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South
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Nuclear Industry has had its teeth into South Australia for more than
50 years. Radium was mined at Mt. Painter as long ago as 1910, and in
1953 uranium was mined at Myponga/Wild Dog Hill not far from Adelaide,
and milled at Port Pirie. A mine was also operated at Radium Hill in 1954,
with milling also conducted at Port Pirie. All of this activity was undertaken
to help give the British government a nuclear weapons capability. On September
27, 1956 and October 9, 1957, the British Government conducted a series
of nuclear weapons tests at Maralinga, on the sacred ground known to the
Pitjantjatjara people as the 'Field of Thunder'.
Then in 1975, the world's largest uranium deposit was discovered, not far from the township of Roxby Downs. In 1998, the Olympic Dam mine was commissioned at this site, after years of protests and attempts to delay the project. The Lake Frome region in the north of the state is rich in uranium, and decades of exploration have revealed a number of economic deposits. The Beverley and Honeymoon mines, stalled in the 1980s are back with a vengeance. Paladin Resources is also active in the area. South Australians also have to contend with the fact that the Federal Government intends their state be turned into a nuclear waste dump as well, targeting an area known as Billa Kalina for the National Radioactive Waste Repository (Dump). This has seen the movement for a nuclear free South Australia turn into a stampede, with many sections of society opposed to the dump.
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SOUTH AUSTRALIAN LINKS |
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the Anti-Nuclear Alliance of Western
Australia
email robin@anawa.org.au |
