Saturday, 26 May, 2007

by Lindsay Murdoch in Nhulunbuy and Jasmin Afianos in Tennant Creek
Sydney Morning Herald

ABORIGINAL elders in a remote Northern Territory community have agreed to accept $12 million for allowing Australia's first national nuclear waste dump to be built on their land.

But the secretly negotiated deal has bitterly divided traditional owners of the 2241-square-kilometre Muckaty station where the Federal Government will now look to build the controversial dump to store 5000 cubic metres of nuclear waste.

Bindi Jakamarra Martin, a Warlmanpa man from the Ngapa clan, said that building the dump on a 1.5-square-kilometre site 120 kilometres from Tennant Creek would "poison our beautiful land" and "change our dreamings".

"Our dreamings cross right into that land where they want to put that dump," he said.

But Amy Lauder, a senior elder of the 70-member Ngapa clan, said her people's acceptance of the deal was right for them - despite protests from other clans owning the station, which was handed back to the traditional owners in 1995 after a long court battle.

"Other clans can speak for their country - not our Ngapa country," she said.

She said the $12 million would "create a future for our children with education, jobs and funds for our outstation and transport".

Under the deal, Canberra would take the Ngapa clan's land from them for up to 200 years to store nuclear waste from all the states and territories.

The deal - made public yesterday after two years of negotiations - would see up to 150 truckloads of radioactive material driven thousands of kilometres from Lucas Heights in Sydney and Woomera in South Australia to the site, which is 10 kilometres from the busy Stuart Highway and eight kilometres from where people live at the station homestead.

Experts will now study the site to see if it is scientifically suitable to store nuclear waste.

The Federal Government had previously announced the dump would be built on one of three Defence-owned sites in the territory after the South Australian Government scuttled plans to build it at Woomera.

The Muckaty deal has angered the Northern Territory Government, whose laws against developing a dump in the territory can be overridden by Canberra.

"This potential facility could compromise the social, cultural and traditional ties of Aboriginal people to their country," said Elliott McAdam, a minister in the territory's Labor Government.

Environmentalists have called on the federal Science Minister, Julie Bishop, to reject the site.

Dave Sweeney, nuclear campaigner for the Australian Conservation Foundation, said Muckaty was not selected as a site on a scientific basis, and turning it into a dump would be "environmentally irresponsible and socially divisive".

But Mrs Bishop yesterday praised a full council meeting of the Northern Land Council, which nominated Muckaty as the site for what she calls a radioactive waste management facility. "The NLC has consistently taken a responsible approach to this issue, focusing on the evidence of safely operating radioactive waste management facilities in Australia and overseas," she said.

The dump will store items such as gloves, clothing, glassware and contaminated soil, including waste from the treatment each year of 400,000 ill people.

Spent fuel from two research reactors sent to be stored overseas will also be brought back to be stored in above-ground containers.

William Jakamarra Graham, another traditional owner, said: "We don't care about the money - $12 million is nothing to us. But we care about our land and what will happen to the children of the future - we don't want to leave them a nuclear dump."