COOBER PEDY News & Events

FILMMAKER DAVID BRADBURY: RED DUST DUMP ORIGINATING AT WOOMERA IS GRAVE CONCERN FOR PUBLIC HEALTH

By: Margaret Mackay

Round two of dust from the Woomera-Roxby Downs area hits Coober Pedy on it's way to the east coast of Australia

Round two of dust from the Woomera-Roxby Downs area hits Coober Pedy on it’s way to the east coast of Australia

“70 million tonnes of radioactive tailings to be dumped at the Roxby mine site each year without evidence of dust control is cause for concern”, says David Bradbury

A vigorous front moving across South Australia 22-25 September, with west to southwest winds averaging 60-70 km/h with damaging wind gusts in excess of 90 km/h are causing grave concerns for public health.  

Fierce dust storms, nearly blotting out Sydney  have reached New Zealand.  The accumulating  dust built momentum as violent winds carried it across Australia, originated at Woomera in the South Australian western desert also the site of the Maralinga Nuclear bomb tests where lethal plutonium from failed cleanup attempts will stay active for a quarter of a million years.

The Emu Field, site of the Totem 1 and Totem 2 tests is  approximately 100km west of Coober Pedy in South Australia.  Radiation signs still warn outback travellers of the lingering danger. Totem 1 (10 kilotons) was exploded at 07.00 on 15 October and Totem 2 (8 kilotons) was exploded 07.00 on 27 October 1953.

In the decade to follow, the bomb tests at Maralinga dispersed radioactive material over hundreds of square kilometres.  Between 1960 and 1963, an estimated 22 kg of plutonium plus quantities of uranium were dispersed around the most contaminated of the test sites, Taranaki.  Fallout from the 12 larger bombs covered mainland Australia and Fiji.

Plutonium is particularly harmful to radiosensitive human organs, like the lungs. It has a half-life of twenty-four thousand years.

 Map tracing the dust storm  Woomera is also situated next to the BHP Billiton Olympic Dam uranium mine currently hoping to expand its operations.

Filmmaker David Bradbury speaks of concerns of dust storms from South Australian mining areas impacting on the health of Australians

Filmmaker David Bradbury speaks of concerns of dust storms from South Australian uranium mining areas impacting on the health of Australians

Academy Award nominated documentary maker David Bradbury has spoken out, raising public concerns of the red dust dumped onto east coast cities this week as concerning with BHP Billiton proposing to turn South Australia’s Olympic Dam uranium mine into an open-cut mine larger than Adelaide.

Minister for Mines and energy, Paul Holloway says that dust is a problem, which will need to be looked into at the Olympic Dam mine.

BHP Billiton have refused to discuss  “in public,” an issue which has the potential to effect the health of the entire population of Australia.

The public are also wondering with the proposed life of the mine, where the water will come from to contain radioactive tailings of such magnitude.

David Bradbury is a former ABC trained radio journalist and a respected internationally recognised filmmaker with two Oscar nominations and a host of other prizes to his credit plus broadcasting docos around the world for the last 30 years.

David who has credits of four documentaries on nuclear issues says, “BHP Billiton’s environmental impact study which reflects that the 70 million tonnes of radioactive tailings to be dumped at the Roxby minesite each year without evidence of dust control, is alarming particularly in light of the growing cancer related illnesses across the country.  We are talking about alpha radiation which these tailings contain and are known to be carcinogenic to humans and animals”.

70 million tonnes per year of radioactive tailings finely pulverised into dust size particles are concerning with dust storms like this one this week

70 million tonnes per year of radioactive tailings finely pulverised into dust size particles are concerning with dust storms like this one, a frequent occurance

David’s concern is that with the open-cut mine expansion that BHP Billiton is trying to achieve permission from state and federal governments to go ahead, with radioactive tailings left behind to blow over the heavily populated cities of the rest of Australia.

Bradbury whose humanitarian work had involved raising awareness of the many harmful facets of the uranium process, says, “The level of contamination brought to the surface and just dumped there by BHP Billiton every year for the life of the mine – up to 100 years – will be one of the, if not THE most environmentally criminal act of any mining company in the history of Australia”.

Coober Pedy is accustomed to dust storms,

Coober Pedy is accustomed to dust storms, “but what’s Blowin’ in the Wind?”, says David Bradbury

“It is not a melodramatic statement when you know what I know of the science of it, the radical impact and triggering of cancers at low levels of radiation once they enter the body and what they do to the human (or for that matter, any species…) once in the cell and its impact on the DNA”, said the filmmaker.

