Native title holders have voted to support the construction of a controversial toxic waste storage facility about 120km south of Alice Springs after 12 years of consultation.
Key points:
- The Chandler facility will store 400,000 tonnes per annum of hazardous material in an ancient salt bed
- The waste will come from across Australia, as well as overseas
- Native title holders have voted in favour of the project, with hopes it will bring money to communities
Developers Tellus Holdings said the Chandler Project would be the first underground salt mine and deep geological waste repository of its kind in Australia.
The proposed facility will be built within a 500-million-year-old salt bed on Maryvale Station, 25 kilometres south-west of the remote Aboriginal community of Titjikala.
The project has been given approval to receive up to 400,000 tonnes per annum of hazardous material over 25 years, from both Australia and “strategic Pacific partners” overseas.
This would include low-level radioactive waste and naturally occurring radioactive materials.
Tellus said the waste would be stored in an underground vault, about 850 metres below the surface, within the vast salt bed.
“The scale of this project is unlike anything else being built in the world, particularly how remote it is,” chief executive Nate Smith said.
“The unique part about Chandler is the geology. It has an extremely deep, stable, thick bed of salt, which is perfect to create that scientific natural halt to make sure that waste is permanently isolated.”
Last week, native title holders gathered to vote in favour of the project, with many hoping it would bring a much-needed economic boost to their communities.
“Some of the older people think it’s dangerous. But I think it would be better to go ahead,” native title holder Reggie Kenny said.
“The salt, nothing’s going to come out of it once they put it in there.”
Waste ‘already exists’ in the NT
Mr Smith said the low-level radioactive material would include medical waste, X-ray imaging and cancer treatment, as well as rare earths processing and water treatments.
“It’s in hospital basements, it’s sitting on the sides of curbs, it’s sitting in on remediated mine sites,” he said.
“The question is, does it continue to sit in places where it can harm waterways in the community? Or does it go to truly one of the safest places on the planet?”
While Tellus would not confirm a dollar figure, Mr Smith said the construction of Chandler would likely be up to “10 times” the cost of Sandy Ridge, an open-cut mine and hazardous waste storage site developed by Tellus in WA.
He said this made it essential for the Chandler facility to accept waste from overseas, as there was “no way” the domestic market could support the cost.
Concerns about water supply
Despite widespread support, some native title holders, like Titjikala resident Elaine Shilling, were concerned the facility could impact local water sources.
“Not good, it’s going to affect us, all of us,” she said.
“We’re just worried about water because we’ve got a lot of kids, a new generation. I don’t know what’s going to happen.”
But Mr Smith claimed there was nothing to worry about, as the vault would sit about 500m beneath the lowest known aquifer.
Tellus is also required to provide the EPA with an independent, peer-reviewed water management plan before any approval or decisions are made on the project.
However, Australian Conservation Foundation nuclear analyst Dave Sweeney said the project had “serious implications” and required “a high level of scrutiny and testing”.
“Low-level waste does not necessarily mean low-level risk,” he said.
“Some low-level waste has short activity and danger periods but some requires isolation from people and the wider environment for 300 years.”
Mr Sweeney said he was concerned about the “potential for future project creep and the extension of materials deemed acceptable” at any future facility after the Chandler Project.
Claims facility will ‘transform’ communities
For more than a decade, the Central Land Council (CLC) has been facilitating consultation between Tellus and native title holders about the Chandler Project.
CLC chief executive and Arrernte man Les Turner said the project was initially proposed solely as a salt mine but had gradually changed over the years.
“We commissioned independent advice on the radioactive waste component, and a lot of that’s been provided to the native title holders … and overall, the authorisation was provided,” he said.
As Maryvale Station is a pastoral lease, native title holders do not have veto rights, only the right to consultation.
But Tellus claimed if native title holders had not given approval, the project would not have gone ahead.
Mr Smith said, from here, Tellus would work to “build trust” with the broader Alice Springs community, and start approaching potential clients.
He said, from there, construction could take up to five years and would aim to drive jobs in the NT for “the next 100 years”.
Many native title holders like Mr Kenny hoped the project would have lasting impacts for local Aboriginal communities.
“This mob here has given us the time to think and do everything. That’s what we want and they want,” he said.
“We want it to go ahead.”