Uranium madness hits parliament

MPs told about profitability of uranium enrichment

PARLIAMENT – Building a uranium enrichment plant can cost up to R20 billion, but once it is operating the profits are big, minerals and energy department chief director nuclear energy, Tseliso Maqubela, told MPs on Wednesday.

Briefing members of Parliament’s minerals and energy portfolio committee on South Africa’s draft nuclear energy policy and strategy, approved by Cabinet earlier this month, he said the beneficiation of uranium had been identified as having “huge potential”.

“We are proposing that in line with government’s beneficiation programme, uranium must also be beneficiated, and here we are particularly saying including the enrichment of uranium for peaceful purposes. We cannot shy away from that.

“That is because to make fuel, you need enriched uranium. It would be better for us to actually have that capability as a country.

“Our first preference... would be to do this with international partners. of course, if we don’t succeed in this, we will have to develop our own capabilities. We are saying, we're ready for partners, but if they don’t come, we're going to have to do the beneficiation ourselves,” he said.

Uranium enrichment was a very attractive business, with profit margins of more than 50 percent.

“But of course you need to have invested in the technology upfront,” he said.

Maqubela said a new era of investment in energy infrastructure had arrived, and nuclear energy was set to “form an integral part of South Africa’s future diversified electricity generation mix”.

He noted there was an “abundance” of uranium in South Africa and other countries on the continent.

“Africa needs to benefit from this... not just by selling ore or concentrate.”

The nuclear energy sector was growing internationally, and South Africa needed to tap into the market.

“We must position South African industry to play in that space... we need to identify areas where we have a competitive edge,” Maqubela said.

His colleague in the department, senior nuclear specialist Schalk de Waal, said up to 95 percent of the high-level waste from South Africa’s nuclear reactors could be recycled and re-used as fuel. –Sapa

Source: http://www.citizen.co.za/index/article.aspx?pDesc=46290,1,22

Why Nuclear Power Cannot Be A Major Energy Source

Why Nuclear Power Cannot Be A Major Energy Source

It takes a lot of fossil energy to mine uranium, and then to extract and prepare the right isotope for use in a nuclear reactor. It takes even more fossil energy to build the reactor, and, when its life is over, to decommission it and look after its radioactive waste. As a result, with current technology, there is only a limited amount of uranium ore in the world that is rich enough to allow more energy to be produced by the whole nuclear process than the process itself consumes. This amount of ore might be enough to supply the world’s total current electricity demand for about six years. Moreover, because of the amount of fossil fuel and fluorine used in the enrichment process, significant quantities of greenhouse gases are released. As a result, nuclear energy is by no means a ‘climate-friendly’ technology.

Click here for the full document

Radioactive ruin

Radioactive ruin

South Africa’s uranium reserves will make a few individuals rich and the majority of South Africans poorer — through radioactive pollution.

When uranium mines that are planned for Beaufort West, Klerksdorp and the Magaliesberg farming regions leach into dams and water systems, agricultural produce and animals will begin to die off.

Uranium mines will contaminate large areas and contribute to cancers in residents near the mines or those who consume the water.

Dust inhalation from uranium mines is secondary only to the tobacco industry for causing lung cancer.

So, if the government goes ahead with uranium mining and building nuclear reactors, the population might as well go ahead and start chain-smoking. The result will be the same.

— Ingela Richardson

Amendments to mining law defended

Amendments to mining law defended

Department of Mineral and Energy Affairs Director-General Sandile Nogxina has defended amendments to the Minerals and Petroleum Resources Development Act, saying the amendment Bill ‘creates, rather than removes, regulatory obstacles for the mining industry’. The Financial Mail says the DG was responding to criticism of the proposed legislation from Webber Wentzel Bowens partner Peter Leon. Nogxina admits that a number of clauses have been materially changed in the amendment, but he maintains the changes are justified to meet the aims of the Act. ‘They bring the regulations in line with the intention of the legislation,’ he says, and they come partly in response to problems encountered by the DME. He singles out the issue of ‘fronting’ by parties claiming to meet BEE requirements. Chamber of Mines CE Mzolisi Diliza says his organisation was looking for more clarity in the legislation. ‘For example, what the Bill means by a ‘concentration of mineral resources’'. We are in discussions with the DME over this.’

NOTE: For the average landowner, and by this I mean "land" not your little house in Sandton, these amendments are hideous in nature. They seek to bypass the National Environmental Management Act NEMA, they seek to bypass the EIA process completely, they seek to bypass any sort of public comment or public participation. These amendments place decisions on mining totally in the hands of the minister of the Department of Minerals and Energy DME.

The DME has proven their inability to police and monitor the mining community effectively as can be seen in cases such as the contamination of the Wonderfonteinspruit Catchment which is contaminated with radioactive Uranium due to years of mining activities that have violated environmental laws.

These amendments allow the government and minister to take any minerals on any land, simply because the government owns all mineral rights of course.

SA State may demand first pick of uranium

SA State may demand first pick of uranium
By: Reuters
Published: 22 Aug 07 - 17:47

South Africa may compel local miners to first offer uranium to the state to feed the country's expanding nuclear energy programme, a senior official said on Wednesday.

The government announced this month it would ramp up use of nuclear energy as it moves to meet fast-growing demand for power, using the country's large resources of uranium.

"The intervention in the uranium market (is necessary) ... there is no way we can have a situation where we battle for uranium, to get uranium ore, when our country is actually exporting," Tseliso Maqubela, chief director for nuclear energy at the department of minerals and energy, told legislators.

The enrichment programme, now biased towards reprocessing used fission material, was needed to power the country's nuclear plans, he said. These see nuclear power rising to 15 percent of total supply from the current 6 percent.

South Africa, one of the biggest producers of uranium, is building a multi-billion dollar new technology pebble bed modular reactor (PBMR), and has mooted building more conventional plants to add to its sole facility near Cape Town.

The move towards nuclear technology is driven by local concern over energy sustainability and by international worries over greenhouse gas emissions and climate change.

South Africa's ageing electricity power grid is already struggling to cope with demand, with main cities Johannesburg and Cape Town already suffering intermittent blackouts.

Maqubela said he expected opposition to the proposal to intervene in the market as the country planned to reserve uranium stocks and not allocate all mining rights.

"I believe that opposition is mainly driven by commercial interests...the profit margins are quite huge in as far as enrichment of uranium (is concerned), upwards of 50 percent," he said.

Maqubela added that mining companies such as Uranium One, Anglogold and First Uranium, were expected to significantly increase output to exploit soaring uranium prices. South Africa needed to position itself to take advantage of a global nuclear revival.

"There is a growing nuclear energy sector globally, and we need to tap into that market. We need to position South African industry to be able to play in that space," he said.

Source: http://www.miningweekly.co.za/article.php?a_id=115257

Europe's Dirty DU Secret

Europe's Dirty DU Secret

The uranium enrichment multinational Urenco has come under fire from green groups for exporting thousands of tonnes of depleted uranium to Russia, in spite of Russia’s appalling safety record and the fact that dumping is technically illegal.

Urenco, whose plant at Capenhurst in Cheshire enriches uranium for use in the UK’s power plants has exported more than 75,000 tonnes of DU to Russia since 1996. The importation of nuclear waste into Russia for the purposes of storage is illegal, but Urenco and other European uranium enrichment and reprocessing firms bypass this by arranging the return of some reprocessed material. However, around 98% of the waste has not been returned and is now being stored at four sites across Russia.

The containers used to transport the uranium waste do not meet current International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) standards and pose a serious risk during the thousands of kilometres journey to the Russian disposal sites, where they are illegally dumped. Once there, the containers, each of which contains up to 10t of gaseous DU are left in the open air to slowly corrode. A large proportion of the waste is in the form of hexafluoride crystals, which react violently with water leading to dispersal of toxic gases, including hydrogen fluoride.

In Russia, Greenpeace has filed a case in the Moscow district court against the Russian government nuclear export company, Tecksnabexport. According to paragraph 3 of article 48 of the federal law of 2001 ‘On Environmental Protection’, import of nuclear waste and foreign nuclear materials to the Russian Federation for the purpose of its storage or disposal is prohibited.

