Karl Herchenroeder
RW Monitor
2/12/2016
Despite objections from the state’s environmental agency, Oman Ama in Queensland, Australia, remains on the federal government’s shortlist of six as the country looks to develop its first permanent storage site for low- and intermediate-level nuclear waste.
Queensland Natural Resources and Mines Minister Anthony Lynham has asked federal Resources Minister Josh Frydenberg to remove Queensland from the shortlist for radioactive storage.
“The Queensland Government would have preferred that no Queensland sites were listed,” Jan Martin, spokesperson for the Minister for State Development and Minister for Natural Resources and Mines, said by email this week. “The federal government has decided to proceed with Queensland sites on the shortlist and that’s a matter for them.”
Oman Ama came into the fold when a private landowner offered his property as a potential site for the repository. Australia’s shortlist also includes: Sallys Flat in New South Wales; Hale in the Northern Territory; and Cortlinye, Pinkawillinie, and Barndioota, all in South Australia. The government narrowed the list to six after receiving nominations from 28 sites put forth by Australian land owners. Frydenberg’s office and an independent panel advises the government on the decision. The shortlist will be narrowed to two or three before a single site is chosen. The facility is expected to cost AUS $100 million to build and $10 million to operate annually. The new facility is expected to be ready by 2021
In a commentary published Feb. 5 in Australian newspaper The Transcontinental, Frydenberg noted that England, France, Spain, South America, and other countries have built similar facilities. In 2015 the government reported that Australia has in interim storage about 4,248 cubic meters of low-level waste and 656 cubic meters of intermediate-level waste. The material is a byproduct of Australian medical, research, and industrial processes.
“It must be understood that currently Australia’s low and intermediate waste is stored at more than 100 sites around the country,” Frydenberg wrote. “With waste having been accumulated for up to six decades, capacity is being reached making it time for Australia to build a single purpose-built facility like there is in other parts of the world.”
In the weeks ahead, he wrote, the federal government will seek two or three communities “willing to move to the next stage of the process.”
“This next step will include deeper community consultation and a detailed design proposal, before a preferred location is selected before the end of the year,” he wrote.