World Water Day

NEW EVIDENCE OF RADIOACTIVE LEAKS AT OLYMPIC DAM. ALLIANCE CALLS FOR PUBLIC INQUIRY

New evidence of radioactive tailings leaks at Olympic Dam will be presented at a public forum in Adelaide tonight. The meeting will launch a statement calling on the Rann Government to establish a public inquiry into the uranium mining industry's unsustainable depletion and pollution of SA's water resources.

With World Water Day encouraging global reflection on growing water crises, the Australian Nuclear Free Alliance, which brings together Aboriginal custodians with representatives from environmental, medical and public health groups, is calling on the SA Government to initiate a public inquiry before the March 2010 state election and on other political parties to support it. Tonight's forum will hear from Traditional Owners from areas already suffering the impacts of uranium mining on water resources in SA, including Adnyamathanha custodian Jillian Marsh and Kokatha Elder Mrs Eileen Wingfield.

The meeting will also hear from Dr Gavin Mudd, hydrogeologist and engineering lecturer at Monash University. Dr Mudd will present photographs taken recently by a mine worker showing significant leakage of radioactive tailings liquid from the so-called rock 'armoury' of the so-called tailings retention system at Olympic Dam. This new evidence of problems with radioactive tailings at Olympic Dam follows revelations by the Commonwealth Supervising Scientist in late February that at the Ranger uranium mine in the NT, 100,000 litres of contaminated water is leaking each day from the mine's tailings dam into rock fissures beneath Kakadu.

Dr Mudd said: "Radioactive tailings management is already a major concern at Olympic Dam and the challenges will be far greater if the planned expansion proceeds. BHP Billiton plans to increase water consumption from about 35 million litres daily to over 150 million litres daily (over 100,000 litres every minute), and radioactive tailings production from 10 million tonnes annually to 70 million tonnes."

In the north-east of the state, Adnyamathanha Traditional Owners face a growing number of mines using the in-situ leach (ISL) uranium mining method which pollutes groundwater with radionuclides, heavy metal and acid. The Rann Government justifies ISL mining on the basis of a 2004 report which actually acknowledges that return of groundwater to its pre-mining state is "not proven" and could only cite a period of "several years to decades" for it to occur - if at all.

Jillian Marsh will address tonight's forum (her presentation is posted on the Alliance website) and Adnyamathanha custodian Geraldine Anderson is available for media comment. Jillian Marsh will tell the forum: "Many Adnyamathanha are concerned by the loss of access to sites and the damage to water sources in the vicinity of Beverley Mine. We know that the toxic waste water from the extraction process is being pumped straight back into the groundwater system. And we know that Heathgate Resources will be long gone from the region when this toxic waste starts to seep into other parts of the underground water tables, and rises to the surface in springs."

SA water minister Karlene Maywald will attend tonight's forum, as will shadow resources minister David Ridgway, but no-one from the Labor Party has as yet indicated their intention to attend.