“The nuclear industry is opting for the cheapest, dirtiest and most dangerous option – dumping in Russia,” said Vladimir Tchuprov of Greenpeace Russia in La Havre. “Russia already has a nuclear waste crisis, and yet EDF, EoN, and all other European nuclear utilities are making the situation worse. Disposal and even storage of foreign nuclear waste in Russia is illegal,” said Tchuprov.

The waste is sent to Sverdlovsk-44, Angarsk, Krasnoyarsk-45 and Tomsk-7, one of the most radioactive sites on Earth and a centre for plutonium production.

Source: http://www.cadu.org.uk/info/nuclear/22_1.htm

 

South Africa SOLD to Canadian, American, British & Australian Mining Companies

Mining ministry to call legal shots

Environment minister may lose power

August 20, 2007 Edition 1
Tony Carnie

THE mining ministry has thumbed its nose at South Africa's official environmental custodian, by declaring that it will now call the legal shots on all future environmental mining disputes.

The move has triggered fears that other government departments may attempt to follow suit and sideline the national environmental department by setting up their own in-house environment branches to approve anything from nuclear power stations to airports or major toll roads.

It has also heightened fears that final decisions to mine the Wild Coast and other ecologically sensitive areas will be handed exclusively to the Department of Minerals and Energy.

However, Speaker of Parliament Baleka Mbete has been asked to intervene urgently following attempts by the mining department to "smuggle" a controversial law amendment through parliament, which could exempt mining activity from safeguards in the National Environmental Management Act.

Durban environmental law specialist Jeremy Ridl said at the weekend he was becoming increasingly "uneasy" about the future of environmental protection laws in the light of several statements made by President Thabo Mbeki, Premier S'bu Ndebele and other senior ministers critical of environmental impact assessment laws.

Ridl said South Africa had enacted some of the best environmental laws in the world over the past 10 years, but he feared they might not be secure.

He sympathised with developers frustrated by bureaucratic delays in granting environmental approvals, but he also believed much of the criticism of environmental impact assessment legislation was overstated.

Ridl said pressure from the government and developers to "streamline" environmental regulation had resulted in messy and ambiguous changes rather than simpler laws.

Dangerous

As a result, the original environmental impact assessment laws had grown from about seven pages in 1997 to 53 pages in 2006, with another 83 pages of amendments published for comment earlier this year.

The overall result was unlikely to please either developers or environmentalists.

Ridl said it was difficult to judge whether proposed amendments to the Minerals and Petroleum Resources Development Act marked the start of a new process to strip power away from Environment Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk.

However, it was a dangerous precedent to allow "rabbits to look after the lettuce patch", and if the mining department was given such powers on environmental issues, it was a very easy step to give the same powers to other departments.

In the case of the Wild Coast, where an Australian company hopes to mine coastal sand dunes south of Port Edward, environmental consultants have already made it clear that the final decision will be taken by officials in Minister Lindiwe Hendricks's Minerals and Energy Department, not Van Schalkwyk's department.

Late last week attorney Angela Andrews of the Legal Resources Centre wrote to Mbete to voice concern that recent amendments to the Minerals Act created "an entirely new approach" to environmental regulation in the mining industry.

While public hearings were held to discuss the amendments earlier this year, the most controversial changes were not included in draft copies circulated to the public.

Andrews said these amendments were added on June 20, after public hearings were concluded by the portfolio committee on minerals and energy. "Most worrying from a procedural point of view, this substantial change was effected midway through the parliamentary process . . . it was not included in the version of the Bill which the public was invited to comment on, and no public hearings have been held or comments received on this particular amendment," she said in a letter to Mbete and National Council of Provinces Chairman Johannes Mhlangu.

Andrews has urged Mbete and Mhlangu to allow the public to comment on the change, since it affected the legal authority of provinces as well as the fundamental mandate of the environment department.

"Our instructions are further to challenge the constitutional validity of the Bill on procedural and other grounds should it become necessary."

Loggerheads

Mining is a listed activity under the newly revised environmental impact assessment regulations, but the mining and environment departments remain at loggerheads over who has final authority to regulate environmental issues when mining is involved.

The power struggle was clearly evident during a meeting of the minerals and energy portfolio committee on June 19.

Jacinto Rocha, the acting director-general of mining, was adamant that his department should be trusted to safeguard the environment during mining operations, though environmental watchdogs argue that it cannot act impartially as player and referee.

Rocha also disputed whether Van Schalkwyk's department had exclusive legal competence to deal with environmental matters. But with no resolution in sight, the environmental impact assessment process on the Wild Coast mining application is already under way.

The environmental consultants say public meetings will be held between now and September and they hope to conclude the environmental impact assessment report towards the end of October.

The public and other interest groups would get 30 days to comment and it was expected that a final decision would be taken by the mining department before February 22.

If the project is approved, as seems increasingly likely, the Wild Coast miners hope to process 15 million tons of sand a year and convert this into products such as paint pigments and glass television screens.

The mining operation would last for nearly a quarter of a century along a 22km-long stretch of coastline in Xolobeni, just south of the KwaZulu-Natal border at Port Edward.

The Wildlife and Environment Society has pointed to several similarities between the Xolobeni and Lake St Lucia dune-mining debates, but its members fear there will be less public debate because the Pondoland area is not as well-known as St Lucia.

 

Toxic Water - WonderfonteinSpruit

Toxic Water

The Wonderfontein Spruit starts near Randfontein in the north and moves all the way down south to Potchefstroom. It flows through the richest gold mining region in the world.

Copyright - CarteBlanche
Date : 12 August 2007
Producer : Carol Albertyn Christie
Presenter : Devi Sankaree Govender

The Coetzee’s have stopped farming mealies because the crops turned yellow when they were irrigated from the Wonderfontein Spruit. The water in Robinson Lake is as acidic as orange juice and is radioactive. Hundreds of fish who fed on the uranium-rich sediment of the Donaldson Dam died recently. Across the way, in the Krugersdorp Nature Reserve, many animals havevdied, and the herds of buck are showing signs of low fertility. The common denominator in all of these examples is uranium-contaminated water and, if unchecked, it may eventually reach Potchefstroom.

Mariette Liefferink (Activist): “I want to emphasise this: I am not a ‘greeny’, or, as you put it, “a bunny hugger!” I am an environmental justice activist.”

Many believe that South Africa’s success has largely been founded on gold, and yet this woman - who looks like a glamorous executive - has single-handedly taken on the might of the gold mines on the West Rand. She is a South African Erin Brockovich, who has spent seven years of her life fighting for a cause that she is passionately committed to. She has written thousands of letters trying to get Government to act on what she believes is a national crisis.

Devi Sankaree Govender (Carte Blanche presenter): “How serious is this situation?”

Mariette: “There is more than abundant evidence that the chemical toxicity of the uranium in the Wonderfontein Spruit certainly can translate into a hazard or a risk to human health.”

South Africa was one of the countries that supplied America with uranium for its nuclear bomb programme called The Manhattan Project. Uranium is one of the most dangerous metals on earth. Not only is it highly toxic, but it is also radioactive.

Devi: “Why is uranium so dangerous?”

Mariette: “Uranium has two properties. It is chemically toxic; it can lead to kidney failure. It is also radioactive, which means it has a carcinogenic effect.”

Radium is a daughter product of uranium and was the key ingredient of luminous paint that was used in the First World War on clock dials. The factory women, who painted the dials, licked the paintbrushes that contained minute quantities of radium found in the luminous paint. They developed severe health complications and the phenomenon was referred to as Radium Jaw. Many of the women suffered from cancerous growths, anaemia and bone fractures and in some cases the illness only manifested decades later.

Mariette: “But unfortunately - since we have stopped selling uranium to other countries overseas, such as the Manhattan Project - uranium is being dumped into tailings dams.”

It is still estimated that the gold mining industry discharges 50 tons of uranium into the watercourses every year. This is compounded by the 100 000 tons of uranium that are estimated to be in the tailings dams.

Dr Francois Durand (Zoologist): “Half the people of South Africa live in Gauteng and we are right here on a nuclear waste site.”

Dr Francois Durand is a zoologist at the University of Johannesburg. He has been looking at the impact of the contaminated water of gold mining on the water quality.

