Roxby (Olympic Dam) Uranium Mine Expansion
BHP Billiton propose the Roxby (Olympic Dam) uranium mine to expand to become the world's largest uranium mine and have applied to both Federal and SA governments for environmental assessment and all government approvals.

Background: This BHPB uranium mining and export expansion plan will make Australia responsible for much of the nuclear risk and unresolved nuclear waste problems around the world. Including the push for proposed export of Australian uranium to China. It is proposed to be the world's largest open pit mine and over time would become the world's largest radioactive tailings dump. The proposed massive water extraction plan may seriously degrade the Great Artesian Basin and threatens the unique and fragile Mound Springs of outback Australia.

* BHPB's corporate reputation depends on taking responsibility for their uranium mining and exports. Any credible assessment of the proposed Roxby uranium expansion must address the nuclear risks and nuclear waste management problems that follow from use of BHPB's uranium. If they are unwilling to do so they should leave the uranium in the ground;

* Let government know that it is unacceptable to exclude "policy issues about the appropriateness of uranium mining" and "issues related to the use of exported uranium in the nuclear fuel cycle" from the Guidelines for this EIS assessment of the proposed world's largest uranium mine. Government claims these issues are "beyond the control of the proponent" and that "it would be impractical for the proponent to address these issues in the EIS;

* The Guidelines fail to provide information on the water supply, energy demand, greenhouse gas emissions, radioactive waste production, transport and other infrastructure for the scale of the proposed expansion. BHPB have again doubled the proposed expansion and applied for a right to mine up to 1 000 000 tonnes of copper a year and toward 30 000 tonnes of uranium a year. However the Guidelines only provide information on an earlier ask to increase uranium production from 4 000 tonnes to 15 000 tonnes a year. At this "Guidelines" stage of the EIS process we have a right to know the actual demands and proposed impacts of the mine;

* BHPB have a bad plan for a massive 5 fold increase in water extraction from the Great Artesian Basin (GAB). BHPB have applied to take 150 million litres a day free of charge for decades to come from the GAB, some 1/3 of all artesian waters that flow into SA in a year. This may seriously degrade the Great Artesian Basin and threatens the unique and fragile Mound Springs of outback Australia, which are listed as endangered ecological communities under federal environment legislation. Let government know they must order the company to give up its unacceptable grab for our artesian waters;

* BHPB propose to retain outdated legal privileges that regulate the Roxby mine - the Roxby Downs Indenture Ratification Act 1982 - which overrides and "take precedence over" the standards, responsibilities and due process in a set of key SA legislation: the Environment Protection Act, the Aboriginal Heritage Act, the Freedom of Information Act, and the Natural Resource Management Act (incorporating the prior Water Resources Act). Let the SA government know they must remove these legal privileges and require BHPB to comply with the full requirements of these more modern South Australian Acts of Parliament;

* The proposed Roxby expansion would over time become the world's largest radioactive tailings dump. BHPB have applied for nearly 20 square kilometres of radioactive tailings piles and ponds and would produce 40 million tonnes of radioactive tailings each year for export of 15 000 tonnes of uranium a year. It is not sustainable for BHPB to produce this radioactive hazard and leave it there for all future generations of SA children to have to manage;

* Already the biggest electricity user in SA, expanding the Roxby mine operations to the scale producing toward 30 000 tonnes of uranium a year would require an additional over 600 Mw of power, over 1/3 of current SA electricity demand, and blow out the State's greenhouse gas emissions by up to 25%. What level of public subsidy are BHPB after in their proposal for the SA grid to provide the additional electrical power for the mine expansion?

