no consistency, and little evidence
of logic.”

Many of the individuals and organisations involved in the Maralinga
“clean-up” are also involved in the planned Woomera dump. These include
federal government bureaucrats, construction company GHD, and the puppet
regulator ARPANSA:

lBureaucrats: Parkinson wrote in the February
2002 Medicine and Global Survival: “The public servants responsible
for the last years of the [Maralinga] project had no background in radiation
or project management, as is illustrated by several statements they made
on the public record, asking, for example, what was meant by alpha radiation,
or how to convert a milliSievert (a unit of radiation dose) to a picoCurie
(a unit of radioactivity), or claiming that soda ash is neutralized by
limestone.”

lGHD: Construction company GHD played a
major role in the botched Maralinga “clean-up” and has also won a contract
with the federal government as private project manager and community consultation
manager for the planned radioactive waste dump. GHD's role as “community
consultation manager” is particularly ironic given that it refused media
requests to respond to criticisms of the Maralinga “clean-up” and has threatened
a critic of the “clean-up” with a defamation suit for putting Alan Parkinson's
critique of the company's work on a website.

lARPANSA: ARPANSA is described as the “Commonwealth's
independent regulator” in the EIS, but it is not independent and has not
shown itself much inclined to regulate. ARPANSA is too close to government
— it is effectively a government agency. It is also too close to ANSTO,
with six former ANSTO staff working for ARPANSA and ANSTO having a direct
role in the selection of the chief executive of ARPANSA.

Public comments on the draft EIS will be accepted until September 20.
The EIS is on the internet at <http://www.dest.gov.au/radwaste/DraftEIS>.
Hard copies can be purchased for $50 from Australian government bookshops
(phone 132 447). A summary can be purchased for $2.50.

From Green Left Weekly, August 7, 2002.

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