If the Chapman property is a pastoral lease then aboriginal groups have no legal basis to call it 'their' land. If they can garner enough political support however the facility might have to go to Woomera area on defence forces land.

Note this facility is for hospital gloves and the like stored above ground. I presume the canisters of vitrified material stored in a shed at Lucas Heights will go an underground facility if it is ever built. Note the Nuclear Fuel Cycle Royal Commission whose report comes out May 6 has recommended a high level repository for SA. That high level site might have to be near Woomera which is the other side of Lake Torrens from the proposed intermediate level facility.

That's if high level waste ever eventuates. Australia is a coal addicted country and forces like indigenous opposition are helping keep it that way.

The writer is an anti-nuclear political campaigner. Can anyone take these objections seriously?

As a Geologist and Nuclear energy Advocate I have been trying to get a repository site established. What is proposed for this site (near the Torrens Hinge Zone) a major fracture zone is waste from Hospitals etc. - low level waste that currently is stored in 44 gallon (is that 200 litre) drums at the site of use. These are not gloves but radioactive isotopes with a short half life.

However what Australia needs for so many reasons is a high level waste dump to keep high level waste from being stored in politically unstable countries. Backed by the UN this would be a international repository.

Now my idea is that this should be established in the Kimba area, west of Port Augusta, but more importantly NW of Whyalla, a deep water port. Just north of Kimba is a series of very stable granites ideal for an underground repository. Remote as well. Relatively close to the intercontinental railway line for transport.

Regards,

GoM wouldn't it be easier just to move everything a bit bit further north to Woomera? No NIMBY problems. I recall a Kimba resident had a meltdown when interviewed on ABC TV which seems to have silenced locals in favour of a facility. A geologist whose name I forget suggested using Challenger mine inside the Woomera zone. That's for a high level facility with a hole already dug plus a restricted access road and surface buildings. Maybe high and intermediate level could be combined if the Chapman property doesn't work out.

Tasmania on the Torrens needs some industry.

Surely we can do better than arrive at a solution that at face value, just seems to line the pockets of a politician?

Why, there are uninhabited Islands to our west, that are still hot from atomic tests? Yet have some safe spots where this stuff could go, without doing any additional harm?

Geologically stable granite sounds ideal?
Alan B.

SA needs everything it can get, thanks to 14 years of Labor plundering and blundering. It will not be a 'dump', a word the rat bags use to make it sound bad, but a sophisticated facility to safely store nuclear waste.

The writer and protestor sneers that Chapman has "precious little connection to the land", but as lessee of the station he has a damn sight more connection to the land that she her leafy-suburb-living fellow loonies do. As for aborigines whining for help from "all Australians", give me a break! All Australians (except for aborigines) have been helping them with billions of dollars, plus land, for years, and they have done nothing with the land, and wasted the money. Chapman paid for, and uses his, his patch.

Trying to link the former Liberal senator with the federal government is also pretty dopey. The state Labor government is the one who is all for it, having commissioned an enquiry into the possibility.

Emotive claptrap.

If anything is to be "targeted" is should be Anica & her fool mates

These people never give up do they.

One has to wonder who is behind these people. This question is answered by asking another question. How are the biggest generators of nuclear waste in the world.

Whats the chances its "Australia's friends" the USA chief among them.

So we likely have a situation whereby our best friends want us to take their dangerous crap so our people will be subject to the risks from it and not theirs.

Note, the argument goes along the line that there is so much of this stuff out there its a threat to xyz people but don't forget that once we start taking this crap, we will never stop taking it.

The highly emotional language used in the article has had the usual effect: emotional, strongly worded responses. Was the author's objective to reach out towards a consensus or at least a reasoned discussion, or did she intend to offend? Persuasion is correctly called a "gentle art".

Thank goodness there has been a Royal Commission. Here's hoping that the report will prompt some fact-based, mature discussion and an eventual broad agreement as to what is appropriate, what is not and what requires further work before decisions can be made.

To the writer who said that low level wastes do not contain gloves - read the submissions to the Royal Commission which are available on the web site.

To he who thinks that Australia is setting out to do Uncle Sam's bidding, I suggest also reading of the RC's web site - the proposal for management of low level wastes is primarily aimed at existing, Australian-sourced materials, not international sources.

To those who repeatedly refer to the proposed facility as a waste dump - grow up! Do you want a discussion or are you only after a slanging match? If you want to be taken seriously, use inoffensive language, such as "low level repository".

It doesn't matter where you want to put it, some bloody aboriginal or greenie group will raise objections. From what I have seen of outback Australia, and I have lived there, there are literally thousands of places where you could put a waste repository. The surface infrastructure will be minimal and need not impinge on any aboriginal relic sites anyway. There are plenty of unproductive holes around Coober Pedy which would make an excellent starting point for such a facility. Pine Gap and Woomera would also be good places as well as the worked out Golden Kangaroo mine at Tennant Creek. Almost anywhere along the north south railway would also be suitable because it follows high ground to avoid flooding.

Just get on with it.

David

"Note, the argument goes along the line that there is so much of this stuff out there its a threat to xyz people but don't forget that once we start taking this crap, we will never stop taking it."

That would be *awesome*! We could:-
1. Mine uranium
2. Sell it to the world to help prevent climate change through nuclear power providing abundant, reliable, safe, clean electricity
3. Charge nations to take the waste back!
4. REPROCESS the waste, extracting all the longer-lived transuranics out, and breed up new fuel, burning the nuclear waste in a breeder reactor!
5. Bury the 10% or whatever of true nuclear waste called fission products by vitrifying them in waterproof, ceramic tablets and burying them for just 500 years until they are safe

So we'd generate income for South Australia, save the climate, provide jobs, provide abundant electricity for the world that was actually able to shut down coal, save 3 million lives a year from choking to death on coal-dust, and also make the world safer by taking all the nuclear waste back and BURNING IT FOR OUR OWN ENERGY SUPPLY!
Sounds fantastic to me!