A plan to store high level international nuclear waste in South Australia is dangerous and divisive and could turn remote SA into a permanent radioactive waste zone, the Australian Conservation Foundation said today.
“The Royal Commission’s final report is deeply disturbing in what it says and what it fails to acknowledge,” said ACF campaigner Dave Sweeney.
“The promise of dollar signs seems to have blinded the Commission to the known danger signs.
“The exaggerated economic benefits and under-analysed risks detailed in an Australia Institute critique of the Commission’s tentative findings in February have not been adequately addressed by today’s final report.
“ACF urges Premier Jay Weatherill, who initiated this process in March 2015, not to use this flawed report to advance an irreversible and highly adverse nuclear dump plan.
“The essential pre-conditions for storing high level international radioactive waste – bi-partisan federal support and broad national community consent – are both missing.”
The Australian Greens have condemned the Royal Commission’s international dump plan and at its most recent National Conference federal Labor reaffirmed its ‘strong opposition’ to the importation and storage of overseas waste.
Aboriginal people and the wider community are mobilising against federal plans for a national radioactive waste facility in the Flinders Ranges. This opposition is likely to escalate in response to a move to dump high level international radioactive waste in SA.
“High level radioactive waste is a long term environmental threat, not a short term business opportunity,” Dave Sweeney said.
“The coal era has ended in SA today – it would be absurd and tragic to open the door to the dirty, dangerous and equally antiquated nuclear trade.
“South Australians deserve better than to be told their best hope for the future is to house the world’s worst waste.”
