Scott Ludlam, 10 Oct 11, The Federal Government’s approval of the Olympic Dam expansion will see the creation of a carcinogenic mountain range of finely powdered radioactive waste in South Australia, the Greens warned today. Australian Greens spokesperson for nuclear issues Senator Scott Ludlam said the proposed expansion of the BHP Billiton site to will be a disaster for the environment, human health and local jobs.

“BHP Billiton has designed a world’s-worst-practice uranium mine. Today the Federal Government has approved it. Instead of burying the radioactive tailings waste in a properly lined pit, BHP Billiton will dump 70 million tonnes of finely powdered radioactive tailings over an area of 44sq km. That isn’t a radioactive waste heap – that’s a radioactive waste mountain range.

“The so-called environment conditions are hopeless – there’s no requirement for this tailing heap to be covered while the mine operates, and it is to operate for at least another thirty years. ”The new open pit will leak up to 8 million litres of liquid radioactive waste a day by 2020 from the tailings storage facility.

In the final Environmental Impact Statement BHP Billiton has acknowledged that the expanded mine will generate at least 4.1 million tonnes of greenhouse gas emissions per year for decades.  BHP will dig a million tonnes a day for four years before they even get to the uranium orebody – burning an estimated six billion dollars worth of diesel in the process.

“There is an alternative model that would see a lower greenhouse footprint and skilled jobs retained in South Australia. A peer-reviewed study by Monash University’s Dr Gavin Mudd demolished the myth that uranium is central to the mine’s expansion. His model for the expansion is safer, would use much less water and energy, and would mean more jobs and greater economic return for the local economy.

“The Federal Government has decided they want to keep exporting local jobs to China while leaving South Australia with a toxic legacy.” Dr Mudd’s report: http://users.monash.edu.au/~gmudd/files/ODam-Cu-only.pdf

Superdumps are huge dams that store toxic waste form the smaller, historical dumps that are reprocessed for gold and uranium.

(South Africa) Radioactive spillages condemn farmlandAugust 31 2011  IOL Science Tech, By Sheree Bega INDEPENDENT NEWSPAPERS Johan Kondos can only use a small portion of his land to grow lucerne.   “……This lone field, and a few beloved cattle, is all Kondos has left of his farm in Hartbeesfontein in the North West.

Like many of his neighbours, he blames surrounding mining operations for contaminating his farm, situated about 5km from the Vaal River.

“Some of the pollution is historic but some of it is so recent, it’s still wet,” he explains.

“I’ve had calves born with two heads on my farm. At one time I was having 70 percent abortions and very high mortality with my animals. They drank from the Koekemoerspruit and ate the lucerne I produced.

He blames the recent toxic and radioactive spillages on Mine Waste Solutions, a subsidiary of Canadian First Uranium, which is reprocessing mining waste from 15 old slimes dams – some of which are located on his expansive farm – in the Klerksdorp area.

As part of this, the company is also constructing a controversial central tailings storage facility, or superdump, about 2km from the Vaal River, touting it as a model rehabilitation plan, where the mining waste from the 15 tailings dams is piped. Superdumps are huge dams that store toxic waste form the smaller, historical dumps that are reprocessed for gold and uranium.

In July, the National Nuclear Regulator (NNR) shut down Mine Waste Solutions’ operations after its inspection revealed spillages and leakages of tailings materials along the company’s extensive pipeline and on the properties of farmers like Kondos.

But a week later, Mine Waste Solutions was back on line, stating it said it had been given conditional approval to restart operations provided it follow an “enhanced pipeline maintenance programme” and submit monthly reports.

Radioactive spillages condemn farmland – IOL SciTech | IOL.co.za

Mr Mudd says a higher dam wall will mean the company will have even more radioactive water to process.

“In that sense it is still the temporary, sort of step-by-step measures,”

Ranger uranium waste water treatment plan attacked, ABC News, By Jane Bardon, 5 July 11   An environmental engineer says Energy Resources of Australia (ERA) should not have reopened its uranium mine within Kakadu National Park last month without committing to a waste water treatment plan.