David continues: “This fact is not appreciated by our pollies, or the public health authorities who are behind the eight ball of what scientists without a similar voice in their media in Europe, Japan and Canada have been trying to point out for the last decade and more. We´re living under a false and outdated regimen of what is considered by public health authorities to be ´a safe level of radiation´our human bodies can withstand.

Visible from space: A beige wall of dust can be seen stretching over Queensland and out to sea.  Nasa photo 24-9-2009

Visible from space: A beige wall of dust can be seen stretching over Queensland and out to sea. Nasa photo 24-9-2009

The mainstream media have had the game of misinformation all stitched up in not researching and challenging that which concerns the public on the health of generations to come. The Olympic Dam expansion is a monumental disaster if allowed to go ahead and will wash over the face of Australia forever.

Those tailings are radioactive for 4.5 billion years. Most of the radioactivity in the tailings stays in the fine dust once they extract the copper, gold and uranium.

It is only 1000 kms to Melbourne as the crow flies.  1350 km  to Sydney as the wind blows. And that is the direction Easterly – that the prevailing winds blow from Roxby.

Seventy million tonnes each year dug out of the huge hole in the ground and dumped there for the next 100 years once they take out the valuable minerals. Radioactive polonium, thorium, radium, bismuth, radioactive lead…and what uranium they can´t finally extract is all left behind in the tailings and will be just dumped there according to BHPB´s hitherto released plans for ´environmental protection´.

Those radioactive heavy metals (above) are always found in association with uranium, are not commercially viable or of any monetary use to BHP. That is why they just want to dump them at the mine´s surface. Too huge a volume and people´s awareness on scarcity of water such that they will not be able to dump them under water in holding dams as they do now, to leach into the surrounding water table.

Originating in the South Australian desert the red dust storm thought to be radioactive moves across south eastern Australia is shown in this satelite image

Originating in the South Australian desert the red dust storm thought to be radioactive moves across south eastern Australia is shown in this satelite image

Then there is the release of radon gas into the surface of the air when they mine uranium, particularly open cut mine. Radon gas released from the dug up uranium is seven times heavier than air so it does not evaporate into ´space´ but hugs the earth and attaches itself to water molecules (which we or livestock or native animals drink), can be breathed into our lungs like the radioactive dust particles from the tailings thus triggering cancers and birth defects or attaches itself to growing crops and vegetation which we also eat.

Dust from a South Australian dust storm reaches parts of New Zealand.  Nasa image

Dust from a South Australian dust storm reaches parts of New Zealand. Nasa image

Radon gas has a radioactive half life of 3.8 days (when airborne) so in that half life it can easily blow on a light wind of 20 kph to Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane etc.

People don´t even know they are breathing it in because it is odourless. So the triggering of cancers begins… which doesn´t come out for 20 years or more. And how can you shaft home responsibility to the board of BHP and its CEO then who will be long gone or moved onto greener pastures in that time?

In kids radon or radioactive particles inhaled or eaten dust has a rapid impact, with maybe five years to trigger childhood or teen cancers because their cells are dividing more rapidly than adults who have stopped growing.

So the mutations in the cell from either the radioactive dust inhaled, eaten or from the radon gas alpha particle inhalation, ingestion etc precipitates the cancers faster in a child in the womb, young kids or teenagers because the cells are dividing faster and the mutated cells are created and multiply faster in the young.

That´s what cancer is – mutated cells which multiply and form tumours as a result which then take over the body and finally destroy it”.

Flinders residents stayed indoors watching the eerie orange dust engulf their homes

Flinders residents stayed indoors watching the eerie orange dust engulf their homes

 The South Australian Bureau of meteorology announced that gusts around 100 km/h have been observed at Coles Point and Woomera with a number of other locations such as Broken Hill reporting severe dust and others reporting gusts near 90 km/h.

The State Emergency Service advises that people should:
* Move vehicles under cover or away from trees;
* Secure or put away loose items around your property.
* Stay indoors, away from windows, while conditions are severe.

Photos: Margaret Mackay, Coober Pedy Regional Times
Images: Nasa

Related Posts

Maralinga Topsoil

Australia, dust storms and the fallout Britain left behind

Why is Aunty selling us short…yet again?

