THE latest proposed site for a national nuclear waste dump in the Northern Territory lies in an earthquake zone.



The most intense earthquakes measured in the territory struck the area near Tennant Creek on January 22, 1988.

Three quakes registering up to 6.9 on the Richter scale cracked the walls of buildings in the town and were felt as far away as Cairns and Perth.

Traditional owners of Muckaty cattle station, in the Barkly region north of Tennant Creek, have expressed an interest in offering land where the controversial dump could be built.

Several of them are believed to be planning to travel to the Lucas Heights nuclear reactor in Sydney next week seeking advice on whether a dump could be built safely on their land.

The Federal Government handed the 2241-square-kilometre station back to 400 traditional owners in 1999, after it had been privately owned for more than 100 years.

Muckaty manager Ray Aylett said there was a lot of land on the station near a railway line that was never used.

"If they put it (the dump) out there, it's out of the way in the desert," he told ABC radio.

Asked how the community would benefit, Mr Aylett said: "Well, there'd be decent roads and … you know it'd be more revenue money for the people and all that you know, jobs and everything."

After promising Territorians before the last federal election that the dump would not be built in the NT, the Howard Government last year announced three potential sites, all of them in the Territory. The announcement provoked community protests.

One of the sites, near Katherine, was recently flooded, raising new doubts about its suitability.

Environmentalists yesterday accused the Government of failing to come up with technical criteria for construction of the dump after 10 years of debate.

Nat Wasley, spokesperson for the Arid Lands Environment Centre in Alice Springs, said: "The fact that attention appears to be moving from a flooded site, near Katherine, to an earthquake zone, near Tennant Creek, underscores the fact that there have still been no technical, scientific or environmental criteria applied to the siting of the proposed nuclear waste dump."

The Northern Land Council, the top Aboriginal body in northern Australia, said in a statement that Aboriginal groups in every NLC region had requested information and advice about the possible siting of a nuclear waste facility.

While the NLC was obtaining further information, it was "not considering any proposal to nominate Aboriginal land in its region at this time"