Slap on the wrist for ERA

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Slap on the wrist for ERA

Kathy Newnam, Darwin

The Ranger uranium mine operator, Energy Resources Australia, has received a $150,000 fine by the Darwin Magistrates Court for breaching the Mining Management Act. ERA pleaded guilty to the charges, which relate to incidents at the Ranger mine in 2003-2004.

In March 2004, 28 mine workers were exposed to water containing uranium. The water's radioactivity was 400 times the legal limit.

In another incident, a vehicle that was contaminated with partially processed ore was taken off the mine site for repairs. The vehicle had undergone two routine inspections that had failed to detect the material. The CDEP (Aboriginal work-for-the-dole) worker who took it off site, unaware of the nature of the material, swept it out of his shed after it fell from the engine bay. His children subsequently built sand castles that included the radioactive material.

Commenting on these incidents, anti-nuclear activist and Northern Territory Greens member Justin Tutty said: "Ranger is the world's most closely monitored uranium mine. The unique World Heritage status of the surrounding Kakadu National Park, and the politically scandalous manner in which the lease for the mine was extracted from traditional owners, has ensured a level of ongoing scrutiny and inquiry which the nuclear industry generally evades. If things can go so wrong at Ranger, just how are Australia's other uranium mines performing?"

Environmentalists have pointed out that the fine is nothing more than a slap on the wrist for ERA. NT Environment Centre spokesperson Peter Robertson said, "It is just disappointing that the fine wasn't more commensurate with the seriousness of the breach".

According to Tutty, the fine would be "would be shrugged off as the price of a license to pollute by ERA, who earned $38.6 million in after-tax profits last financial year".

From Green Left Weekly, June 8, 2005.

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From GLW issue 629