You call that a dust storm? Coober Pedy life hits city

Mates and Coober Pedy Council personel Martin Grava and Duncan McLaren who says dust is a way of life in the outback

28 replies »

  1. David Bradbury has been sounding the warning for some time. Is he a voice “crying in the wilderness”, like those who warned about asbestos, decades before they were listened to?

    The information that the cancer-causing radioactivity of radon gas lasts for only a few days is not comforting. We have now seen how far and wide a dust storm can go, in just a few days. Sydney , New Zealand, and much of Australia’s East coast is threatened by radioactivity in dust, from the planned expansion of Olympic dam uranium mine.

    The present epidemic of lung cancer and asbestosis among former workers and communities of asbestos mines is the result of governments and corporations ignoring warnings. Is history going to be repeated in the case of uranium, but this time with more far-reaching health effects?

    It’s easier to enthuse about “jobs for the near future”, than to plan for a workforce in clean and positive industries, such as renewable technologies, and modern energy efficiency industries.

  2. Perhaps the mining company advisors to the Minister in question regarding containing those radioactive tailing at Roxby’s Olympic Dam might like to rent a Moses to hold back Climate Change while the humans living in the already radioactive desert of South Australia, find safe passage…..to where?

    There’ll be nowhere left if this theoretic dream of nuclear powermongering is allowed to take place.

    How can the public be so lame as to allow these blinded individuals and their uranium partners to destroy the very soil we grow our food from and the pastures our livestock eat and the very lifeblood of our towns and communities which is ultimately the public waterways?

    The plutonium and other chemicals in that soil at Maralinga and beyond still has an iceage of activity and I bet they know all about it.

    Does anyone have the breakdown of those chemicals as I have 4 small children as do other families copping this crap from South Australia?

  3. Like a lot of history that needs revising, this problem of creating an imbalance on the planet is out of control. When are these people going to wake up one morning and realise it’s not working AND it’s over?

    “The finest workers in stone are not copper or steel tools, but the gentle touches of air and water working at their leisure with a liberal allowance of time. – Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) American Essayist, Poet, Naturalist”

  4. This has been a scary few days with all that dust and not knowing what it’s bringing with it.

    Apologies for being a dolt, but what is plutonium and what about it lasting 1/4 million years? Googling just brings up Maralinga but can’t find an explanation.
    PW.

  5. Those of us who know of the tragedy of the innocent babies and children that died during the nuclear testing in the 50’s and 60’s is still haunting epecially when you see the hundreds of graves at Woomera which we visited last year.

    When we saw this dust storm sweeping Australia it was like a fallout all over again or the promise of things to come. A nuclear disaster must be something for those who actually lived though it and didn’t know the dangers. What else aren’t we told?

    We don’t need to cope with this as well as climate change. If feels as though a catastrophe is pending. Why our governments appear to have no regard for civilian life and don’t behave any better than they did in the 50s is beginning to play on our minds.

    We urge everyone to think of these unborn babies and others who didn’t make it and not let history repeat itself. As for plutonium, I’m not sure either. Thought it was some sort of metal. Sounds like it’s from outer space.

  6. Not an expert mate but this is off the www. There’s more stuff on there, but a bit technical.Not sure what happens after this. Sounds like it’s on the top of the ground though!!!!!

    Plutonium hazard in respirable dust on the surface of soil CJ Johnson, RR Tidball, and RC Severson

    Plutonium-239 in the fine particulate soil fraction of surface dust is subject to suspension by air currents and is a potential health hazard to humans who may inhale it.

    This respirable particulate fraction is defined as particles less than or equal to 5 micrometers.

    The respirable fraction of surface dust was separated by ultrasonic dispersion and a standard water-sedimentation procedure.

    Plutonium concentration in this fraction of off-site soils located downwind from the Rocky Flats Nuclear Weapons Plant (Jefferson County, Colorado) were as much as 380 times the background concentration.

    It is proposed that this method of evaluation defines more precisely the potential health hazard from the respirable fraction of plutonium-contaminated soils.

    http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/193/4252/488

  7. My Question then is what are we whitefellas doing about what we have and are doing to Original Sovereign peoples’ country since we agreed or allowed our Crown to perpetrate and now perpetuate our legal fiction Founding Documents http://www.foundingdocs.gov.au/documenting democracy in our 1st World Capitalist society & “civilization” as we know it … ? When are the people above going to their respective elected local, state & national representatives to more effectively represent themselves else better still stand and run for Parliament, even Council and not sit on these issues playing victim? If you are seriously concerned then Email our South Australian Governor & Australian Governor General: “Government House (GH)” , “Office of the Official Secretary to the Governor-General” else ring instead of write or better still make an appointment to express y/our concerns?

