Thursday, July 9, 2009

Radioactive Exposure Tour 2009

Radioactive Exposure Tour 2009 – A Reflection

Ania Anderst

As a student living in Perth, I found myself remarkably lucky to have made it out to the South Australian desert for ten days in May on the Friends of the Earth Radioactive Exposure Tour.

The 'radtour' is a unique experience allowing people interested in learning about the nuclear industry to go out on country to see uranium mines and to meet people directly affected by the nuclear industry past and present.

Tackling the nuclear industry can be an overwhelming experience, mostly because there is no end to the amount of information on the issue; from uranium mining, nuclear reactors, waste issues, to nuclear proliferation, it's easy to get lost in the information. And there's also the added factor of the multi-million dollar mining companies we're fighting, not to mention the governments siding with them.

The big picture can be rather scary, but actually stepping out onto uranium mines, onto country, and making connections with people who have for years been directly affected by these mining operations makes it easier to understand. It's no longer some abstract mine in some landscape you can't imagine, affecting some people you've never met before; these are real people with the real deal on their doorstep.

That abstract image of a mine in the back of your head becomes the physical site of the ugly and protruding Olympic Dam uranium/copper mine, or the hundreds of white pipes sticking out of the ground at Beverley uranium mine where they practice in-situ leach uranium mining. Those people become real when you hear the stories of Arabunna Elder Uncle Kevin Buzzacott, Maralinga veteran Avon Hudson and Adnyamathanha custodian Jillian Marsh. Their personal stories, dating decades back, make the issues more human, more accessible.

There's no better way than to see it yourself – and not only tour the mines and ask the workers questions, but then to juxtapose that intense, sometimes hostile experience with the peaceful time shared around the campfire with people who share your passions and willingness to fight the machine.

When BHP Billiton took us on a tour of Olympic Dam - which takes 35 million litres of water daily from the Great Artesian Basin for free - it was hard to believe some of the things they had to say. According to the BHP employee giving the tour, the mine had less of an environmental impact than pastoralism would have, and the nuclear industry was alleviating people from poverty by providing poor countries with power. It was difficult not to get hostile and emotional hearing that somewhat bent rationale for the existence of such an unsound industry. There was an answer to every one of our questions and the tour bus was filled with suffocating negative energy, lie after lie.

For me, Heathgate Resources' Beverley mine was even harder to stomach because of the propaganda which included giant placards covering an entire wall concerning their ongoing relationship with Aboriginal communities in the area and showing pictures of Aboriginal kids smiling. When in fact, in May 2000, local Aboriginal communities were at the gates of Beverley protesting and were subsequently put in a shipment container and capsicum sprayed by the SA police. An 11-year-old local Adnyamathanha girl was capsicum sprayed.

BHP Billiton really seemed to believe what they were saying, they were proud of what they were doing. In comparison, the PR chump at Heathgate Resources was a blundering boy behind a company t-shirt. He didn't answer questions properly, referring mostly to reports he hadn't seemed to have read, and it felt like he had something to hide. When asked about the shipping container episode, he refused to comment.

Both companies claimed to have excellent relations with Aboriginal communities, but after listening to Jillian and Uncle Kevin talk, it seemed more like mining companies were deliberately creating an ongoing war of attrition amongst Aboriginal communities who are not consulted properly, and are instead split over whether to take a mining company's money. If resources are needed in a remote community, people living there shouldn't have to have a uranium mine (or a waste dump for that matter) in order to have health care and infrastructure. These are basic human rights and Aboriginal communities shouldn't have to settle on corporate sponsorship and give up land rights for health and housing.

Coming face to face with these issues on country was confronting but the land itself allowed some peace of mind. Being out there, seeing the landscape and setting foot on red earth or on Lake Eyre, I had the strong sense that this country was alive. It surprised me how alive it was, with it's gentle and soft sands, yet rough, hard, contrasts in colour.

Every night we camped somewhere different, and by the end it felt like we'd been all over the state of South Australia - Woomera, Roxby Downs, Lake Eyre, Copley for coffee and quandong pie (more than once thanks to a trailer tyre which caught on fire), Marree, a bit of a crazed dip into the hot springs at Coward Springs, the Blanche Cup and Bubbler Mound Springs with Uncle Kevin, the Beverley uranium mine, Arkaroola Wilderness Sanctuary, the ochre cliffs near Lyndhurst, Brachina Gorge, the surrounding Gammon Ranges, Port Pirie ...

Aside from the heavy nature of what we were doing, life on tour was a lot of fun. As a group of 40 people with a range of ages, levels of experience, and approaches to the issue, it was what some called a social experiment. It was particularly lovely having a few children on the tour to emphasise the importance of the issues. Each night a different group helped set up dinner and campfires, and slowly the swags would surround the fires and the stars would come out at full capacity. Music was around all the time, singing tunes on the bus, off the bus, while the bus was bogged, while tyres were flat, while the bus wouldn't start, while faffing ...