The Federal Government's Roxby (Olympic Dam) uranium expansion Draft Guidelines may be viewed at the following website: www.deh.gov.au/about/publications/index.html

For further information:
On Roxby expansion and uranium issues you can refer to the websites below:

* Australian Conservation Foundation: www.acfonline.org.au including "The Great Artesian Water Grab" at:
www.acfonline.org.au/news.asp?news_id=631
* Campaign Against Nuclear Dumping: www.geocities.com/olympicdam
* Friends of the Earth: www.foe.org.au
* Sustainable Energy and Anti-Uranium Service (SEA-US): www.sea-us.org.au
including "Ancient Mound Springs under Threat" at: www.sea-us.org.au/roxby/springsdrying.html

David Noonan
Nuclear Free Campaigner
Australian Conservation Foundation
120 Wakefield Street, ADELAIDE SA 5000, Australia
d.noonan@acfonline.org.au

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Great Artesian Basin Water Threatened
BHP Billiton has put a proposal to the South Australian and Federal Governments that would see the company extract an additional 120 million litres of publicly-owned artesian water per day, every day, for the next 70 years - at no cost to the mining giant. That's 60 Olympic swimming pools of water a day, for the lifetime of the mine, for free.

Already the biggest industrial user of underground water in the southern hemisphere, the Olympic Dam copper and uranium mine at Roxby Downs takes 33 million litres a day from the Great Artesian Basin. The additional take would see the company extracting more than 150 million litres a day - around a third of the artesian water that flows into South Australia.

Concerns about environmental impact
ACF is deeply concerned that drawing this much water would damage the Great Artesian Basin, cause a significant reduction in groundwater pressure and cut off the natural flows to the unique and fragile mound springs.

The water extraction is part of BHP Billion's proposed expansion of the Olympic Dam mine. The company, which announced a record annual profit of $8.5 million in August, plans to double copper production, quadruple uranium output and convert the mine from a network of underground tunnels to a massive open pit, a kilometre deep and three kilometres wide. The crater would be visible from space.

The expanded mine would produce enough waste rock rubble to cover the CBD of any Australian capital city and enough radioactive waste to cover the MCG to the depth of the goalposts every two-and-a-half days.

The mine is a large consumer of electricity and a major contributor to South Australia's greenhouse gas emissions. A 2003 Senate Inquiry into the regulation of uranium mining reported "a pattern of under performance and non-compliance" in the industry. It concluded that changes were necessary "in order to protect the environment and its inhabitants from serious or irreversible damage".

Yet due to an outdated legal arrangement, the current mining operation does not come under the watch of vital South Australian environment laws. With BHP Billiton able to act outside the laws of South Australia, how can the changes recommended by the Senate inquiry be enforced?

Why the Great Artesian Basin mound springs are important
The Great Artesian Basin covers 1.7 million square kilometres or 22 per cent of the Australian continent. It contains an astonishing volume of water, estimated at about 8.7 billion megalitres. Much of the water in the Great Artesian Basin's aquifers is naturally pressurised. The pressure forces water to the surface through cracks and other faults in the overlying rocks.

Where this water reaches the surface, salt, silt and clay deposited by the evaporating spring water form mounds, commonly known as mound springs. There are about 600 individual springs, concentrated into 11 main groups across the Great Artesian Basin. The south-western region of the basin - the region closest to Roxby Downs - contains the largest number of active and unique springs.

The mound springs are oases - patches of reliable moisture in an arid landscape. They are home to a host of unique organisms - tiny fish, invertebrates and plants that cannot survive in the drier parts of the outback landscape. They become refuges for native birds and animals during times of drought. More than 40 species of small freshwater snails are known to occur only in the mound springs of the Great Artesian Basin, with some species found only at a single spring. Several of these snail species are already endangered because the springs where they live are on pastoral land, where they are threatened by trampling stock or unsustainable extraction of groundwater.

The mound springs are also important cultural places for the Arabunna people, the traditional custodians of the area.

If these biological wellsprings are damaged by over-extraction of water, it will wipe out the mound springs' unique flora and fauna and adversely affect birds and animals across the Great Artesian Basin that gravitate to the springs when the going gets tough. With climate change expected to make droughts more frequent and intense,
healthy springs will be more important than ever in coming years.

