Probe into uranium mine leak continues ABC News Oct 20, 2009 The Commonwealth supervising scientist of the Ranger uranium mine at Kakadu National Park says investigations are continuing into water contamination at the site. Alan Hughes has told a Senate estimates committee that Energy Resources of Australia has conducted geophysical surveys to determine the impact and extent of leaking from a tailings dam at the mine.Mr Hughes says the company has only preliminary results from the surveys and is not sure if ERA will make the findings public……………….Greens Senator Scott Ludlam is demanding the report be made public as soon as possible.
“We don’t think those sort of reports should be internal,” Senator Ludlam said. “We think that should clearly be in the public domain.
“If the company has any further results or information or monitoring results, we certainly think they should be released when they are ready.”
Probe into uranium mine leak continues – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
Tags: antinuclear, Australia, nuclear, nuclear issues, radiation, radioactive wastes, uranium, water
November 2, 2009 at 12:14 am |
I wonder how long this leak has been going on for? Of course the aquifers are flushed every Wet season, and although solid material may remain relatively localised, the liberated radioactive components do not. And as if the mine would tell us any more than it has too. Ask the people who eat off the Oenpelli flood plain. They’ll tell you the food dosn’t taste right. It has less flavour, it doesn’t feel right. I got this first hand.
Behind this is a litany of events that Ranger couldn’t hide, clearly showing the mines lack of compliance to protect Kakadu and the people who still live there. Of course this would be expected of a commercial enterprise, which is why the OSS was set up. However, since it’s establishment, the OSS (and ERISS) has suffered decreasing staff and resources whilst trying to cope with an ever expanding charter.
The notion that radioactive elements can be safely stored in a “containment dam” is ludicrous to say the least. I can say this because no mine in the world has ever done it without incident. So why push the barrow? Because proper containment would instantly plummet the company into debt, and the paltry fines and loss of public confidence don’t cost anywhere near as much.
The ironic thing is that the radioactive waste products produced by mining uranium have been shown to have a most insidious range of biological uptake mechanisms. This is conveniently hidden by both a time lapse between exposure and symptoms, and the inability to link an abnormality or a cancer etc. with an exposure event. Remember, one in two men, and one in three women be diagnosed with cancer sometime in their life – and the incidence is rising.
Of course none of these things can be attributed to Ranger Uranium Mine…but then, who says??? The mine? The OSS? press them enough and they will tell you, as they told me, “we can’t look at everything”, which leaves a disturbing amount of questions about the whole thing. Read the OSS Annual Reports – Environmental Monitoring sections, and you will see what I mean.
Cheers to all.