Local groups said they would continue to oppose a planned low-level radioactive waste facility in Adelaide, Australia for the AUKUS nuclear submarine program, Australian media reported this week.
According to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, a federal law enacted in October allows the storage and disposal of radioactive waste at the Osborne Naval Shipyard in Osborne, South Australia, about 16 miles northwest by road from the center of Adelaide. Another shipyard designated for waste storage by the federal law was HMAS Sterling in Western Australia.
Both HMAS Sterling and Osborne shipyards were declared designated zones for nuclear submarine activity in a bill introduced in November 2023 and passed by Australia’s bicameral Parliament on Oct. 10.
The Australian House of Representatives approved the bill on Sept. 12. The Australian Senate approved the same bill, without amendment, on Oct. 10, clearing the way for its enactment. Osborne and Stirling were both declared designated zones in the version of the legislation introduced in 2023.
“There’s 30,000 people that live in this area,” Eileen Darley, who runs the local action group Port Adelaide Community Opposing AUKUS, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. “All the childcare centres, all the schools and the families that live in this area, but also waterways that feed the mangroves, that is a dolphin sanctuary, and so forth.”
The radioactive waste would come from submarines as part of the AUKUS pact, which is an agreement between the U.S., the United Kingdom, and Australia that was established in 2021 to help Australia build nuclear-powered, conventionally armed submarines by the 2040s, in part by selling the country U.S.-made Virginia-class submarines in the 2030s.
Mark Butler, federal Health Minister who represents the Australian federal electorate that includes the Osborne shipyard, told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation that residents, including local indigenous populations, would be “consulted closer to when the facility would be established,” but “the waste facility would go ahead even if residents did not want it.”
“This is going to happen,” Butler said, adding it would only be low-level nuclear material similar to that from nuclear medicine used by hospitals.