  8. Unsure exactly why but those Email addys above were scrubbed from my post when I clicked Submit Comment so maybe you just need to google?

    Else read:

    Parliament of Australia:Senate:Committees:Foreign Affairs, Defence and Trade:Inquiry into the provisions of the Australian Participants in British Nuclear Tests (Treatment) Bill 2006; and, the Australian Participants in British Nuclear Tests:

    1. There were 12 atomic bomb tests, not nine, so we are lacking fallout maps for the Hurricane, Totem 1 and Totem 2 tests. This is a careless oversight given the controversy which still surrounds the Black Mist Incident. (A controversy which does not exist in the minds of those who witnessed the deaths and illnesses).

    2. The maps clearly show fallout was deposited outside the designated “test areas”

    http://www.aph.gov.au/senate/committee/fadt_ctte/completed_inquiries/2004-07/nuclear_tests_bills_06/submissions/sublist.htm

    Click to access sub12.pdf

    “Indigenous Australians were excluded from the study because there is no available list of Indigenous Australians who were present in the areas of the tests at the time. In the 1950s and 1960s the indigenous population was not counted in the census and there were no records kept of Indigenous Australians who lived in the test areas.” : Billson MP Minister for Veterans Affairs, email to me, March 2006.

    The Minister not only raises the issue of the availability of information relating to Indigenous people. In addition he raises the concepts being “present in the areas of the tests”, “time”, and “living in the test areas.”

    In order to determine who was present in the test areas, how time impacts upon the radiological safety of these people and the manner in which they lived, including all aspects of lifestyle, most importantly infrastructure and diet, we need to define the terms.

    Concept One – “Test Area”.

    The very first test, Hurricane, produced fallout clouds which traversed the north of Australia. Royal New Zealand Air Force aircraft tracked these clouds to Fiji. (Source: “The McClelland Royal Commission”)

    Is Fiji to be included in the “Test Area”?

  9. Responding to Matthew:

    Q: When are the people above going to their respective elected local, state & national representatives to more effectively represent themselves else better still stand and run for Parliament, even Council and not sit on these issues playing victim?

    The answer probably lies in the history of your next post Matthew where it appears that astonishing and serious submissions have been buried by our elected representatives.

    THE FALLOUT MAP ON PAGE 9 of that file doesn’t appear to be anywhere obvious and it looks like the press have never picked it up, or have conveniently ignored it.

    Who didn’t support people like the Greens and prime example Peter Garrett, only to find they either whisper their policies or betray those who put their hope in them by allowing these “here for a good time”, and also a long time, economic and shortsighted ventures to go continue?

    It seems that people like Bradbury have a much louder and far reaching voice in speaking on behalf of the masses of helpless mums and dads with children, than those of the many political party hopefuls who are yet to be heard on this issue.

    Yes, where is the Green voice and that of the wannabe “democratic” parties in the lead up to the next election?

    Do we have to deliver the news to their homes and cosy offices or do we wait for the wind to come from the north and hit ADELAIDE with the full might of both Ranger uranium mine, Olympic Dam, Beverley uranium mine, Honeymoon uranium mine and any other mine with lead, zinc, copper and the plethora of ingredients making our populations ill?

    Do we have to wait until some polician’s wife get’s breast cancer before they decide it’s time to put a lid on this folly?

    This plunder of “wealth and material greed” can be traced back through history to King Midas and the lessons learned there.

  10. PLEASE NOTE:

    Website: http://thealliance123.blogspot.com/2009/09/filmmaker-david-bradbury-red-dust-dump.html is not affilliated to this website, nor do they have permission to plagarise our stories or use our copyright photos.

    It has been suggested that this “Alliance” may be a diversional front for the uranium industry.

    The Coober Pedy Regional Times is not a lobby website, it is for broad regional news, information and comments, by request only. Admin

  11. Aboriginal people were included on the census with kangaroo’s, emu’s, flora and fauna during the Bomb Tests. Yhat is how badly this British government treat(ed) our people in this country.
    Yesterday it was the aborigines who lost their lands and families to poisons. Tomorrow it will be the rest of Australia and “their land” and families. Something to think about!