The company had to stop processing uranium ore for five months during the Northern Territory wet season because its radioactive tailings dam got too close to capacity.

ERA says it plans to spend $80 million on a feasibility study to build a brine concentrator at the Ranger uranium mine by late 2013.

In the meantime, it will raise the dam wall.

Gavin Mudd from Monash University has been studying the environmental impacts of the ERA mine, which has been majority-owned by Rio Tinto for a decade.

He is worried the company is not planning to start processing its radioactive waste water for two more wet seasons.

Mr Mudd says a higher dam wall will mean the company will have even more radioactive water to process.

“In that sense it is still the temporary, sort of step-by-step measures,” he said.

“We need decisive action on site to actually deliver large-scale process water treatment.

“Without that, the Ranger mine will continue to face risks every wet season with these types of issues and it will continually be compromising the ability to achieve rehabilitation [of the site] from 2021 at Ranger.”

Dr Mudd says building the water plant should not depend on whether ERA expands its mine and processing plant.

“ERA need to solve the process water problem and so it should not be conditional on any expansion,” he said.

“It should be absolute and the regulators need to put their foot down, as well as the board of Rio Tinto, from London and Melbourne……

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/07/05/3261230.htm?section=business

BHP Final EIS & ACF Call to account for Olympic Dam’s international impact -BHP Billiton has released a multi-phonebook-sized environmental impact statement to support its proposal to make Olympic Dam the world’s largest uranium project, but the EIS does not address the risks that go along with Australian uranium when it is used in nuclear reactors overseas.

The Australian Conservation Foundation has challenged the company to re-do its environmental assessment to take account of disasters like Fukushima.

“In the same week the German and Japanese governments have made decisions not to proceed with new nuclear reactors, BHP Billiton has released a mammoth document that completely dodges the question of international responsibility,” said ACF nuclear free campaigner David Noonan.

“BHP Billiton hopes to lock in the world’s largest uranium project in the shadow of the continuing nuclear disaster at Fukushima in Japan.

“ACF calls on the company to be a responsible corporate citizen by ending this dangerous uranium trade and designing Olympic Dam to trade only in copper and non-radioactive minerals.

“After announcing record profits this year BHP Billiton is trying to avoid environmental protection measures and is cutting corners on waste management

“This EIS shows the company has designed Olympic Dam to leak up to eight million litres of liquid radioactive waste per day.  BHP Billiton plans to dump radioactive tailings on the surface and leave them there forever, rather than pay to isolate the toxic waste from the environment.

“Processing the copper on site and leaving all the uranium and other radioactive waste on the mine site is the only potentially acceptable path for this proposed new open pit mine.”…

Polluted mine is back on feds’ list | Reno Gazette-Journal | rgj.com Scott Sonner, Associated Press  28 March 11, YERINGTON — Federal regulators who have spent a decade assessing the uranium and other toxic wastes seeping into the water table at an old Anaconda copper mine in Northern Nevada have concluded that the pollution can’t be cleaned up without adding the vast, abandoned site to the U.S. Superfund’s National Priorities List.

Environmental Protection Agency officials say the designation would trigger funds to cover most of the $40 million it is expected to cost to begin removing contaminants from the most polluted part of the World War II-era mine. The site covers five square miles next to the rural town of Yerington, about 65 miles southeast of Reno….
EPA officials said that unless the mine is designated a Superfund site, none of the other alternatives being examined will qualify for the millions of dollars needed for the first critical stage in the most radioactive part of the mine…..

EPA has been assessing and working with the state and others since the 1990s to try to contain the towering waste piles, open pit lake and old leach ponds spread across an area the size of 3,000 football fields.

Cost projections vary widely but soar into the hundreds of millions of dollars to clean up all the hazardous waste site-wide, including the uranium, arsenic and other hazardous metals that have been leaking into neighbors’ wells.

More than 100 residents filed a $5 million class-action suit in federal court in Reno in January accusing Atlantic Richfield and BP of intentionally and negligently concealing the extent of the contamination for decades. They say their wells have been polluted by the toxic plume of groundwater slowly migrating off the site partially owned by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management.

