nuclear-news

Fukushima means ‘fortunate island’ ― but the region’s luck melted down alongside the reactor. Over 150,000 people cannot return to their homes and last September a United Nation’s special report detailed some of the massive impacts: ‘hundreds of billions of dollars of property damage’, ‘serious radioactive contamination of water, agriculture , fisheries’ and ‘grave stress and mental trauma’ to a swathe of people. Lives have been utterly disrupted and altered and the Fukushima nuclear accident was and remains a profound environmental and social tragedy…….

An earnest teacher is happy that the local school has re-opened, but sad that while once around two hundred and fifty kids used to attend, now there are sixteen. The local Mayor picks up the theme stating ‘we have very few young people or children’. Radiation hits hardest at growing cells and many parents are understandably concerned and have moved. The old remain and, in the absence of the young, the old look older.

‘We have a very serious issue with the exodus of young people,’ says the Mayor, who is running an active campaign urging locals to return home, whilst admitting that ‘the accident isn’t completed’.

The manager of the local store shows us sophisticated point of sale radiation monitoring equipment and warns us against eating wild mushrooms. A doctor speaks of the lack of community confidence in the official radiation data and declares that another nuclear accident would be ‘the ruin of Japan’ — and the monitor on the bus keeps clicking.

And each click counts the decay of a piece of rock dug up in Australia…..

That’s right — Australian uranium fuelled Fukushima.

Australian uranium is now radioactive fallout that is contaminating Japan and beyond — but the response of the Australian government, Australian uranium producers and their industry association has been profoundly and shamefully deficient. Prime Minister Gillard speaks of business as usual, Resources Minister Martin Ferguson talks of the ‘unfortunate incident’ and the more bullish of the uranium miners have called the crisis a ‘sideshow’.

This denial and failure to respond to changed circumstances is in stark contrast to the views of Aboriginal landowners from where the uranium has been sourced. Yvonne Margarula, the Mirarr senior Traditional Owner of that part of Kakadu where Energy Resources of Australia’s Ranger mine is located,wrote to UN Secretary General to convey her communities concerns and stated that the accident

‘…makes us very sad. We are all diminished by the awful events now unfolding at Fukushima.’

Arabunna man Peter Watts, whose water resources continue to be plundered to service BHP Billiton’s Olympic Dam mine in northern South Australia, told a Japanese audience in Yokohama earlier this year how the company

“…use up the water that gives life to dig up the uranium that brings death.”………

 

One of the doctors who organised our trip put the issue sharply and starkly:

“The re-start debate is about nuclear power plants, but it is also about democracy and the future of the nation.”

The debate is live in Japan and a similar debate now needs to come alive in Australia — our shared and fragile planets energy future is renewable, not radioactive, and we need a genuine assessment of the costs and consequences of our uranium trade. To fail to change or to learn from this tragedy is deeply disrespectful and increases the chance of Australian uranium fuelling future Fukushimas.

Australia’s uranium should stay where it is safest – in the ground.  http://www.independentaustralia.net/2012/life/health/fukushima-and-australias-uranium-shame/