  12. Congratulations to David Bradbury for taking to the media. People will listen. When we hear of the increases in cancers across Australia affecting the lives of so many families, it has to come from somewhere. So far no one’s come up with a logical answer, in fact there’s no rumble about it at all. It makes you wonder how many ways our lives can be taxed. It seems that mining is the cause of most illnesses amidst constant denial by politicians who of course would be unlikely to want olympic dam nextdoor to their own kids. This is a gutsy and incredible account of just what’s possible and is most likely already eeping over us on any normal windy day!

  13. Has anyone got the slightest evidence that there is any radioactive dust? Any chgemcial analyses? Any measurments of anomalous radioactivity? Or is this all just hysterical scare tactics?

  14. Jon,

    If you said that to a James Hardie asbestos worker in the 80’s, ya mates would say…yeah jonno, ya right – this cough will go away – and hell the pays good here – anyone for another drink?

    We don’t live in a world where ya can trust government, let alone the corporate cronies that run the buggers. If ya want evidence of the contamination of the Beverley uranium sites (over 150 incidents) or the exposure of workers at Roxby – do ya homework – on this site or the world wide web mate.

    There aint nothin hysterical about a mine that operates outside of the law and dumps radioactive tailings in an arid desert. Put ya bloody thinkin cap on jonno! Jeez!

  15. Here is an excerpt from a Nurse’s concern titled: Reflection on Dust Storm – by Pete
    It’s probably the closest the ABC have got to the issue despite it is a self-posting effort
    Pete says: (in part)

    “Out of curiosity I googled radioactive sites Woomera as I was born in South Australia and knew a little what Woomera was involved with as a testing range area for radioactive experiments post Second World War era. I came across an article written in the Coober Pedy Times featuring an article called… ‘RED DUST DUMP ORIGINATING AT WOOMERA IS GRAVE CONCERN FOR PUBLIC HEALTH’ Filmmaker David Bradbury:

    On reflection do we as normal everyday Australians know the contents of the dust that is now around us not to mention perhaps in our bodies as well. I know there are investigations by scientists who are examining the contents of this dust or at least that is what has been reported by the media.”

    http://contribute.abc.net.au/_Reflection-on-Dust-Storm/blog/859022/32422.html

  16. Re: Reflection on Dust Storm – by Pete

    Well, good on you, Pete!

    I am a nurse of many years standing. I guess that I have spent many hours, walking around the wards, fuming at the waste and environmental ignorance perpetrated in hospitals. I am also a union member. And I have felt guilt that I have not actively tried to awaken nurses to environmental health issues. Nurses do not seem to have any environmental or public health awareness – however caring they might be of the individual patient.

    I applaud your interest in this public health matter. And, I applaud your initiative in seeking to have independent analysis of possibly radioactive dust – rather than leaving the monitoring of such dust to ANSTO (Australian Nuclear Energy Organisation) – who obviously have a vested interest in damping down concerns in this matter.

    This weeks’ dust storms might well turn out to be quite safe, as regards radiioactivity. But, what about the predicted future storms, and the humungous expansion of Olympic Dam, with its equally humungus uranium tailings? Can we trust ANSTO to be fully transparent with the public, about this?

  17. In only five years, Perilya Broken Hill mined 9.4 million tonnes of ore and shipped 645,000 tonnes of zinc metal and 300,000 tonnes of lead. It makes you wonder how the tourists who filmed this massive dust storm across the Broken Hill stretch are going with their health now.

    http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=95tmYmeHf84

    Good on you David for drawing awareness to public health in small and large communities.

  18. Good on ya Noel for that comment and I’ll be buyin this bloke Bradbury a beer or two next time he passes through Cronulla!

    Jeez, I may be a simple tradey, but that ABC piece a crap interview was a piece n a half hey. That other bloke Barry Noller must a had a few bucks shoved up his arse to say what…nothin!

    The missus reckons he’s a mining company stooge and she just added…he’s connected with that ANSTO mob as well:

    Grants completed:
    * Australian Synchrotron Research Program : Visit to Photon Factory Japan
    * ANSTO $4380 B Noller 2005
    * Australian Synchrotron Research Program 2004 : Visit to Photon Factory Japan Visit to Photon Factory Japan $4380 2004

    How on earth she can move stuff from one page of the internet to another bloody well escapes me but reckon she’s the smartest chick on our block!