Dr Durand: “The water is very acidic and it contains a lot of heavy metals, of which many are dangerous to life - not only aquatic life, but also to humans.”

Mariette: “I cannot justify that a major mining company that has deteriorated the ecology, would cause harm to the community and would not be prepared to pay for the pollution caused, or the health effects that may have been caused.”

Mariette Liefferink is a self-funded activist and has, in the past, taken on the oil giant Shell and won.

Wonderfontein is home to some of the largest gold mining companies in the world. AngloGold, Goldfields, DRD and Harmony are the four major operators. Mariette Liefferink believes they are largely responsible for the contamination of the Wonderfontein Spruit.

Willie Jacobz (Goldfields: Sustainable Development): “The water that comes off our mines today… we must make sure that water is clean and drinkable and of a high quality.”

Willie Jacobz is the head of sustainable development at Goldfields Limited, the fourth largest gold mining company in the world, employing over 40 000 people.

Willie: “It used to be a largely agricultural area. Subsequently, it has become overtaken by mining; and clearly mining has an impact, and we acknowledge that.”

Water is inextricably linked to the mining process. It is pumped out of the ground to get to the ore and it is also used in the extraction procedure. The mine effluent is meant to be pumped and contained into tailings or slimes dams.

Willie: “Our company took very proactive steps throughout the ‘70s and the ‘80s. For instance, all of our slimes dams have got measures around them to prevent spills and runoffs. It does happen, but we manage it well.”

They may manage that aspect, but there is the history of over 100 years of uranium that is settled in the sediment of the Wonderfontein Spruit.

Sas and Douw Coetzee are farmers along the Wonderfontein Spruit. Their family has been tilling the soil for nearly three decades.

Over the years their irrigation dam started to silt up because of all the sediment flowing into the dam. In December 2001 the brothers decided to break the dam wall, take the mud out and build it again to have more water for irrigation. They had no idea of the consequences of their actions.

Douw Coetzee (Farmer): “As soon as we started moving the mud, the National Nuclear Regulator arrived and asked us what we were doing and who gave us permission to move the mud from the dam.”

Devi: “It must have been a shock to suddenly see people from the NNR pitch up on your property?”

Douw: “We then realised that there is a big problem.”

They were stunned when the National Nuclear Regulator told them that their dam was radioactive. Their dam allegedly contains nearly a thousand times more uranium concentration than allowed by the Department of Water Affairs. But theirs is not an isolated example.

This is a radiometric image [on screen] of an area further north in the Wonderfontein Spruit. The red areas show an elevated radioactivity and are gold mine dumps. However, the image also shows that the radiation is seeping into the wetlands and waterways.

Devi: “The most contaminated part of the Coetzee’s dam is the sediment where the uranium and heavy metals have settled. The dam is about 30km from Potchefstroom. The question is: if there is a big storm or heavy flooding, will this sediment make its way to Boskop Dam? … which 400 000 Potchefstroom residents rely on for their drinking water.”

When the Coetzee’s broke their dam wall, Potchefstroom Municipality picked up uranium in their drinking water and took an interdict out against DRD - the closest mine nearby, who quickly fixed up the dam wall.

Devi: “The closest mine to the Coetzee’s farm is DRD - Durban Roodepoort Deep. Their former chairman was Brett Keble. We asked them for an interview and their response was that they didn’t want to participate in our programme.”

Mahesh Rupa is Potchefstroom’s Health and Safety Director.

Mahesh Rupa (Potchefstroom Municipality): “It is true it is not easy to estimate the danger to Potchefstroom. But the safety of our residents is paramount to all issues.”

Although he is very concerned about the safety of his residents, part of the agreement with the DRD was that they would also rehabilitate the sediment spill at the Coetzee dam. To date this hasn’t happened.

Devi: “The point, however, is that agreement was brokered five years ago?”

Mahesh: “In wanting to find a solution, it is not necessary to assume that we are going to do it in a manner that will be hasty.”

Although there have been some slightly elevated levels of uranium in the Boskop Dam, the municipality insists that the current water quality is well within allotted standards. The concern, though, is - the contamination is moving slowly downstream.

Marius Keet (Department of Water Affairs): “We are concerned about all the catchments in South Africa, but specially the Wonderfontein Spruit because it is so heavily industrialised. The major concern is of course the mines.”

According to Marius Keet, the Government has created a task team of the Departments of Water Affairs, Mineral and Energy Affairs and Environmental Affairs to address the issues in the area. He has been monitoring the water situation for a while and believes that there is an improvement in the surface water.

Marius: “Yes, there is a possibility that you have uranium in the sediment. In some cases the concentration of uranium in the sediment is fairly high. But that is in the sediment. As far as the water is concerned, I honestly think that the water is quite safe.”

Devi: “The Department of Water Affairs has tried to reassure us by saying that the sediment is stable. But other studies have shown that if the water is churned by animals or people, the highly toxic uranium is mobilised.”

The National Nuclear Regulator released the Brenk report on 2 August this year, and it stated that there were 11 sites along the Wonderfontein Spruit that exceeded the annual limit of radioactivity. One of the concerns in the report was the irrigation of vegetables from these sites. Khutsong is a town of about 150 000 people and many of the residents rely on this water source. Carte Blanche tested some leeks that were growing near the river.

Even though the NNR report said that “none of the lives of the residents are in any impending danger”, the leeks we tested contained sixteen times more uranium per kilogram than the daily limit, as suggested by the World Health Organisation, for human consumption.

Devi: “Although many of the farmers are aware of the water problem, there is still a lot of agriculture going on along the Wonderfontein Spruit. This [on screen] was a peat farm that supplied the mushroom industry. But in December last year they closed shop because they were concerned about the water quality.

Rene Potgieter (Peat Farmer): “We became aware of the fact that the biggest threat to our business was this pollution plume that was slowly migrating down the Wonderfontein Spruit and seeping into the wetland.”

Rene Potgieter’s peat farm is only about 4km away from Potchefstroom. She says that 95 percent of the peat that was used by the mushroom industry came from this wetland. She has been pressurising the government to do a peat study, but when the water quality deteriorated even further in the wetland and the mushroom yield dropped, they took those warning signs to heart.

Rene: “Imagine the implication if all of a sudden the study is completed and it is discovered that there is uranium in this peat, and how many millions of people eating mushrooms?”

Rene Potgieter started the Potchefstroom Action Group to pressurise the authorities to deal with the issues for the future safety of their town and children.

Devi: “The Coetzee brothers were primarily mealie farmers. This abandoned field behind me used to produce ears of corn.”

The mealie on the left [large] was irrigated by rainwater and the mealie [small] on the right from water from the dam. The Coetzee’s say that all of the mealies irrigated from the contaminated dam were substantially smaller.

This has basically cost them their livelihood. The only thing left in their lands is khaki bos.

Douw: “For the past three years we have been unable to irrigate because there was not enough water in the dam and we could also not take the mud out of the dam because the government told us it was radioactive. In the meantime we are suffering with huge damages.”

Sas Coetzee (Farmer): “If you don’t farm or produce then you face bankruptcy. In other words, we will end up on the street.”

During our research we could not find any studies that quantified the amount of heavy metals found in plants that were grown at the Wonderfontein Spruit. To our knowledge Carte Blanche has been the first to test vegetables that were grown in the area.

We tested a cabbage and leek, the leek is more contaminated - possibly because it grew closer to the water stream. The cabbage, we believe, was irrigated by borehole water.

Dr Francois Durand interpreted the results based on the Department of Water’s daily guidelines and said that the heavy metal levels were unacceptably high. His concern is that heavy metals accumulate in the body.

Aluminium has been linked to Alzheimer’s, iron to haemochromatosis and manganese to neurological problems.

Rene: “You can’t see the effects on human health because they haven’t done studies yet on human health. I think the biggest reason they haven’t done studies yet is because they don’t actually want to see the results.”

When mining started over 100 years ago they had little idea of the impact it would have on the environment. Given the amount of money the State was making from the mines, there was also very little impetus to create legislation to protect the environment.

