Campaign: Expansion of Roxby Downs
THE OLYMPIC DAM EXPANSION
On the 10th October, 2011, the Federal and South Australian Governments approved the proposed new uranium mine at Olympic Dam. This will make Olympic Dam the largest uranium mine in the world. Mike Rann’s public commitment to approving the project before his retirement suggests that approval may have been fast-tracked at the state level, sacrificing what should have been a thorough consideration of the implications of the project to the ambitions of a retiring politician.
BHP Billiton plans to supplement the existing underground copper and uranium mine near Roxby Downs with a massive open-cut mine. The open pit will be 4 kilometres long by 3.5 kilometres wide and 1 kilometre deep. Export of uranium is expected to increase from an average of 4,000 tonnes per year to 19,000 tonnes per year, and the production of copper, gold and silver is also expected to increase.
Weapons
19,000 tonnes of uranium per year is sufficient to fuel 95 power reactors which will produce 28.5 tonnes of high-level nuclear waste per year (in the form of spent nuclear fuel). That amount of spent fuel contains 28.5 tonnes of plutonium – enough for 2,850 nuclear weapons each year. BHP Billiton sells uranium to nuclear weapons states, states refusing to ratify the Comprehensive Test Ban treaty, states blocking progress on a Fissile Material Cut-Off Treaty, states with a history of secret nuclear weapons research, and states stockpiling “civil” plutonium.
For more information see Friends of the Earth Australia, “Submission to Joint Standing Committee on Treaties: Inquiry into Nuclear Non-proliferation and Disarmament.”
http://www.aph.gov.au/house/committee/jsct/nuclearnon_proliferation/subs/sub77.pdf
Radioactive Waste
Under the mine expansion plan, the production of radioactive tailings, stored above ground, will increase from the current 10 million tonnes per year, to 68 million tonnes per year. The tailings contain a toxic acidic soup of radionuclides and heavy metals. It is estimated that by the mines closure, these tailings will total nearly nine billion tonnes, equivalent to nine times the volume of Sydney Harbour, which BHP intends to leave on the surface of the land, forever.
As with the current tailings dams, the proposed new dams are designed to leak radioactive waste into the underlying rock. BHP estimates that 8 million litres of liquid radioactive waste will seep from the tailings dams every day for the first decade of the new mine, then 3 million litres per day for the next 30 years. In the Draft and Supplementary Environmental Impact Statements, BHP acknowledges that seepage from the tailings dams could result in elevated concentrations of contaminants, including uranium, in the groundwater.
See Olympic Dam Expansion Draft Environmental Impact Statement 2009, and Supplementary Environmental Impact Statement 2011, Chapter 12: Groundwater (in both documents).
http://www.bhpbilliton.com/home/aboutus/regulatory/Pages/default.aspx
Radioactive Racism
The existing mine operates under the Roxby Downs Indenture Act, which provides exemptions from the SA Aboriginal Heritage Act, the key legislative instrument providing for the protection of Aboriginal heritage in South Australia. BHP Billiton is in a legal position to determine what consultation occurs with Traditional Owners, who is consulted, and the nature of any consultation. The company decides the level of protection that Aboriginal Heritage sites receive and which sites are recognised. It is a clear conflict of interest to have a corporation with a commercial interest in a piece of land also making decisions regarding whether this same land has competing non-commercial values.
“Many of our food sources, traditional plants and trees are gone because of this mine. We worry for our water: it’s our main source of life. The mine causes many safety risks to our roads – transporting the uranium from the mine. It has stopped us from accessing our sacred sites and destroyed others. These can never be replaced. BHP never consulted me or my families, they select who they consult with. Many of our people have not had a voice. We want the mine stopped now, because it’s not good for anything.”
Eileen Wingfield, Kokatha elder
The Roxby Downs Indenture Act
The current Roxby Downs Indenture Act applies specifically to the Olympic Dam mine, and provides for wide-ranging exemptions several South Australian laws, including the Environmental Protection Act (1993), Freedom of Information Act (1991), and the Natural Resources Management Act (2004). It is essentially a contract between BHP and the SA Government, which over-rides key legislation in South Australia with the terms set out in the indenture agreement. These legal privileges have allowed the mine to operate without the same level of scrutiny and legal accountability as other corporations.
A revised Indenture Act intended to apply to the new mine is currently before the SA Parliament. If it is passed, SA will host the largest uranium mine in the world, operated by a mining giant with a questionable social and environmental record, which will substantially operate under its own legal contract (which it was involved in negotiating), rather than South Australian law.
Water consumption
The new mine will require an additional 200 million litres of water per day. Water intake from the Great Artesian Basin will increase from 35 million litres per day to around 42 million litres per day, with the remainder to come from a proposed coastal desalination plant at Point Lowly. That’s over 100,000 litres every minute – in the driest state on the driest continent on earth. The water intake from the Great Artesian Basin has already had adverse impacts on the unique Mound Springs found near Lake Eyre, which are fed by the underlying Artesian Basin, and sacred to the Arabunna people. Under the current Indenture Act, BHP Billiton pays nothing for its massive water intake for the Olympic Dam mine, despite recording a total net profit of US$23. 95 billion in 2011, nearly double its 2010 figure of US$13.01 billion.
The proposed desalination plant has been inappropriately sited in the ecologically sensitive Upper Spencer Gulf. The highly saline brine output of the plant has the potential to damage the marine ecosystem, threatening the prawn and scale fish fisheries. The reef habitat near the proposed site hosts the only known breeding aggregation of the Giant Australian Cuttlefish in the world. There is potential for the brine to impact the hatching rates of cuttlefish eggs, where it disperses into the breeding ground. Certain characteristics of the Upper Spencer Gulf marine environment, such as dodge tides, which are distinguished by limited tidal movement, mean that BHP cannot guarantee that such dispersal will not occur. Cuttlefish lay their eggs and die shortly after. If their eggs do not hatch they do not return to breed again.
For more information on the Mound Springs see G. Mudd, “The long term sustainability of Mound Springs in South Australia: implications for Olympic Dam.”
http://users.monash.edu.au/~gmudd/files/1998-UMH-2-ODam-v-MoundSprings.pdf
And on the Cuttlefish:
http://www.abc.net.au/catalyst/stories/2695601.htm
Energy use
Open pit mining is energy intensive. BHP’s proposal to dig the largest open-pit mine in the world will blow out South Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions by more than 12 per cent, undermining any efforts by South Australia to reduce emissions. By 2020, when the mine could reach full operation, it would use about 20 per cent of the state’s electricity supply. Diesel use will rise from 26 million litres a year to 372 million litres a year for the five year construction period, peaking at a total of 516 million litres a year at full production (including transport). The diesel needed just to dig the world’s largest open pit to access the ore body will create emissions equal to the total emissions of the underground mine.
For more information: http://www.acfonline.org.au/articles/news.asp?news_id=2462
Download Friends of the Earth Adelaide’s submission into the Roxby Downs Expansion here.