Tribal action

Neighboring Native American tribes have long advocated Superfund listing and say they are considering legal action based on claims the U.S. government has an obligation to clean up their reservation lands regardless of the state’s position.
Polluted mine is back on feds’ list | Reno Gazette-Journal | rgj.com

Radiological hazards from uranium mining: Problems posed by the disposal of tailings, League of Individuals for the Environment, Inc, Bruno Chareyron, 5 Jan 2011, The disposal of radioactive tailings and their control on the long term, has not receivedyet satisfying solutions, taking into consideration their activity, radiotoxicityand long half-lives. Some examples from France (where about 50 million tonsof tailings are stored) and Niger are given below.

In France 1.5 million tons of tailings have been dumped in a former open pit(Bellezane mine) but the CRIIRAD laboratory discovered that the finest fractionof the radioactive material could reach the underground galleries underneath the pit.

Furthermore, the mine water treatment plant was not efficient enough to preventthe contamination of the river and meadows downstream (Chareyron andCastanier 1994, Chareyron 2006).In Niger, more than 20 million tons of radioactive tailings are stored in the openair, near SOMAÏR and COMINAK mills, a few kilometers away from the cities ofARLIT and AKOKAN (about 70,000 inhabitants). Radon gas and radioactive dustcan be scattered away by the powerfull winds of the desert (Chareyron 2003,2005b, 2008a).Conclusion

At all the French uranium mines where it made radiological surveys, the CRIIRAD laboratory discovered situations of environmental contamination and a lack ofproper protection of the inhabitants against health risks due to ionizing radiation. When the mines are shut down, the radioactive waste remains, and it seems that the costs for managing this radioactive legacy will have to be largely supported bythe society, not the companies.If such a situation occurs in a so-called “developed country” one should fearwhat could actually happen in other parts of the world.The preliminary mission made by CRIIRAD to Niger confirmed this fear.In Gabon, the improvement of the conditions in which tailings are disposed is being paid for by the EuropeanCommunity and not by the mining company…..

League of Individuals for the Environment, Inc.: Radiological hazards from uranium mining: Problems posed by the disposal of tailings

Nuclear Waste Shipment Could Be Headed To NV - KTVN Channel 2 , 17 Oct 10, RENO, Nev. (AP) – A shipment of 9,400 drums of depleted uranium oxide could be headed to Nevada. State officials say the U.S. Department of Energy is considering a plan to send the radioactive waste from a cleanup site in South Carolina to the Nevada National Security Site, formerly known as the Nevada Test Site……Stutsman also declined to comment on a published report that DOE wants to permanently dispose of the material at the Nevada site about 65 miles northwest of Las Vegas. Nuclear Waste Shipment Could Be Headed To NV – KTVN Channel 2 – Reno Tahoe News Weather, Video -

NSW government cover up Penrith toxic waste plan, Sydney Morning Herald, Alexandra Smith, October 18, 2010 The state government deliberately delayed briefing Penrith City Council on plans to dump 5000 tonnes of toxic soil in western Sydney until after it had signed a contract with the waste company, internal documents reveal.

Radioactive waste from the site of a former uranium smelter in Hunters Hill will be trucked to Kemps Creek near Penrith so the government can sell three of the contaminated blocks of land in the exclusive waterside suburb.

The government maintained for years that Nelson Parade in Hunters Hill was safe, despite six people who lived there dying from cancer……..Ms Keneally said the waste was not ”radioactive” but rather ”less hazardous, classified as restricted solid waste”………
The documents show that the government will pay the company $3.5 million to take 5830 tonnes of waste to Kemps Creek. It is then expected to sell the waterfront land in Hunters Hill for as much as $3 million per block.

Last year, the government was forced to pay Peter and Michelle Vassiliou $3.4 million for their radioactive home at 11 Nelson Parade, after fighting the purchase for more than six months and maintaining that the land had only low levels of contamination.

NSW government cover up Penrith toxic waste plans | western Sydney