Operation Buried Treasure

OPEN FOR BUSINESS - Port Hedland, 1/9/2009

The Minister for Energy and the Environment today declared that the Australian International Toxic Waste Containment Facility (AITWCF) is "open for business".
"The facility has passed all preliminary tests with flying colours", he said. "Waste from Lucas Heights has already been stored there, out of the reach of terrorist groups like those who attacked Sydney last year. Now the facility stands ready to welcome the first shipment from the United States of America."
The minister repeated the government’s assertion that the repository makes economic, political, environmental and moral sense for Australia. "As well as helping to avert climate change, this repository makes the world safer by securing nuclear waste away from terrorist or extremist groups. Australia has been part of the nuclear fuel cycle for a long time, and we have a responsibility to help safely dispose of the waste that cycle creates. This repository will also create, directly and indirectly, many jobs for disadvantaged indigenous communities here in the Northwest".
The repository has been dogged by controversy from the beginning, when the government used its anti-terrorism and corporations regulation powers to override a state veto on its construction. Although the exact date of the US shipment’s arrival has been kept secret, several hundred environmental activists have converged on the remote mining town of Port Hedland to protest its arrival. A spokeswoman for local green groups stressed that the protests would be peaceful, but said that they were "determined to stop the shipment".