AUSTRALIA’S radioactive waste management facility applications have closed, but the Mount Isa Mayor wants to declare his region as a late option.
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Mount Isa City Councillors voted in the full council meeting on Wednesday that the council should look at the option of volunteering for the facility to built in the area, believing at the time the applications were still open.
Cr McGrady said the waste management facility was brought to the table after a News Corp journalist contacted him earlier this week about a government press release dated March.
The press release said: “Landholders in all states and territories can nominate land for a facility to safely store Australia’s intermediate level waste and dispose of low level waste, under the National Radioactive Waste Management Act 2012.”
However, the council needed clarification from new Minister for Energy, Resources and Northern Australia Josh Frydenberg to see if voluntary requests were still needed.
Councillor McGrady said he learned the application was closed after the motion was moved.
“To some extent this (subject) is a little outdated but I am still going to try,” he said.
“Anything at all that helps create secondary industry and provide jobs I am interested in.
“What I would want to know is the benefits to my community but also I would want to know the downside, any risks involved.”
Mount Isa was a viable option to store waste because it was one of the largest regions in the world and had many sizable cattle stations that might be good locations, he said.
“There are old mine shafts I am sure where this stuff could be stored,” Cr McGrady said.
It is not like bloody bombs or anything."
- Glen Graham
Mr Frydenberg is in Japan pushing for the country to take Australia’s liquefied gas, which would be used for nuclear power production.
An official spokesperson did not confirm volunteer sites for a facility were still needed.
A request in writing was made to the Kalkadoon Aboriginal Corporation Registered Native Title directors on their stance of the waste facility.
Chief executive of development group Mount Isa to Townsville Economic Zone, Glen Graham, said radiation waste could include objects from hospitals or weigh equipment.
“It is not like bloody bombs or anything.
“It could be spent fuel rods but we do not have nuclear facilities.”
He said the area was one of the most stable geological areas in the country.
The world needed places to store radioactive waste, meaning there was money to be made in its disposal, Mr Graham said.
