Monday, June 02, 2008

Where will they put the waste?


Well, my dear old (sorry, but at eighty, you qualify!) Mum is up at Arkaroola this week doing the fabled ridge-top tour! Click here for a look at photos of this stunning region, and read the latest news from Friends of Arkaroola on the crimes of Marathon Resources.

Under a directive from the SA Government’s Department of Primary Industry and Resources (PIRSA), Marathon had until Friday May 30 to submit a remediation plan for the mess that they have created at Mt Gee and other sites within the Arkaroola Wilderness Society.

There’s been no news on this to date. But it will be interesting to see what sort of time frame Marathon have set for themselves, and to learn whose backyard they are planning to use as a low-level nuclear dump.

Not in my backyard!

Meanwhile, Marathon have been doing a bit of stream sampling – a couple of blokes have been seen walking up creeks collecting bags of dirt basically - to trace back elements from upstream. This was a couple of weeks ago. Despite the SA Government banning any further exploration, it seems that if the exploring doesn’t require using Declared Equipment and is low impact, then the practice doesn’t contravene their licence or the ban.

It would appear from this that their plans for mining in the Sanctuary are very much alive, and that they are just biding their time.

However, opposition continues to mount (gee…!) and credit goes to independent journalist Des Ryan for securing a centre-page spread in the widely read Sunday Mail of May 18, 2008. It was a superb piece with an aerial shot of Arkaroola captioned with Marg Sprigg’s observation that “I don’t know how you could possibly get uranium out of this country without having a massive impact”.

That was followed up with the Sunday Mail identifying a letter of support for Arkaroola from John and Kaye Cameron of Hawthorndene as their “Letter of the Week”, complemented by a colour photo captioned “Arkaroola: ‘inspirational’ landscape must be preserved.”

Shut the door on the way out Marathon men….but first tell us, whose backyard for your 22,800 bags of waste???

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