Friday, 28 September, 2007

by Alice Plate
ABC NT Country Hour

Right across the Territory, cattlemen are coming to terms with uranium explorers criss-crossing their land.

In fact at Napperby Station, 200 kilometres north west of Alice Springs, there are currently three uranium companies digging away.

But there's only one station that has the privilege of being a possible waste dump.

Muckaty station is 120 kilometres north of Tennant Creek, and since it was handed back to the local indigenous people in 1999, it has been leased and run as a cattle station by Ray Aylett.

But, he says no-one has bothered to let him know what's going on and he doesn't even know where on the property it'll be located.

"The say it's going to be 15 kilometres up Bootu Creek road. That'll be straight out from the house here somewhere, so I don't know where it's going to go. I wouldn't have a clue.

"I haven't been invited to any of the meetings, traditional owners or NLC [Northern Land Council] has never invited me to any of the meetings here about the waste dump or anything. Because I am leasing the place I reckon I should have some say in it or some knowledge about what's going on."

Muckaty is one of the four sites under investigation by the Commonwealth. The other options are Fishers Ridge, just south east of Katherine, or Harts Range 100 kilometres north east of Alice, or Mt Everard only 23 kilometres out of Alice Springs.

The Federal Government want the facility open by 2011.