Take action
BHP Billiton should not be allowed to grab this important public water resource and use it to build company profits. ACF is working hard to convince the Federal and South Australian governments that the company's proposal is bad for the environment and the community.

Help ACF convince governments to reject this massive planned expansion of the Roxby Downs mine. Write to the South Australian Premier, Mike Rann, calling on him to:

* Protect the Great Artesian Basin and the mound springs from the adverse impacts of over-extraction of water;
* Remove the outdated agreement that gives BHP Billiton exemptions from South Australian environmental protection laws and bring it into the same legal environment as other companies operating in SA; and
* Scale back, rather than expand, the Olympic Dam mine.

Write to:
SA Premier Mike Rann
GPO Box 2343
ADELAIDE SA 5001
Phone 08 8463 3166
Fax 08 8463 3168
Email premier@saugov.sa.gov.au

As ACF President Ian Lowe said at the National Press Club on 19 October, "The Big Australian should be warned that it will not get away with making a big mess in the South Australian outback."

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Why Australian Ethical won't invest in Uranium Mining
Article from Australian Ethical Investment and Superannuation's bi-annual
newsletter. November 2005.

Some investment managers who call themselves socially responsible arekeeping their BHP Billiton shares, despite the company's takeover of uraniummining operations. Australian Ethical has no such shares. Our criticism of uranium mining is not a finely balanced judgment, as many ethical issues can be. It extends from the beginning to the end of the product cycle. Each stage of the nuclear fuel cycle, uranium mining, the safety of nuclear power plants, the disposal of radioactive waste and the implications for society of a future where atomic bomb-making material is more broadly available threatens the environment, workers and society as a whole.

In Australia the mining of uranium is particularly associated withdestruction in the heart of the northern rivers region of the NorthernTerritory, a natural treasure and Aboriginal homeland. The land around theRanger uranium mine comprises the world heritage-listed Kakadu NationalPark; other uranium mines are also in beautiful and formerly unspoiltplaces.

While the uranium industry talks about high levels of regulation and supervision by environment protection authorities, the reality is that despite strict rules, expensive technology and great care by miners, there has been a lamentable record of environmental accidents and radioactive contamination at uranium mines. At the Ranger mine in March 2004, 21 workers became sick after drinking water that was contaminated by processing water.

Once mined, uranium is used to generate electricity. Australian Ethical made the decision a long time ago that we would prefer to support new forms of elictricity generation, wind power, solar power, geothermal and fuel cells. Australian Ethical has invested in a number of companies active in these fields, for example, Ceramic Fuel Cells, CVC Reef, Energy Developments, Geodynamics, Rainbow Power Company and Vestas Wind Systems.

While a nuclear power station does not emit greenhouse gases as part of its operation, it's not the carbon dioxide we're worried about in this case, it's the risk of radioactive accidents and the waste. The notorious events at Three Mile Island and Chernobyl are not one-offs in an otherwise trouble-free industry. How do you guarantee that a nuclear power station won't have an accident in the face of threats from terrorism, lax supervision and human error?

Safety of operation aside, the major safety difference between a nuclear power station and a traditional thermal station lies in the intractability of nuclear waste. The wastes are dangerous for a period of time much longer than the recorded history of humankind. There are also very real concerns associated with the transport of high volumes of radioactive material across the country.

An increase in the production of uranium to feed a proliferation of new nuclear power stations around the world will inevitably lead to an increase in the availability of material that can be used in nuclear weapons. The bombs may be made not just by our trusted allies, but by repressive regimes and non-government organisations with little interest in ethics.

Public opposition to uranium mining has quietened in recent years. That may make it a good time to try to sneak in a bit more of it. But wrong does not become right just because someone has got away with it. Even if Australian Ethical were the only investment manager avoiding uranium shares we would continue to offer ethical investors this option.

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