And while we were out in the desert it was interesting to see the newspapers filling with related stories; with BHP announcing its proposal to the federal government for a uranium mine at Yeelirrie in WA, followed by the nuclear bomb test in North Korea. While North Korea gets a slap on the wrists from the UN, BHP in WA gets a tidal wave of anti-nuclear groups on it's ass. This spells out to me that it's better to stop them before the mines get going, because the safeguards against nuclear proliferation aren't safe, and while they're not we shouldn't be touching uranium (amongst other reasons to leave it in the ground).

Seeing such amazing country, meeting so many beautiful people and seeing the mines for what they are was an inspiring experience, and thanks to this opportunity I feel a lot more equipped to do whatever I can to make sure uranium stays where it belongs – in the ground.

[If you'd like to register interest in coming on the April-May 2010 radtour, contact 0417 318368.]

Radioactive Exposure Tour 2009


By Kasey Sparks and Steve Holdsworth

Friends of the Earth is hosting the annual Radioactive Exposure Tour from May 15-25. Since the 1980s, these tours have exposed thousands of people first-hand to the realities of 'radioactive racism' and to the environmental impacts of the nuclear industry.

After travelling from Melbourne to Adelaide then heading north to the SA desert, we'll visit BHP Billiton's Olympic Dam uranium mine at Roxby Downs, the largest uranium deposit in the world. Friends of the Earth is currently working on a campaign to have the SA Roxby Downs Indenture Act repealed. This legislation allows the mine to operate with wide-ranging exemptions from the Aboriginal Heritage Protection Act, the Environment Protection Act, the Natural Resources Act and the Freedom of Information Act.

We'll watch sunset over Lake Eyre and see the Mound Springs - oases which are fed by the underlying Great Artesian Basin and host unique flora and fauna. Sadly, some of the Mound Springs have been adversely effected or destroyed altogether by the massive water take for the Olympic Dam mine - 35 million litres daily. The water is taken from Arabunna land and we'll spend time with Arabunna elder Uncle Kevin Buzzacott, President of the Australian Nuclear Free Alliance.

Indigenous people across the world suffer most directly from the impacts of the nuclear industry and this 'radioactive racism' is a major focus of the tour. The tactics used by uranium mining companies against Aboriginal communities include: ignoring the concerns of Traditional Owners; divide-and-rule tactics; bribery; 'humbugging' Traditional Owners (exerting persistent, unwanted pressure); providing Traditional Owners with false or misleading information; and threats, most commonly legal threats. We'll hear about the notorious incident concerning the laying of a water pipeline on Arabunna land in the mid-1990s. WMC Resources, the company that operated the mine at the time, used divide-and-rule tactics against Traditional Owners, leading to violence, terrorism, imprisonment, and the death of one person.

We'll hear first-hand accounts of the British nuclear bomb tests from Maralinga veteran and whistle-blower Avon Hudson. We'll learn about ongoing WMD proliferation risks arising from the uranium mining and export industry. Australia's uranium exports have resulted in the production of over 114 tonnes of plutonium — enough to build over 11,000 nuclear weapons. Successive Australian governments have been willing to sell uranium to nuclear weapons states, states refusing to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, states blocking progress on a Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty, states with a history of secret nuclear weapons research, and states stockpiling 'civil' plutonium. The International Atomic Energy Agency's safeguards system attempts to prevent 'civil' nuclear materials and facilities being used for WMD production, yet the Director General of the IAEA has acknowledged "vulnerabilities" in its "fairly limited" safeguards system and complained about the "half hearted" efforts to tighten the system.

After stopping for a swim at Coward Springs, we'll head east and camp in the beautiful Gammon Ranges and visit the not-so-beautiful Beverley uranium mine. This mine uses the in-situ leach uranium mining method, which leaves underground aquifers polluted with a toxic cocktail of radionuclides, heavy metals and acid. We'll speak to Adnyamathanha Traditional Owners about how uranium mining has affected their lives.

We'll speak to the manager of the Arkaroola Wilderness Sanctuary about the current struggle to prevent uranium mining there, and we'll camp in the Sanctuary and in one of the beautiful gorges further south.

Participants get to experience affinity groups, consensus decision making, desert camping and vegetarian, communal cooking while travelling to some of the most beautiful and ecologically significant environments in Australia. Every person who has gone on a tour has had an amazing experience and many of the participants from various tours have made a considerable impacts contribution to the anti-nuclear movement.

http://www.foe.org.au/anti-nuclear/issues/oz/radtour/radtour09/radioactive-exposure-tour-2009

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