WA Mining Chronicle, July 1998
Jabiluka faced with new protest hurdles
by Brian Jenkins
At Jabiluka in the Northern Territory's Kakadu National Park, two determined forces are in head-to-head conflict over the emotive element uranium from which can flow both life-sustaining electric power and unquenchable devastation.
Entrenched since 1980, now in profitable full-scale mining and refining of uranium oxide at its adjoining Ranger site, Energy Resources of Australia Ltd (ERA) is on the verge of unlocking one of the world's largest high-grade ore reserves adjacent to and beneath sensitive Aboriginal sites and the world-heritage-listed environmental assets of Kakadu.
Jabiluka is forecast to generate $6.2 billion from processing and export of 200,000 tonnes of milled uranium oxide over a 25-year lifetime. The future of the nuclear power industry may have been clouded by the 600,000 casualties of the Chernobyl disaster, but the market is still driven by increasing demand for energy and the inevitable phasing-out of fossil fuels.
Yet, 27 years after discovery of the uranium orebody and 16 years after the granting of a mineral lease, the way ahead still bristles with determined opposition. An advance guard of protest activists is now streaming from around Australia and the world to encamp at Jabiluka and enforce a minesite blockade called in March by the Mirrar traditional landowners with majority backing of the Senate. Other moves to stymie the project are taking place in Paris.
WILD SCENES AT BLOCKADE
When construction was due to start on 15 June, wild scenes erupted as 60 protesters blocked the path of trucks, chained themselves to heavy equipment and grappled with Northern Territory police. One protester was thrown on his head, sustaining a suspected broken neck--which was found not to be the case after he had been airlifted to a Darwin hospital. Blockade organisers are planning to bring 300 or more protesters to their tent city, which is in radio and internet contact with the rest of the world.
Questioned last week, ERA staff played down the effect of the blockade and claimed to have ample material and equipment on site to proceed with construction. This was disputed by blockade observers who saw only chainsaws being used in a token clearing operation, but a start of sorts was made..
The company relies on support and approvals by the Australian and Northern Territory Governments and on the legal validity of an agreement completed by previous owner Pancontinental with the Mirrar people and the Northern Land Council in 1982.
Progress was stalled by the Labor Government's 'Three Mines Uranium Policy' until its removal by the Howard Government elected in 1996. Now, the only remaining formal barrier to production is the need to arrive at a cooperative resolution on ERA's desire to truck ore 22km south for processing at the existing Ranger mill. The Federal Government has already approved this milling option, which is, however, not acceptable to the Mirrar landowners.
18-MONTH DEADLINE
An alternative proposal for a new mill at Jabiluka is the subject of a public environmental report process which is before sympathetic federal Environment Minister Robert Hill and should be completed in August. This leaves ERA with the goal of having Jabiluka up and running by the beginning of the year 2000 when, incidentally, it must renegotiate with the Northern Land Council on the expiry of its authority to mine and process at Ranger.
Unaffected by considerations of tenure under the Wik judgement and legislation, ERA and its parent North Group still have to face a phalanx of likely court actions on heritage and environmental grounds--as well as the outside possibility of another change of federal government--before Jabiluka is operational. Labor has confirmed that it would not allow a new mine to operate.
Meanwhile, product from the Ranger mine is currently finding a ready market, according to ERA's chief executive officer Mr Phillip Shirvington, since total world production is now able to supply only about 55 per cent of demand.
The uranium oxide is being shipped from Darwin to South Korea, the USA, Britain and other European users and Japan, which has 49 nuclear power stations.
But world stockpiles of the material will continue to dwindle until the year 2001 when several Canadian high-grade producers are due to come on stream.
LANDOWNERS WIN UNESCO SUPPORT
Of immediate concern to the company and the Government is the Paris delegation of the Mirrar people, led by senior elder Yvonne Margarula, which has obtained the support of the World Heritage Bureau of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) in soliciting the 21-nation World Heritage Committee meeting in December for an affirmation that Kakadu heritage values are endangered by the uranium industry.
The successful bid was helped by a group of senators who wrote and persuaded the World Heritage Committee's chairman to disregard Government representations, pay close attention to Ms Margarula and send scientific teams to the site to evaluate her case from environmental and cultural perspectives.
Though reportedly unfazed by this development, Environment Minister Hill will privately brood on the political discomfort which could flow if there is criticism of Australia for neglect of indigenous culture and world heritage values. It is further proof that the battle of Jabiluka is far from over.
24 June, 1998