KAKADU traditional owners say the nuclear crisis in Japan has only strengthened their resolve to oppose uranium mining at Jabiluka.

The Mirarr peoples want the massive Jabiluka uranium deposit in the Northern Territory, about 300km east of Darwin, to remain undeveloped and be incorporated into Kakadu National Park. 

Yvonne Margarula, the senior traditional Aboriginal owner of country around Jabiru, including part of Kakadu National Park and the Ranger uranium mine that is situated just south of Jabiluka, this week wrote to United Nations Secretary-General Ban ki-Moon to express sympathy for the Japanese people affected by the recent earthquake, tsunami and subsequent nuclear crisis at Fukushima. 

She said it was likely Kakadu uranium was at least in part fuelling some of the radiation problems being experienced at Fukushima. 

TEPCO, the company which owns and operates the Fukushima plant, is a long-time customer of Rio Tinto's Energy Resources Australia (ERA), which operates Ranger uranium mine. 

Ms Margarula, in her letter, said the Ranger mine was forced on the Mirarr people 30 years ago, undermining the legitimacy of Aboriginal Land Rights. 

"We Mirarr remain opposed to Jabiluka's development; the Fukushima incident only strengthens our resolve.'' 

Her letter comes as production at Ranger remains suspended due to persistent water management problems and environmental risks posed by heavy rain. 

Gundjeihmi Aboriginal Corporation on Thursday released a statement saying there were now more than 10 million litres of contaminated water on the Ranger site, upstream from Aboriginal communities and internationally recognised wetlands. 

ERA has plans to expand the mine, and is expected to soon publish an environmental impact statement into acid heap leach technology that environmentalists say is "controversial and unproven''. 

Strongly opposed to the expansion, Dave Sweeney from the Australian Conservation Foundation said there had been many chapters in the long-running saga of environmental failings at Ranger. 

In May last year, Fairfax newspapers reported that waste water from the mine had flowed into Kakadu's Magela Creek. 

A poorly engineered dam reportedly collapsed in December 2009, spilling six million litres of contaminated water into creeks which flow into Kakadu, and there were claims earlier that year that the mine's tailings dam was leaking 100,000 litres of radioactive water into the earth below Kakadu every day. 

Mr Sweeney said regulatory regimes were not getting to the source of the problem. 

He said ERA was fined on two occasions in 2004 for breaches of occupational health and safety, when an operator mistakenly linked industrial contaminated water from the mine into the water supply. 

"Workers showered in it, people drank it, local Aboriginal people drank it in Jabiru and 20-plus people presented with headaches, skin rashes and stomach irritations.'' 

According to Fairfax, the mine, which was originally scheduled to close in 2008, has had more than 150 spills, leaks and licence breaches since it opened in 1981. 

Should Jabiluka be incorporated into Kakadu, the Mirarr people would be foregoing million-of-dollars in mining royalties in much the same way that Gjok traditional owner Jeffrey Lee did last year, when he asked the federal government to forever protect the  1200-hectare Koongarra deposit, south of Jabiru, from uranium mining. 

The then federal environment minister, Peter Garrett, in the lead up to the election, signed a deal to incorporate Koongarra, which includes sacred burial sites and rock art, into the world heritage-listed national park. 

A number of Mirarr elders, environmentalists and scientists will speak at a public information session, titled "Reconsidering Ranger: Kakadu's nuclear threat'', in Darwin on Thursday evening.