Harmony is the fifth largest gold mining company in the world and was founded in the ‘50s as the Rand Mines Company, but listed independently in 1997. By law the mines have to set aside a remediation fund to rehabilitate the environment. Sandy Carroll and Rex Zorab work on Harmony’s environmental team.

Rex Zorab (Operational Environmental Officer): “The remediation fund is the one that is provided for at closure; now some of these legacy issues are addressed at that point.”

Devi: “Are we then saying that we have to wait for the mine to close before we address issues of legacy that started earlier on?”

Sandy Carroll (Environmental Consultant): “We can address some of those legacy issues already… that is what we term concurrent rehabilitation. Harmony has some plans in place to actually start addressing some of those issues in this area.”

Devi: “So why weren’t plans put in place when you came, when you knew what you had walked into?”

Sandy: “Absolutely, I think the focus has always been to work within the regulatory framework in terms of our operations, which we have done all along. It is only recently that we have realised that there is an opportunity in actually starting to address some of those legacy issues.”

To compound the issue, not only is the surface sediment contaminated, but the underground water is also toxic, as it percolates with the heavy metals that have been exposed during mining.

In 2002 this acidic water started pouring out of a disused mine shaft on Harmony’s land.

Dr Durand: “The lake behind me has a pH of 2.2. Now that is acidic as battery acid. I have a sample of this; it is not water, it is acid.”

As an emergency measure, Harmony pumped this toxic water into Robinson Lake where it could be contained. The uranium levels here are 40 000 times above the natural background levels.

Devi: “Listening to you, Francois, I get so upset. Why is somebody not doing something about this?”

Dr Durand: “This is what we are trying to do now.”

Devi: “But what about government departments?”

Dr Durand: “The problem with government is that they have to try and sustain the economy. If the mines close down, suddenly millions of people - that is mine workers and their dependents - haven’t got an income.”

Nothing can live in this water. Robinson Lake is a barren radioactive wasteland. Harmony, who owned the lake at the time of the decant, sold the property, and it now belongs to a property developer who wants to build luxury houses around it.

Devi: “At that time of selling that particular area, were you aware that the water was pretty toxic in that dam?”

Rex: “We were well aware of it - that there was rehabilitation that needs to be done; it was in the current process.”

Devi: “And the understanding was that the mine would rehabilitate the dam?”

Rex: “Indeed.”

Devi: “Have you started work on it?”

Rex: “When you say have we started work on rehabilitating it, the answer is no. Have we started work on investigating the rehabilitation routes? The answer is yes.”

The decant happened five years ago and Harmony is still thinking of ways to sort the problem out.

Given the potential for harm, one would expect the government to be diligent about what went into the waterways. But judging from the Coetzee’s cell phone footage of mine effluent on its way to the Spruit, the mines aren’t sticking to the rules.

Marius: “It is very difficult to be on site on a 24 hour a day basis. If necessary, we can take them on; we can take them to court.”

Devi: “Have you ever taken them to court?”

Marius: “Not the mines, not these mines. It is always better to do an evaluation and rehabilitate than just to give them a penalty of R50 000 or R100 000. But if necessary, we will do it.”

Gold mining will still continue for at least another 40 years. In their defence, Goldfields has created a forum of all of the key players to address these issues. But the affected parties feel that another forum, like all of the reports that have been written, may just be delaying tactics.

Devi: “You knew the impact of mining was having on the environment. But from their side it doesn’t look like much was done or that their issues were taken seriously. What would you then say to them?”

Willie: “We’re doing it today.”

Devi: “Is it good enough, though, doing it today?”

Willie: “We can’t run back the clock. We have to deal with the issues that we are faced with today.”

Mariette: “It is time now that people should not serve the economy, but that the economy should serve the people.”

Mariette Liefferink believes that the mines may well in the future be forced to address the environmental issues, because their shareholders won’t want to be associated with dirty gold.

Dr Durand: “The people who own these mines sit outside the country and they don’t have to drink the water. We have to drink the water. We have to sit here with all this rubbish and pollution. We have to sort out the ecological problems, not them!”


IMPORTANT DISCLAIMER: While every attempt has been made to ensure this transcript or summary is accurate, Carte Blanche or its agents cannot be held liable for any claims arising out of inaccuracies caused by human error or electronic fault. This transcript was typed from a transcription recording unit and not from an original script, so due to the possibility of mishearing and the difficulty, in some cases, of identifying individual speakers, errors cannot be ruled out.

Source: http://www.carteblanche.co.za/Display/Display.asp?Id=3370

Poisonous Legacy

This flash video is well worth the watch for EVERY single citizen on earth.

http://www.bushflash.com/pl_lo.html

 

 

Lives at risk as mines coin it

Lives at risk as mines coin it
by Joel Avni

State knew about danger for 40 years

Gold mines on the Witwatersrand are exposing millions of people in Gauteng and North West to poisoned waters, leaving a trail of suspected cancer, kidney disease and death.

No one can put a figure to the devastation because officials have refused to heed calls for an epidemiological study to determine the extent of the catastrophe, say researchers and environmental groups monitoring the disaster.

National, provincial and local officials have known since the 1960s that citizens would be exposed to the witch’s brew of toxic chemicals that current and closed mines spew as waste into our waterways every single day.

But bureaucrats and their political masters in democratic South Africa have been as unwilling to offend the magnates and their investors as their counterparts were during apartheid.

The poor, the old, the young, and especially those infected with HIV are most at risk.

The constitution and a slew of laws nominally protect citizens. But Sowetan has witnessed unwitting communities – megarich and pitifully poor – drink, bathe and play at unfenced poisonous sites. Radioactive dams as corrosive as battery acid and devoid of plant and animal life were not even signposted.

The cocktail includes heavy metals and chemicals that cause cancer and mental retardation, destroy the kidneys, and can even poison victims outright.

Uranium and other radioactive elements occur in such high concentrations that dams are declared nuclear sites.

But no sign warns local communities and no fence keeps them or their livestock at bay – as required by law.

The mines, academics and researchers have known about the problem for decades. But the departments of Minerals and Energy, Water Affairs, Environment and Tourism, the National Nuclear Regulator, provincial and local officials have suppressed or ignored their reports, says Mariette Liefferink, an activist for environmental justice.

Wonderfonteinspruit rises in Randfontein on the West Rand and feeds the Mooi River, which provides Potchefstroom with its water. Millions of people live next to this waterway, which is poisoned all along its length by mine waste, according to reports by the Water Research Commission, the Council of Geoscience, the Jordaan Commission, and the national State of the Environment Report 2002 for North West.

Tudor Dam in Mogale City lies a short distance northeast of the spruit’s source. The sediment is contaminated with so much uranium that it should be declared a nuclear site, cordoned off and marked with signs warning people of the danger.

But it has been bone-dry for months, with no water to shield the residents alongside it from the sediments.

Children playing in the dust on Sunday said no one had ever warned them of the dangers.

Robinson Lake lies a few kilometres down the Wonderfonteinspruit in Randfontein. The dam was once a popular picnic area and prime fishing spot.

For the past five years Harmony gold mine has been pumping water into the lake, which is now completely dead. A recent investigation found a single species of amphipod in its waters – and nothing else. It too is so radioactive that by law it should be fenced off and signposted.

But the Randfontein Golf Estate with a hotel and more than 520 homes is being built on its lifeless banks.

No warning is posted to advise the proud new owners that their investments are perched on an impoundment that poses a risk to them and their children.

 

Source: http://www.sowetan.co.za/article.aspx?ID=522473

Fears grow that 'green' ministry may be sidelined

Fears grow that ‘green’ ministry may be sidelined

There are fears that the mining ministry’s decision to call the legal shorts on all future environmental mining disputes – thus sidelining National Environmental Department – will encourage other government departments to follow suit and set up their own in-house environment branches to approve anything from nuclear power stations to airports or major toll roads.

A report in The Mercury says the move has also heightened fears that final decisions to mine the Wild Coast and other ecologically sensitive areas will be handed exclusively to the Department of Minerals and Energy.

However, Speaker of Parliament, Baleka Mbete, has been asked to intervene urgently following attempts by the mining department to ‘smuggle’ a controversial law amendment, which would exempt mining activity from safeguards in the National Environmental Management Act, through Parliament.

