Wednesday 12 April 2006
104.1 - TOP FM - Territory Talk
Reporter: Peter Perrin

The owners of a Northern Territory property that surrounds one of the Federal Government's proposed nuclear waste sites says the area has been affected by the recent flooding. On the line with us this morning Senator Trish Crossin, Labor Senator for the Northern Territory.

REPTR Good morning Trish.
CROSSIN Peter, good morning.

REPTR That's a bit of a concern isn't it.
CROSSIN Well I have to say I've been in the Territory over 25 years and have travelled down through the Katherine region many, many times. And I've never seen water to the extent that I saw last week. I was able to get out to places like Beswick, Barunga and Jilkminggan. We actually stayed the night at Mataranka Homestead and we actually just got along the road back to the Stuart Highway in time before the river over that road was too high to let us through. But an incredible amount of water and really you'd have to be extremely irresponsible and foolish to think that you could put a nuclear waste dump in the middle of all of that.

REPTR Now is the dump proposed for an area that could flood or is it simply access that we're talking about?
CROSSIN No it's, the dump, Fisher's Ridge is actually right smack bang between two rivers, one of them is King River, that was flooded to the extent whereby it was over the Stuart Highway by a couple of metres when we went through in the 4wd last week. And certainly it's an area that is prone to flooding. Not only could we not get down the road to Fisher's Ridge, because it is not a sealed road in some parts, the first part's not sealed, but it is seriously prone to flooding. And I don't think no matter how you built this facility, no matter how you structurally engineer that, whether it was a concrete bunker underground or a large concrete warehouse style storage area above ground, water would get in and through and around or over if you had serious flooding like we saw last week again.

REPTR How did they pick it – with a dartboard? I mean surely they've got typographical maps that are going to show you low lying areas. And I mean if you've got half a brain you've got to realise that if you've got flood potential, I mean it happened in 98, you've got these rivers flowing, you've got them flooding, the area become inundated with water, surely it's just a wrong choice.
CROSSIN Well that's the serious flaw in all of this proposal. The three sites that have been named for the Northern Territory are actually defence sites. They weren't chosen at all because of their environmental makeup, because of any typographical or suitability in terms of whether or not a dump could actually be built on them. They're purely defence sites, probably most likely disused defence sites or sites that are no longer needed. So that's how they were chosen. And I am actually suggesting to the Federal Government that people ought to say look we've made a mistake here, let's just get Fisher's Ridge off the list. Let's not waste the company's time who are now going to be doing the assessment of the three sites, and let's not waste their time and taxpayers money by going and having a look at Fisher's Ridge, let's just strike it off the list now certainly based on the kind of water we saw last week.

REPTR So what does Trish Crossin do now?
CROSSIN We continually lobby the Federal Government to try and have some sense and reasonable debate about all of this. They're adamant that they're gonna continue on, and this company will make an assessment of the three sites and hand those three assessments to the minister. Originally, we thought that they would recommend one site and recommend that one site to the minister, but really they would seriously be wasting their time if they got out and had a look at Fisher's Ridge. The other thing Peter is that I would highly doubt whether the company was actually out in the Katherine region last week, they probably weren't, because they've only had the tender awarded to them in the last fortnight. Well you see the issue is this place might not flood like this for another eight years or even another twenty-eight years, and when it does it might flood even worse than what we saw last week. But I seriously think you're wasting everybody's time getting people very anxious in that region by continuing to have Fisher's Ridge on the list for the nuclear dump.

REPTR I mean in saying that, by the same token, I mean it could flood again next year.
CROSSIN Well that's right, we talk about one in fifty years or one in a hundred years, but that doesn't actually mean to say it won't flood two or three years in a row. Well Katherine's a classic example of that. But this is seriously a very major problem for the Federal Government. And I think reason ought to prevail here and I think somebody ought to be saying to them, this is really silly, this is madness, let's get Fisher's Ridge off the list and get on with the business they want to get on with – which we're highly opposed to I must say. But Fisher's Ridge quite clearly should never have been on the list and shouldn't stay on the list.

REPTR Well Trish I'm sure we can rely on you to make a noise about it.
CROSSIN We'll continue to do that. And I have to say though, I think the Utley's who live next door to Fisher's Ridge and the people involved in the agricultural and the pastoral industry in that area, have expressed to me and written an email to me very serious concerns they've got about it. And I think the situation with the water last week are just gonna increase those concerns.

REPTR Oh quite rightly so too. Trish thanks very much for your time and your comments this morning, you have a peaceful and safe Easter won't you.
CROSSIN Thanks very much.