Say no to Western Australia fuelling the Nuclear Industry. No Uranium Mines.
- Target:
- Western Australia's Environmental Protection Authority. Department of Mining and Petroleum
- Region:
- GLOBAL
- Website:
- ccwa.org.au
Australia holds approximately 40% of the world's uranium deposits and a pro nuclear government gives uranium mining corporates like Cameco and Toro Energy a clear path to exploit land and affected Indigenous communities. Western Australia's uranium is considered high grade and well sought after. It is vital that we stop fuelling a toxic industry that is subject to human error and natural disasters as well as the proliferation of nuclear weapons.
These uranium mines have been pre-approved based on incomplete Environmental Management Reports (EMR) submitted by the mining corporates and all regulations are based on scientific assessment outside of the proposed project areas at Wiluna - Lake Maitland and Kintyre.
These companies are also allowed to submit incomplete reports that neglect the rehabilitation and clean up and Toro has made the decision to store millions of tonnes of radioactive tailings across two lake beds subjected to extreme weather, which will inevitably contaminate our land and people and future generations forever more.
In other news, Toro has released a scoping document for an expansion of the Wiluna uranium proposal – the proposal is now for 4 mines across two lake systems. We are most concerned that the EPA is assessing the one project as two separate projects instead of looking at the total regional impact of this scattered mine across a 100km stretch.
Resources:
http://www.abc.net.au/environment/articles/2012/09/07/3583649.htm
http://www.toroenergy.com.au/projects/wiluna-mine/
http://theconversation.com/rangers-toxic-spill-highlights-the-perils-of-self-regulation-21409
http://web.ead.anl.gov/uranium/guide/ucompound/health/index.cfm
http://goo.gl/O3K6ue
https://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/24565838/epa-gives-uranium-mine-approval/
We call on the Environmental Protection Authority to leave uranium in the ground where it belongs and stop approving and regulating uranium mining projects and to not base the conditions and regulations on conventional mining practices. We demand that these regulations and safeguards applicable to uranium mining are updated.
We also call for full transparency; a final submissions period where public can scrutinise a complete Environmental Management report and that the Department of Mines and Petroleum make that available before any final approval is made. We ask for the revocation of the compulsory fee applied to the appeals process as this is a deterrent for effective public scrutiny.
We also call for independent environmental reviews of the project areas that don't disregard the devastating reality of deadly, bio-accumulative radioactive isotopes, tailings and radon gases that contaminate waterways and food chain forever more.
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The Say no to Western Australia fuelling the Nuclear Industry. No Uranium Mines. petition to Western Australia's Environmental Protection Authority. Department of Mining and Petroleum was written by Kylie Greer and is in the category Nuclear at GoPetition.