Bonner, Peter --- "Ranger Spills its Guts" [1990] AboriginalLawB 5; (1990) 1(42) Aboriginal Law Bulletin 12

• Ranger Spills Its Guts

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Ranger Spills its Guts

by Peter Bonner

The release of contaminated water from the Ranger uranium mine has angered the Northern Land Council and seriously diminished its faith in the environmental safeguards for the mine in Kakadu National Park.

Traditional owners in the Alligator Rivers region reluctantly accepted the establishment of the mine, 250 km east of Darwin, in 1978 as they were told the environmental controls over its operation were going to be tough.

Yet despite the scrutiny of the NLC, the Office of the Supervising Scientist (OSS) and the Federal Environment Minister, Senator Graham Richardson, contaminated water from retention Pond 4 (RP4) was released into the Magela Creek system on three occasions in February and March last year without adequate notice to the traditional owners and without the support of the Territory Government.

RP4 collects the runoff from the waste rock dump at the Ranger mine near Jabiru and, under a Federal Government directive of 1987, any release from it must be subject to a chemical and pre-release biological test - this was ignored by Ranger last year.

Further, the Federal Government decided that Ranger should only consider water releases into the Restricted Release Zone in exceptionally wet years, perhaps one in ten.

But Ranger released the water into Djokmarra billabong, next to the creek and thus restricted the dilution of any contaminants in the waste water and prevented any accurate testing of the water. The NLC sought to prevent Ranger's third release on March 17 with an application in the Supreme Court for an interim injunction on releases.

The NLC alleged Ranger had breached some of the environmental requirements by placing radioactive material outside the Restricted Release Zone (RTZ) and had stopped the operation of the tailings Dam seepage collection system without authority.

Further, the NLC alleged Ranger had released water from RP4 on several occasions, not in accordance with the best available technology. Yet the NLC's application for an interim injunction was unsuccessful and the third waste water release went ahead. This seemed to indicate that the environmental guideline's as set out by the OSS were not mandatory. Subsequently, the people of the area have lived in fear and uncertainty about the damage to their land and many have stopped hunting near Magela Creek for fear of contamination.

Since the beginning of the Ranger project the traditional owners have sought assurances that their creek and river systems - an important source of food and water - be kept free of pollution from uranium mining. These traditional owners are responsible for ensuring the integrity of the land for future generations. Now the NLC is forced to continue lobbying the Federal Government, Ranger's owners, Energy Resources of Australia, and the NT Department of Mines and Energy for a sensible and fair approach to water releases.

The 48th full meeting of the NLC declared its outrage at Ranger's actions and demanded an inquiry into the environmental monitoring of the mine. Traditional owners said they were tired of the way Ranger continued to bend the mine's environmental requirements. The NLC Chairman, Galarrwuy Yunupingu, believes Ranger's intransigence undermines the very premise of negotiated mining agreements. He said: Ranger's latest irresponsible actions are making it difficult for Aboriginal people to continue trusting the word of mining companies.

We have told Ranger to stop releasing water, we've asked for reasonable notice if they are going to release water and they keep treating us as if we didn't exist.

There are enough social pressures within and without Aboriginal society without creating a new set of tensions which strike at the fundamental asset of our society - the land.

It's time for the Federal Government to get tough with Ranger and the NT Government because they keep ignoring the wishes of the Aboriginal people.

The Minister for Primary Industry and Energy, John Kerin, has the authority under section 41 of the Atomic Energy ct (1953), after consultation with the Environment Minister, to intervene at uranium mines to make more effective to protection of the environment.

The Northern Land Council's preferred option for the mine is that Ranger doesn't release any water and contains its contaminants on-site. The council believes environmental protection at Ranger has never been adequate. "Both environmentally and socially the most reasonable way of preventing impacts is to have no release at all," the LC director, John Ah Kit, said; the releases constitute a potentially toxic impact at the lower end of the food Lain and the effects could be disastrous it those animals and people higher in e chain."

The history of the Ranger mine is long and complex. After considering the Fox Reports of 1976 and 1977, the Fraser Government gave the go-ahead for mining in the Alligator Rivers region and permitted the export of uranium. In 1978 the passing of the Environment Protection (Alligator Rivers Region) Act established the statutory Office of the Supervising Scientist (OSS) to collect data on the environmental effects of uranium mining.

In his 1988/1989 annual report, the Supervising Scientist, Bob Fry, said the willingness of Ranger to co-operate with him had diminished. "By increasingly ignoring OSS advice on environmental issues, [Ranger] appeared to wish to establish that the OSS performs no useful function," Mr Fry reported. "It has attempted to impugn the scientific credibility of the Office and has lobbied for its disbandment." Mr. Fry suggested Ranger's withdrawal of co-operation with the OSS was due to increases in the Commonwealth uranium export levy - Ranger saw this increase as a means of financing OSS. Mr. Fry said in his report that milling and associated operations at Ranger and Nabarlek mines had led to deterioration in the water quality of nearby bodies of water. He said contaminated seepage was an important consideration at both sites and water quality changes would be maintained or could increase as groundwater continues to move from Ranger tailings dam and Nabarlek waste water irrigation plots.

"The changes in the water quality are not large compared with conventional water quality criteria for the protection of aquatic biota but their actual effect on the ecosystem is not known," Mr. Fry said.

He added that while the NT Government and the OSS had fundamental differences on environmental issues and the application of certain standards, the level of confidence in environmental protection diminished.

This is perhaps the key to the whole water release issue - the NLC and the traditional owners are concerned that the effects of the releases on the environment may not become apparent for decades, by which time it will be too late to reverse any detriment and the whole Ranger operation may have packed up and gone, leaving its mess behind for traditional owners to deal with.

With this in mind, the council sticks to its demand that no waste water should be released by Ranger and, if it is, the Federal Government should intervene to protect the environment of the Alligator Rivers region and the traditional lifestyle of the people who live there.

It's a simple safe attitude to a potentially dangerous situation that the NT Government and Ranger continue to treat in a cavalier and reckless fashion.