Peter Garret has said he will closely study a proposal to expand the Ranger uranium mine in the Kakadu National Park, reports theSydney Morning Herald.

The mine, owned by Energy Resources of Australia, has had 150 spills, leaks and licence breaches since it opened in 1981.

Last week The Age reported that a Senate hearing was told last month that 100,000 litres of contaminated water a day is leaking from its tailings dam (tailings are piles of crushed radioactive rock left over from the mining process).

Dave Sweeney, a campaigner for the Australian Conservation Foundation, said the plan would only make a bad situation worse, increasing the environmental damage inflicted by the mine.

“This is not responsible industry practice and will exacerbate the existing pressure and increasingly obvious management deficiencies at Ranger,” the SMH reported Mr Sweeney saying.

He is calling for the ERA to prepare a public and peer-reviewed environment impact statement, with two rounds of public consultation, before considering any expansion.