Durban environmental law specialist Jeremy Ridl said at the weekend he was becoming increasingly ‘uneasy’ about the future of environmental protection laws in the light of several statements made by President Thabo Mbeki, KZN Premier S’bu Ndebele and other senior members critical of environmental impact assessment laws. Ridl said SA had enacted some of the best environmental laws in the world over the past 10 years but he feared they might not be secure.

Full report in The Mercury (subscription needed)

Study warns of radioactive food

Study warns of radioactive food
Elise Tempelhoff, Beeld

Johannesburg - Meat, fish, milk, maize and other crops produced near Wonderfontein Spruit in Gauteng are probably harmful to people as they are seriously contaminated by, among others, radioactive pollutants. This pollution affects the area between Randfontein and Potchefstroom. International experts say people who eat or drink these products could suffer liver or kidney failure or get cancer. It could also hamper children's growth and cause mental disability.

According to findings in a report compiled by German physicists under Dr Rainer Barthel from BS Associates, the water from the Wonderfontein Spruit, which was used to irrigate the crops, had absorbed polonium and lead, the radioactive by products of uranium and radium.

Cattle also contaminated
Cattle drinking from the Wonderfontein Spruit that churned up the uranium-rich mud, were also contaminated by these radioactive pollutants. Their meat and milk would also probably be poisonous.

This report by the Germans, known as the Brenk report, was compiled on request of the National Nuclear Regulator (NNR), who refused to make the contents known for the past three months. Beeld obtained excerpts from the report.

Maurice Magugumela, chief official of the NNR, upon enquiry said "there is no reason for concern". He said the NNR was studying the report and has had "several talks with those involved".

Barthel was prevented from delivering two speeches from the report at the Environmin 2007 conference at the Pilanesberg nature reserve two weeks ago. He had to withdraw these speeches at short notice. These two excerpts had by then already been included in the literature distributed at the conference.

Natural water sources unsafe
Barthel and his co-authors came to the conclusion in the report that the land in this area - where more than 400 000 people live in Randfontein, Bekkersdal, Carletonville, Westonaria, Khutsong and Welverdiend - was seriously polluted by overflow from sludge dams during 100 years of mining.

People in towns in this area received their drinking water from Rand Water, but people on farms and informal settlements were reliant on water from Wonderfontein Spruit.

Sandy Carroll, who was recently appointed environmental manager at Harmony Gold, admitted that the mining groups were informed about the dangers indicated in the report. She said Harmony was talking to NNR and they were together seeking solutions.

The West Rand district municipality planned to erect notices warning people along the Wonderfontein Spruit (which runs for 100km) not to use the water.

Carroll replied in an e-mail to Beeld's enquiries: "Alternative water sources will be suggested."

The report stressed that there was no natural water in the whole area that was safe for use by humans, animals or plants.

Tested cabbage
Mariette Lieffering, an environmental activist who established the Public Environmental Arbiters (PEA), said it was "surprising" that Magugumela could state there was no reason for concern for the residents in the area. She has just written to the Human Rights Commission to step in.

• A cabbage that was irrigated with water from the Wonderfontein Spruit catchment area and which was analysed by Dr Francois Durand, zoology lecturer at the University of Johannesburg, was found to contain 153 times more aluminium, 680 times more iron, 590 times more manganese, 980 times more vanadium that was recommended for human and also had too much zinc.

Source:News24

See also: http://www.environment.co.za/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=1124

 

The Uranium Meltdown

The Uranium Meltdown
Bush is Moving On...But to Where?

By JOHN TROYER

"The President has moved on," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer said to reporters at a news conference on Saturday when asked about the continuing attention being given to false intelligence information used in President George W. Bush's January State of the Union Address. I take Fleischer at his word--the president really, really wants to stifle any scrutiny directed towards the administration's use of intelligence information before occupying Iraq. I do not think, however, moving on is going to be so easy for President Bush, Vice President Cheney or senior White House officials. Even though a statement released last Friday by CIA Director George Tenet takes responsibility for allowing information about uranium sales between Africa and Iraq to appear in the State of the Union Address, I think the Bush administration's problems are just beginning.

Three large problems still face the Bush administration and no statement by any top official near the White House can entirely obscure these problematic situations.

The first issue is Tenet's own statement. Without a doubt, as the BBC's description of Tenet's statement suggests, he is the one falling on his sword for the president and the White House. The Washington Post reported on Saturday the statement itself "had been in the works for two days" before being released. So clearly, shocking as it may sound, the whole affair seems rather programmed. A key word is used in Tenet's statement and I have a hunch it will not go unnoticed by critics. In explaining how investigations regarding the alleged uranium sales were handled Tenet states: "Because this report, in our view, did not resolve whether Iraq was or was not seeking uranium from abroad, it was given a normal and wide distribution, but we did not brief it to the president, vice president or other senior administration officials." The word to contemplate is "brief." Just because the president, the vice president and other senior administration officials were not briefed, does not mean they didn't know the information was false. If these people didn't know, then Tenet's statement should have said--they did not know. Remember, when the U.S. military hits civilian targets or the Al-Jazeera network offices in Baghdad the Pentagon explains those places aren't "being targeted". That doesn't mean, however, those same locations aren't being smashed to bits by the U.S. military. The nuance of language and words matter a great deal when establishing culpability.

Problem two is in the United Kingdom. Tony Blair and his government have been left to drown by the White House. The BBC reported last week the CIA told President Bush the Africa story was bad information and by extension opened deeper questions about Blair's use of British intelligence on the same subject. Now the White House has said the British intelligence was wrong in its entirety. Suddenly, and without warning, the White House is telling the citizens of the United Kingdom their government is lying. Blair and his ministers are standing by their intelligence on uranium sales to Iraq, albeit alone and under heavy scrutiny in Parliament. John Howard, Prime Minister of Australia, has also apologized over the weekend to his country for using the same intelligence in his speeches. Most damaging to Blair were comments carried by the BBC on July 9 from senior officials within Blair's own government saying weapons of mass destruction are "unlikely to be found." All of these problems leave Blair and his Labor Party one option when speaking to the public--to blame the United States and President Bush for their problems. I doubt Blair would ever, say, turn Britain's back on an ally when accusations regarding governmental policy emerge, but it may be his only chance for re-election. Adding to the fire Blair is already under are two U.K. citizens, Feroz Abbasi and Moazzam Begg, being held in Guantanamo Bay by the United States as illegal combatants. Both men now face the newly established military tribunals orchestrated by the Pentagon. Members of the British Parliament across the board are demanding these men be repatriated and given a trial in the U.K.

The third problem faced by the Bush administration, and it's a big one, is the sheer volume of journalistic reports regarding heavy-handed uses of information by the Pentagon. In the March 31 issue of The New Yorker, Seymour Hersh wrote an extensive story about how the uranium intelligence information was fictitious and manufactured. More recently, on June 19, The New Republic posted an even longer story by John Judis and Spencer Ackerman about the problems with the Bush administration's intelligence gathering by the Department of Defense. Finally, on July 6 former U.S. diplomat Joseph C. Wilson IV published an opinion piece in The New York Times about his February 2002 trip to Niger examining reports of the uranium sales. Wilson's trip, it should be noted, was undertaken at the request of the CIA and Vice President Dick Cheney's office. The piece by Wilson has been widely distributed but one key portion regarding his trip to Niger suggesting an important paper trail has been given far too little attention. Wilson states: "Although I did not file a written report, there should be at least four documents in U.S. government archives confirming my mission. The documents should include the ambassador's report of my debriefing in Niamey, a separate report written by the embassy staff, a CIA report summing up my trip, and a specific answer from the agency to the office of the vice president (this may have been delivered orally). While I have not seen any of these reports, I have spent enough time in government to know that this is standard operating procedure."

Even though President Bush is ready to move on, I have a feeling the problems are just beginning for his administration--I didn't even touch on the occupation of Iraq or problematic domestic issues. While I am not a fan of the word scandal, the really interesting shake-ups in Washington take time to unravel. From start to finish, Watergate plagued the Nixon administration for roughly two years. The irony of the situation is the classic distraction used by previous presidents during bad times, namely bombing Iraq or the Middle East writ large, isn't possible now--too many Americans are in the way. So, move on Mr. President--I want to see where you end up going.

