Two decades after it departed Australian shores, a return shipment of now-treated nuclear waste arrived at Port Kembla without incident, but with great scrutiny.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
Bulk carrier BBC Shanghai entered Port Kembla Harbour about 1.40pm Saturday, carrying 25 tonnes of intermediate-level nuclear cargo.
All went to plan as the vessel passed smoothly into the port’s exclusion zone, bound for berth 107 – the deepest reaches of the inner harbour.
Onlookers expecting a glowing green giveaway or a glimpse of the waste’s hefty, cylindrical silver encasing – said to be capable of withstanding a jet plane strike – were left to use their imaginations.
With only shipping containers visible, BBC Shanghai looked like any other cargo ship, albeit one under heavy police escort.
The waste is the first of eight shiploads returned to Australia for long-term storage, after being processed abroad. It will be stored at Lucas Heights for an interim period.
With the Federal Government searching for a permanent dump site, environmental campaigners made much of BBC Shanghai’s arrival.
Greenpeace representative Emma Gibson accompanied the ship at sea until it passed into the exclusion zone. She was critical of the vessel’s “rust bucket” appearance.
“We’re here to bear witness to this really dodgy shipment of nuclear waste coming into Port Kembla,” she said.
“We found out the waste was bring transported on ship with a really bad safety record. And there’s confusion about what kind of waste is on the ship.”
ANSTO rejects Greenpeace’s claims that the boat is unseaworthy and that French authorities confirmed the returned material contains plutonium.
“There is a clear discrepancy there and we’re not being told the whole story,” Ms Gibson said.
“Our government are spending $30 million on transporting this waste over to countries like France … the whole point of the repackaging is it’s meant to take out the plutonium and uranium.
“What we’re concerned about is this is the first of many shipments to come back.
“Transporting nuclear waste – you need to do it as little as possible because that’s where the danger is.”
At a protest event in Coniston, just as BBC Shanghai was mooring, South Coast Labour Council secretary Arthur Rorris spoke against Australia become “the dumping ground for other countries’ nuclear waste”.
“We are very concerned the Federal Government is heading in that direction,” he said. “What this [shipment] shows us is you can’t have a nuclear industry without a big waste problem.”
“We should avoid the manipulation of the nuclear industry, that tells us it’s all for medicine and science. We know it’s not. The nuclear industry started with the nuclear bomb and today it’s still dominated by the arms industries and the uranium mining companies.
ANSTO has defended its nuclear medicine program.
“ANSTO produces some 10,000 doses of nuclear medicine a week, which goes to 250 hospitals and nuclear medicine centres around the country and region,” a spokesman said.
“That includes Wollongong Hospital, Shoalhaven nuclear imaging, St George Hospital, and other centres right across Sydney and Australia.
“Some 85 per cent of the radioactive waste that is produced at ANSTO is linked to the medicine production program. Nuclear science also supports our mining, research and health industries.”
Warrawong resident Andrew Griffiths said he was alarmed by the shipment’s arrival.
“There’s a sign that says Wollongong’s a nuclear-free city, and here they are bringing nuclear waste in here,” he said.
“I heard the US government had black flagged that boat – it shouldn’t be on the water and here they are bringing nuclear waste from halfway around the world.”
Hakan Braxton, of Port Kembla, said the risk involved in the return operation had failed to register with many.
“An environmental disaster is my main concern – but most of the people that live around here aren’t aware of it,” he said.