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Australia debates nuclear waste

Summary

3 March 2010

Aboriginal groups are to debate controversial plans to build Australia's first nuclear waste dump on tribal land in the Northern Territory.

The federal government has identified a remote cattle station north of Tennant Creek as a likely site.

Reporter:

Phil Mercer

Report

In the next six years nuclear waste that Australia sent to Europe for reprocessing will be returned but officials in Canberra have yet to decide where to put it.

Muckaty Station, an isolated property 120 kilometres from Tennant Creek in the Northern Territory, has been chosen as a possible site. Local Aborigines have offered to sell the land for $11 million, a move that has infuriated other indigenous groups in the area, who worry about the health and environmental implications.

These conflicting views are expected to collide at a public meeting in Tennant Creek, an old gold-mining town south of Darwin. Australian Greens Senator Scott Ludlam says the plan to build a radioactive waste dump in the region has become extremely divisive.

Australia's federal government said that Muckaty Station would be subject to thorough scientific and environmental assessments. Ministers have indicated that the nuclear dump won't be built if landowners opposed it.

Critics believe that recent earthquakes in that part of the Northern Territory have raised questions about the safety of the sites. The Australian Greens have said that radioactive waste should be stored at the country's only nuclear facility on the outskirts of Sydney.

Phil Mercer, BBC News, Sydney