John Troyer is a PhD student at the University of Minnesota. He can be reached at troy0005@tc.umn.edu

THE RADIOACTIVE MERRY-GO-ROUND

THE RADIOACTIVE MERRY-GO-ROUND

There is no such thing as nuclear waste disposal. Instead, nations around the world having been putting nuclear waste on a constant radioactive merry-go-round - transporting it from country to country to be met with outrage from their people at the suffering, death and environmental havoc the waste has wrought. And now the merry-go-round has come to Cape Town, South Africa as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) and the National Nuclear Regulator (NNR) host a nuclear waste "workshop" in Cape Town over a cup of coffee.

It is interesting to take a look at the representatives who have been invited to attend this "Common Framework for the Safety of Radioactive Waste Management and Disposal" from 2-6 July. They include: Didier Louvat of the IAEA, Peter Lietava (Czech republic), Wolfgang Goldammer (Germany), Zhiwen Fan (China), Oleg Bonderenko and Volodmyr Tokarevski (Ukraine), P.A. Brown, D.E. Metcalfe and D.M McCauley (Canada), Marko Giacomelli (Slovenia), Ms. Alena Zavazanova (Slovak Republic), Sergie Dmitriev (Russia), Tariq Tahir (Pakistan), Djarot Wisnurbroto (Indonesia), Azucena Sanhueza-Mir (Chile), Karoli Berci (Hungary), Francois Besnus (France), Yongsoo Hwang (Korea), Vilmos Zsombori (Romania), Shang (China) and Luc Beakaland (Belgium).

This starts to look like an ID parade for the "Usual Suspects". What do you suppose they would have to say on the topic of "disposing" of nuclear waste? In which country shall we put it all this year? But then hopefully the NNR has seen fit to accomodate, not only all these foreign representatives, but also plenty of local press to inform South Africans as to how their taxes will be spent on Eskom's planned R400 billion nuclear programme? But check on that price tag, because it seems to go up every month.

Talking about the "disposal" of nuclear waste - here is another unlikely fairytale. Once upon a time there was a happy village in West Siberia. Then the Russian Atomic Ministry, Minatom, decided to build a nuclear reactor nearby - and so the Mayak nightmare began. Radioactive waste from the Mayak nuclear complex was pumped into the Techa River - the source of drinking water for many villages. Nuclear waste was also dumped into the lakes of West Siberia. Then in 1957 one of the cooling systems of the Mayak-plant exploded and at least 272 000 people were affected. No this was not Chernobyl - it just looked a lot like Chernobyl. And served to activate Russian environmental group Ecodefense to deliver a mass petition demanding the end to nuclear waste imports into Russia. The petition was signed by 5 000 Russians - tired of living with nuclear waste from other nations in Europe. While it seems that The Netherlands, Germany and Hungary for example would like to market pristine postcard little villages gleaming with cleanliness, it was okay for their Russian brothers and sisters to glow in the dark.

The Russian government had planned to import 20 000 tonnes of nuclear waste in exchange for over 20 billion US dollars. Potential exporting countries included: Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Bulgaria, Hungary, Switzerland, Germany and Spain. The deputy head of the Mayak plant told a government commission that they could not guarantee the safety of the people in the area. How unusual? But since the Russians are fed up with it, is South Africa planning to be the next new importer of Grade A nuclear waste?

The Americans say: "Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me". They also use the term "trying to pull a fast one" and the nuclear industry can certainly pride itself on trying to pull down the blinds on as many ignorant and uninformed nations in the world as possible, especially third world or developing nations, where people may not all even be literate and able to read warning signs like - "Don't pick the radioactive berries", or "No hunting for mutated animals in this forest".

Environmental groups around the world have been calling for an international convention on the dumping of radioactive waste. But the nuclear industry has very cleverly got away with this one by branding all environmentalists as "tree huggers" and "hippies". Who would possibly take them seriously?

Perhaps the victims of the Mayak nuclear complex, including: Wafir Gusmanov, a tractor driver who was forced by policemen to help clear up the contaminated banks of the Techa River, Ramzis Fayzullin who was born disabled and has yet to receive a reply from the Russian government, Kostia who has Down's Syndrome and had to have his fingers separated at birth and Luba, a kindergarten teacher where due to illness there is never full attendance and her own daughter, Regina, in urgent need of a heart operation.

Another merry addition to the coffee workshop hails from the Ukraine. Who would not want to spend a blissful holiday - basking in the waters of the sunny Ukraine? Well, it used to be beautiful. But the nuclear industry seems to have ground this nation underfoot, together with a number of others. Under the headline "Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova Choking on Toxic Waste, writers from Agence France-Presse (AFP) described the "toxic waste, water pollution and the legacy of Chernobyl" that had plunged these countries into "environmental crisis". According to a report released by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) this year, the Ukraine has "2,5 million tonnes of Soviet-era ammunition that requires disposal, including four burial grounds for radioactive waste". There are also 11 000 tonnes of hexachlorobenzene (HCB) and 2 000 tonnes of DDT, both posing "a long term danger for the environment and health." Most of Ukraine's 6 000 storage sites were "inadequately built, poorly guarded facilities in a deteriorating state of repair", usually without any documentation. Water quality was also a problem as 39 per cent of waste water was estimated to be polluted and 25 per cent goes into the environment without any kind of treatment.

How about sunny Moldova? Well this nation clocks in at only "8 000 tonnes of toxic residues often stored illegally and in a disorganised fashion contributing to land and water contamination" according to the OSCE. Stricter EU environmental standards in Slovakia and Hungary resulted in attempts to export environmental problems across borders. Tsk, tsk. Naughty, naughty! Moldova's military legacy included 20 000 tonnes of arms and munitions that were hard to get rid of. "The simultaneous explosion of such quantities of ammunition may trigger an environmental and humanitarian disaster," the report warned. And they are not kidding. In Moldova, up to half of ground water is contaminated "beyond all acceptable levels". It's even worse for surface water, affected by a wide variety of pollutants including ammonia, nitrites, phenols and oil products, the OSCE said. So one would gather that the locals do not drink the water?

In Belarus, "the most serious environmental problem concerns the liquidation of armaments and munitions inherited from the Soviet Union, including toxic and radioactive material", the OSCE said. During the Soviet era, military sites covered 300 000 hectares. These had been abandonded, leaving local authorities to clean up. In Belarus, 778 million tonnes of mining waste in the Soligorsk region were exposed to wind and water erosion and experts found 8 000 tonnes of obsolete pesticides in Belarus. Only!

But all of this lovely waste was not enough for Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko who was planning to bury nuclear waste from other countries in the Chernobyl zone. The Ukrainian leader said a second storage area for Chernobyl’s nuclear waste would be put into operation in 2010. Yes, this is the Chernobyl where 30 people were killed instantly and most workers who went inside the reactor after the accident had no protective equipment - a fatal economy. Large areas of the Ukraine, Belarus and Russia were contaminated, resulting in the evacuation and resettlement of 200 000 people.

After decades of research, environmental groups were slowly coming to realise that the IAEA promotes nuclear power. Last year, they protested by placing radioactive soil in the lobby of the IAEA. A 250kg concrete container containing two 1kg radioactive samples was placed in the lobby of the UN agency building in Vienna. The radioactive soil was taken from areas where people were still trying to harvest wood, mushrooms and berries. The samples were 10-25 times more radioactive than the radioactive limits set by the European Commission.

Finally, even the WHO had to admit - figures used by the IAEA concerning Chernobyl may have been somewhat selective. Zhanat Carr, a radiation scientist with WHO in Geneva said that the IAEA report was a "political communication tool". She also said that WHO did not include cancers outside Ukraine, Belarus and Russia. Whereas an independent report by 52 scientists showed that 270 000 cancers and 93 000 fatal cancer cases were caused by Chernobyl. The report also concluded that during the last 15 years, 60 000 people had died in Russia because of the Chernobyl accident, and the total death toll for the Ukraine and Belarus could reach 140 000.

