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Harbourside radioactive dump 'no risk'
Tuesday Jan 29 16:56 AEDT
Health authorities insist a Sydney harbourside radioactive dump poses no safety risk to nearby residents and plans are underway to remediate the land.
NSW Health and the Department of Environment and Climate Change (DECC) denied the remediation includes transporting the waste from Hunters Hill and dumping it in the city's western suburbs.
Levels of radiation were first discovered at the site around 30 years ago.
Some remediation work was carried out on the land, the site of a former watch factory, during the 1980s, and the NSW government now plans to sell off the land.
Director of environmental health for NSW Health, Dr Wayne Smith, said the vacant blocks of land posed no risk to neighbouring residents but would need to be cleaned up before being put to use.
"We're planning on removing the contaminated soil, either by sealing it where it is or digging it up and transporting it somewhere else, where it is safe to dispose of," Dr Smith told reporters.
"The planning is only beginning, we don't know how it's going to be done, all I can say is from a health perspective that when this is done, it's done so that there is no risk to health of anyone at the site or along the transport routes."
Dr Smith said the radioactive substances included uranium, thorium, with arsenic and hydrocarbons also present.
Deputy director of DECC, Joe Woodward, said he was satisfied by the regulation of the site over the past three decades.
"The site is safe," Mr Woodward said.
"We are satisfied that the residential properties nearby are safe and that the site can be cleared up to satisfy any future development on the site as well."
The NSW Opposition has called on the government to explain how it intends to clean up the site and what steps it will take to protect locals during the remediation process.
Lane Cove MP Anthony Roberts has said he's been told by the company contracted to remediate the site that it was going to be taken to an industrial tip near Castlereagh, in Sydney's west.
However, Dr Smith said no decision has yet been made.
Greens MP Sylvia Hale said the government must deal with the contaminated soil on site.
"NSW does not have appropriate facilities for safely transporting and storing nuclear waste," Ms Hale said.
"Western Sydney is a huge population growth area. We have to stop treating it as a waste dump." |
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