SIMPLE NUCLEAR SOLUTION
I would like to put forward this very workable solution.
Most have followed the long journey and discussion of placing a Nuclear Waste Dump, somewhere in Australia.
Australia, as a uranium exporter, has had more than 40 years to do this.
The simplest answer is to return this legacy waste into the cradle of where it came - a uranium mine.
These mines have short lifespans. No new environment would be harmed by this process.
The hole is there, and the infrastructure.
This would ensure the mine is rehabilitated, and funded by the customer wishing waste disposal.
No new uranium mine in Australia, in 2020, should be approved, without within its design, capacity to retake nuclear waste, as retrofit or progressive rehabilitation.
A responsible, cradle to grave solution. Why build monuments to nuclear waste?
A nuclear waste facility or dump is just a 'Reverse Uranium Mine', placed in the vicinity of citizens.
This requiring all the approvals of a new mine. And people should see it this way.
Government bodies and mining companies need to reverse their thinking.
Why export uranium, without a responsible solution to legacy waste?
Unfortunately, no options were in my opinion and experience offered or allowed in the discussion, in Australia.
It was looking for a site, not a solution.
Of interest, on recent research, two countries are considering using mine voids, for their nuclear waste disposal.
These do not export uranium.
I have an interest in this subject, as a long time illustrator of projects - to illustrate them, sometimes gives added insight, and may offer a possible, unconsidered solution.
CLAUDIA TREGONING,
South Plympton.
TIME TO STAND UP
A recent ABC 7.30 report interview with interim inspector general Mick Keelty about foreign investment in water was very interesting.
The main thrust of his interview was about the need for transparency where water is concerned, especially with regard to the lack of scrutiny of foreign investment and the consequences of investors with no interests in farming.
We want total transparency. I believe investors and the environment should be brought into line with the general security water holders.
This would be a lenient approach for investors when compared to more draconian actions being called for by some.
As for the environment, most of the water purchased would have been general security or "ghost" water.
What the heck! Where is all that water being held. It was purchased from all over the place.
I can't comment on the northern basin, but having been regulated here since the early 70s I suspect that more oversight is urgently needed.
I don't understand floodplain harvesting, but here on the Murrumbidgee catchment area, some 20-odd years ago, it was legislated that dams could only be built if they were less than a certain size to allow more water to flow west, which seemed fair.
Has that rule changed? Transparency has to begin with real-time water market data being available for everyone to see.
I hope this letter might create some desire to take action because I am sure that many politicians know that whole communities are being devastated, but do nothing.
Calls from Mr Keelty and the National Farmers' Federation for more transparency will go unheeded if our politicians are allowed to continue sitting on their hands and doing nothing.
They lack the guts to fight for battling farmers and small town communities.
ROSS WELLS,
Jerilderie, NSW.
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