So the R400 billion question is whether South Africans think it is the role of a United Nations agency, funded by taxes, to advance the profits of the nuclear industry? Do we not have the right to expect the IAEA to focus only on the values and principles of the UN - peace, security, and human rights - and not on private industry's profits?

But back to the workshop line-up. Another country represented in Cape Town is China, where unions and labour perhaps do not have the same kind of voice that they do in South Africa. A Gansu uranium mine employee was "detained by public security police" in China in 2005 when he tried to petition officials about severe radiation poisoning." Sun Xiaodi was detained and arrested when he tried to protest that radioactive material from the uranium mine was improperly handled, so that residents near and downstream from the plant suffered cancerous tumors, leukemia, birth defects and miscarriages. After being thrown in and out of prison like a yo-yo - depending on international opinion - Human Rights in China (HRIC) learned this year that Sun Xiaodi had been released from prison so that he could go to Beijing for treatment of a life-threatening tumor. But he and his family were continually harassed and faced financial hardship.

Pakistan is also represented at the Cape Town workshop. Last year, in Pakistan a senator from Punjab accused the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission (PAEC) of dumping nuclear waste in a village near Dera Ghazi Khan without observing international safety standards, causing many deaths. Sardar Jamal Khan Leghari of the Pakistan Muslim League said the PAEC had been mining uranium in the village for 25 years and dumping the nuclear waste in the open. He said the dumping of the nuclear waste was affecting people from Baloch and Leghari tribes living in the area, several of whom had already died.

Mr Leghari said livestock mortality and diseases among people living in the Baghalchur village near D. G. Khan were on the rise due to uranium mining in the area. He said that life expectancy in the village had fallen to 40 years. He said some villagers had taken the matter to the Supreme Court but the court had kept the proceedings secret. After publication of such reports in a section of the press, PAEC authorities had claimed that the waste was being dumped underground in tunnels and there had been no radioactive effects. But residents said that 400 drums of atomic waste and other material were lying in the open. The District and Sessions Judges (D&SJ) had sent the application to the Law, Justice and Human Rights Commission, Islamabad.

Last year when environmentalists staged a protest in front of Germany's embassy in Moscow against shipments of German nuclear waste to Russia, Russian protesters were seized, handcuffed and hauled away by police. This year, German and Russian activists held a demonstration in front of the E.ON headquarters in Düsseldorf, Germany. They protested against uranium enrichment and depleted uranium tails exports to Russia. The Russians had stumbled onto a huge government secret - the nuclear waste was not being "reprocessed" it was just being "stored" and they did not want it "stored" there anymore. The official reason for sending waste to Russia to "recover usable uranium" was no longer valid.

The Russian environmental group Ekozashchita (Ecodefense) asked a German public prosecutor "to investigate the activities of the German branch of Urenco which illegally delivers nuclear waste to Russia," a spokesman for the group, Vladimir Sliviak, told AFP. The group accused the company of transporting 20 000 tonnes of waste depleted uranium to Russia. 90 per cent of the waste uranium has since remained in Russia, the group said. Techsnabexport said it had transported "not nuclear waste, but primary materials" and was supported in this claim by the Russian nuclear authorities. So it seems one man's "waste" is another man's "primary material"?

Sliviak said: "German authorities must not take advantage of the fact that the Russian atomic industry can violate laws and ignore public opinion." According to Ecodefense, 100 000 tonnes of nuclear waste have been imported to Russia over the past decade. Up to 90 per cent is stored by Russian companies, awaiting final disposal. The radioactive material arrives in Saint Petersburg's port where it is carried by train toward the Ural mountains, and western and eastern Siberia. There is no such thing as "final disposal", since the waste will be radioactive for thousands of years - wherever it is "stored".

South Africa is now launching yet another Nuclear Industry Association (Sania), that is apparently supposed to "consider the interests of the South African nuclear industry through a collaborative approach". Of all groups, the infamous money-wasting PBMR industry has stated that this added expense of a yet another branch to their nuclear group is due to the “rapid development” of the South African nuclear sector. Ambitions of the South African nuclear programme include: a new nuclear power plant by Eskom, the PBMR, nuclear-fuel cycle and research and development by the Nuclear Energy Corporation of South Africa (Necsa) and uranium-mining - all highly toxic industries.

The company is moving ahead with studies into a proposed new 4 000 MW conventional nuclear plant. The nuclear industry is South Africa is still harping on its newly found environmental theme of "reducing carbon emissions" seemingly forgetting that the nuclear process includes uranium mining and milling and these equal or exceed C02 emissions by coal plants anyway. And the PBMR project continues to throw good money after bad as it asserts its commercial value - the idea of "cheap" nuclear energy has long since gone out of the window for most South Africans as they have been rudely awakened by Eskom's R400 billion plan and Minister Alec Erwin's double figure electricity bill increases.

So where does South Africa plan to dispose of all its nuclear waste. And will imported nuclear waste from foreign nations also be included in the "radioactive deposit"? Once again, PBMR are the spokesmen, stating that a "deep geological repository" for high- level waste from nuclear reactors (South African) would be constructed at Vaalputs, south-east of Springbok. Thus far, this waste site has only taken low or medium level nuclear waste. Suddenly we need a "deep geological repository" and interestingly enough, this has been what the United States, nations around Europe and Asia have been looking for as well - a place to dump all their nuclear waste...

And, although Eskom is forging ahead with Environmental Impact Assessments on sites identified for nuclear reactors all along South Africa's hitherto pristine coastline, the "strategy for the disposal of high-level waste" is "still being prepared". Apparently although South Africa has high level nuclear waste, there is as yet "no disposal methodology or facility for dealing with this category of waste from Koeberg, Necsa or the PBMR". So we are still talking about South African waste - right?

What does this repository involve? Just some really deep mining in a "geologically stable rock formation". Sounds very much like the one the United States planned for Yucca Mountain. But protests have prevented this from going ahead since residents in the area don't want it buried there and people who live along the transport route don't want high level waste toted through their towns.

Koeberg's waste is currently "stored underwater in the power station's fuel storage pools" which must be comforting for the people of Cape Town - to know it has been there all this time and as to where the water that is used for cooling this highly radioactive material comes from and where it goes to? This apparently is the beauty of coastal nuclear reactors like Koeberg - they use the sea water, which gives new meaning to the surfing term, "catching a wave".

Strangely though, the one and only South African nuclear reactor currently in existence and the proposed PBMR reactors have the capacity to store high level waste "on site". So who is the deep repository for again? Internationally, the idea of shipping radioactive waste to other nations in the world has been going on and on and around and around - it is just a matter of what some countries are prepared to accept.

There is the interesting Japanese story, where in 2005 a Japanese industry shipped soil contaminated with uranium to the United States for "disposal". Interesting because the US is also trying to "dispose" of its waste. The Japanese corporation had abandoned 16 000 cubic meters of waste soil where it had dug up uranium and residents demanded that the waste soil be removed. The corporation asked local governments to accept the radioactive soil but they refused. But in the United States, a company planned to "dispose" of the soil at a cost of about $6 million. In Washington, the deputy port director said the Nuclear Regulatory Commission had determined that the soils did not require a special import license.

However some countries entered into fierce parliamentary debate as to what would be best for their people. In Canada, the parliament debated the "importation of radioactive waste act" . Charlie Penson said: "One of the questions I want to address is one with which I think Canadians are concerned: Will Canada become the garbage bin of the world for nuclear waste? We certainly hope not. I am concerned to learn that there are over 400 commercial nuclear reactors in the world and many more small nuclear reactors in universities, on ships and in submarines. All of these reactors need a place to dispose of their radioactive waste, waste which remains highly toxic for thousands of years... There are groups who might be willing to take a time bomb off the hands of other countries, especially those countries which have the ability to pay and pay handsomely. This thought is deeply disturbing to me. It has been a challenge for us to find suitable locations for our own nuclear waste. We certainly do not need to take on the radioactive waste of other countries, and there is certainly lots of it out there...The United States will be looking to dispose of 50 tonnes of plutonium over the next 25 years. Russia has another 50 tonnes. My colleague from Fraser Valley East tells me that at the Hanford site in the United States there is enough high level waste to fill 86 football fields one metre deep. It will cost $57 billion just to dispose of the waste from that site...Canada is a beautiful, wide open country with lots of forests, lakes and streams. Let us keep it as clean as we can and as waste free as possible. Let us not allow Canada to become the nuclear garbage bin of the world".

South Africans might be singing a similar song. Another Canadian Monique Guay said: "Clearly, Canada is not yet equipped to receive foreign countries' radioactive waste. Since Canada does not know yet what to do with its own waste, how could it deal with, dispose of or store other countries'?.. the Prime Minister of Canada gave his support to a feasibility study to import into Canada plutonium from Russian and American nuclear warheads...that is about one hundred tonnes of plutonium...But once this plutonium is burned, it produces highly radioactive waste. How many bundles will be added to ours, to the 4 million bundles expected by the end of 2033? This roundabout way for foreigners to dispose of their plutonium waste raises some serious questions...Spent fuel is and must be considered extremely toxic".

Good argument. Here's another. Canadian Keith Martin said: "Sustainable development is not bringing somebody else's waste to Canada's shores...We should not be bringing their nuclear waste to Canada. It is not our responsibility to do that. We would be abrogating our responsibility to the health and welfare of Canadians if we brought these highly toxic, carcinogenic and teratogenic, mutagenic substances to our soil... It is also important to dispel the myths put forth...saying that we are against the importation of nuclear materials for technology and medicine...The bill deals with waste, waste, waste. It deals with nuclear waste, not nuclear material effectively used in industry and in the world of medicine...We do not need to bring in literally thousands of tonnes of spent nuclear rods and nuclear materials out there looking for a home. .. I was at a meeting with a number of scientists from Russia who said they had to decommission over 100 nuclear submarines within the next few years... The response of the Russians has been widespread dumping on the Kola Peninsula, widespread dumping in northern Russia.

"We have seen much about Chernobyl. We have heard much of the problems associated with this disaster. However the Chernobyl reactor is just one of many other reactors that exist in Russia today. There are literally dozens and dozens of leaky nuclear reactors in Russia that will produce other Chernobyls in the near future".

Okay - who saw that one coming? More Chernobyls? But then they did want to build that nuclear reactor on an earthquake site in Belene, Bulgaria.

Bob Ringma of Canada said: "Worldwide there are 413 commercial nuclear reactors, an untold number of small research reactors at universities and other reactors on ships or submarines. Together they have generated and will continue to generate enormous amounts of highly toxic nuclear waste, waste that will be deadly for 10 000 years...Canadians in general do not want radioactive waste in their backyard. It took eight years and $20 million for the siting task force struck by the Minister of National Resources to find a place for our low level radioactive waste...this does not cover high level radioactive waste...It should be self-evident to most that the import of radioactive waste should be banned.

"We already have 22 000 tonnes of high level waste in Canada stored on sites of over 22 nuclear reactors. This includes 78 tonnes of plutonium. By the year 2025, we will have 58 000 tonnes...The United States alone has an enormous high level waste problem. Because of that, there is an enormous profit potential in it. The U.S. Hanford site has enough waste to fill 86 football fields one metre deep. It will cost $57 billion to dispose of that. It is estimated that the clean-up cost in the United States alone will total a staggering $230 billion. The problem continues to grow. The U.S. has a total of 77 000 tonnes of waste to bury".

And so the radioactive merry-go-round has come to South Africa. And if South African people are not informed, the nuclear waste of the world will become our problem. South Africa has always prided itself on being a healthy nation - with a beautiful environment, outdoor living people and amazing wildlife. But the government's aggressive nuclear programme can change all of that in an instant and South Africans will be left suffering the agonies experienced by nations around the world and the contamination of such basic necessities of life as water, air and earth.

In South Africa, nuclear agencies from Necsa to PBMR and now the proposed Sania, are multiplying like a plague and will have a deadly effect on health, finance and the stability of the South African economy. There are alternatives - but unfortunately renewable energy sources like solar, wind and biomass have not received the same amount of attention or funding as the nuclear lobby. It is time for nuclear proponents to stop advertising themselves as an energy solution so that government can devote funds to renewable energy groups that are actually "safe, clean and cheap" as opposed to the nuclear option that is life-threatening to vast areas, riddled with poisons and so expensive that without government funding - that is the taxpayers' money - they cannot survive. But taxpayers must realise that if they do not speak up now - they will end up paying for it later - in every way.

Yours sincerely

INGELA RICHARDSON

DON'T DRINK THE RADIOACTIVE WATER

DON'T DRINK THE RADIOACTIVE WATER

In South Africa, CEO Neal Froneman has boasted that his uranium mine in Klerksdorp could rival BHP Billiton's Olympic Dam mine in Australia. Does he mean "rival" Olympic Dam as a water waster? Or poisoner? Since uranium mines are highly effective at both. This is unfortunate for the people of Klerksdorp and for the people of Beaufort West, since Brinkley Mining acquired rights to five farms with uranium prospects there.

Beaufort West is only 40km away from Brinkley's uranium mining project and this company says: "There is plenty of water if you drill for it, as the water table is close to the surface".

Australians have found to their cost that the whole uranium process uses a great deal of water. Water is used with sulphuric acid to dissolve out the uranium. This process also extracts other contaminants including arsenic and lead.

In 2005, BHPB demanded 120 million litres of free water in addition to their daily extraction of 33 million litres. David Noonan from the Australian Conservation Foundation said the Olympic Dam mine was the largest single-site industrial user of ground water in the southern hemisphere.

Uranium dams kill wildlife that drink or swim in them. In 2004 hundreds of birds and other wildlife were killed at Olympic Dam in one mass poisoning incident. Tailings dams also contaminate local ground and surface water through leaks and overflows during rain and dam failure, as has been seen in Wonderfonteinspruit's sad story in South Africa where children have suffered the consequences of contamination.
Other examples of uranium contamination include a tailings dam at Church Rock in Arizona that collapsed and spilled 370 000 m3 of radioactive water, and 1 000 tonnes of contaminated sediment in the local river and 110m downstream. To this day it is too dangerous to use the water. At Stava in Italy, 200 000 m3 of tailings flowed 4.2 km downstream at a speed of up to 90 kmh, killing 268 people and destroying 62 buildings. The total surface area affected was 43.5 hectares.

Slow leaks are more common - and there have been many. Olympic Dam uranium mine tailings dams were discovered to have been leaking, for as long as two years, releasing five million m3 of contaminated water into subsoil. More than 10 million tonnes of tailings are dumped in ponds near the mine each year.

Nuclear power plants also contaminate water sources and put health and food sources at risk. In January 2006 the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS) petitioned the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission to do something about thousands of millions of litres of radioactive water leaking from the nations' nuclear power plants. In South Africa, the NNR has also been petitioned by local communities to clean up radioactive contamination after a Water Research Commission report revealed the problem. They have yet to respond to this emergency.
In South Africa, Eskom is proposing to build a 4000MW nuclear plant with provisions to expand to 8000MW. This is five times the size of Chernobyl which was a 1600MW nuclear power station. Since Koeberg needs 8 000 m3 of water per day, the new plant's water requirements would be 16 000m3 per day.

In Connecticut (US) three nuclear power plants were shut down after 29 years of unreported and underestimated contamination of local water. The Connecticut Attorney General said the local pollution from the plants was so severe that, "The goal is no longer to decommission a nuclear power plant, but rather to decontaminate a nuclear waste dump".

In Mississippi, a nuclear reactor accidentally dumped 190 thousand litres of radioactive waste water into the Mississippi River that feeds the drinking water system. In Normandy, the dairy industry and Champagne's wine industry were both put at risk by leaks from French nuclear reactors. A nuclear dumpsite in the Champagne region of France had leaked radioactivity into groundwater.

In 1978, Dr William Lochstet of Pennsylvania State University stated that the operation of a single uranium mine could result in 8.5 million deaths over time through local water contamination. This was substantiated by US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Birth defects in Shiprock, New Mexico were also linked to tailings piles.

For the sake of the children of South Africa and a healthy nation, communities must protest uranium mining in South Africa and plans to build up to 30 nuclear reactors by the Nuclear Energy Corporation of South Africa (Necsa). There are other, healthier alternatives for this country.

Yours sincerely
INGELA RICHARDSON