    She reckons thats what this blokes paid for, to speak shit so us hardworking aussies stay in the dark…hang on…she’s taken over the pewter again…reckons she has this fluff bag sussed!

    ‘Cyanide on seabed not a risk’

    Copyright 2000 The National (PNG)
    December 14, 2000
    By BREMEBIL KUBLE

    “AN ESTIMATED 260,000kg of cyanide in metal drums that had sunk with a barge near the mouth of the Fly River is of no significant risk to the marine life, said Ok Tedi Mining Ltd (OTML) managing director Dr Roger Higgins”

    This bloke should be a cocktail bar tender. He reckons any toxic gear “mixed in” is safe…jeez…he better not get a job at my local!! :

    ” Higgins said for many years since 1984 Ok Tedi environmental experts have been monitoring the delta and the mouth of the Fly and have observed no signs of any cyanide spill.

    He agreed with what Australia National Research Centre for Environmental Toxicology deputy director Barry Noller had said earlier this week, that a slow leak would result in dilution of the cyanide to almost undetectable levels.”

    Bloody Hell!!! If that guy gets paid to be a scientist I may as well rock up to ANSTO and start work as a Nuclear Physicist hey!!!

  19. URANIUM: THE DEADLIEST METAL
    Canadian Coalition for Nuclear Responsibility
    http://www.ccnr.org/uranium_deadliest.html

    ABORIGINAL CANCER “DOUBLES” NEAR URANIUM MINE
    Liz Minchin and Lindsay Murdoch

    CANCER cases among Aborigines near Australia’s biggest uranium mine appear to be almost DOUBLE the normal rate, according to a study by the Federal Government’s leading indigenous research body.

    The study also found there had been no monitoring in the past 20 years of the Ranger mine’s impact on the health of local indigenous people. Yet since 1981 there have been MORE than 120 spillages and leaks of contaminated water at the mine, located in the World Heritage-listed Kakadu National Park.

    It found the diagnosis rate was 90 per cent higher than expected in the Kakadu region.

    Energy Resources of Australia, which operates Ranger, DENIED that people living in Jabiru and other communities near the mine were being exposed to abnormal levels of radiation.

    The uranium mine, which is majority-owned by mining giant Rio Tinto, announced it would extend the life of Ranger by six years to 2020.
    http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/aboriginal-cancer-doubles-near-uranium-mine/2006/11/22/1163871482163.html

    OLYMPIC DAM TAILINGS
    If the giant Olympic Dam mine is allowed to completely mine out the deposit, South Australia will host the largest pile of uranium tailings on earth.

    Uranium tailings contain over a dozen radioactive materials which are all extremely harmful to living things. The most important of these are thorium-230,
    radium-226, radon-222 (radon gas) and the radon progeny, including polonium-210.

    If this radioactive sand is left on the surface and allowed to dry out, it can blow in the wind and be deposited on vegetation far away, entering the food chain. Or it can wash into rivers and lakes and contaminate them.

    “And as these tailings are left on the surface of the earth, they are blown by the wind, they are washed by the rain into the water systems, and they inevitably spread. Once the mining companies close down, who is going to look after this material forever?

    How does anyone, in fact, guard 200 million tons of radioactive sand safely forever, and keep it out of the environment?”
    Dr. Gordon Edwards , CCNR
    http://www.anawa.org.au/archive/mining/tailings.html

  20. I read the story about the dust blowing in Austrailia from the area where the Uranium Mine is and YES, there should be concern.

    My husband worked as a Mechanic in the Uranium Mines in New Mexico, USA. Laying in the mud or muck as they called it working on the trains and other equipment.

    The mines did not begin monitoring the exposure to Radiation until he had been underground for two years and after six months they pulled him out to work on the top, or outside.

    Ten years later it was discovered that he had Multipule Myeloma and in two years he was gone. This was the cancer that so many children died of after the bomb was dropped on Hiroshima.

    Please stay after your government about this situation, we can’t afford to lose so many innocent people.

    Sincerely,
    Jacquetta Harvey

    Multiple myeloma symptoms include the following:
    http://www.cancercenter.com/multiple_myeloma_cancer.cfm

  21. God bless good old Auntie ABC…and all those who rely on her for ‘real’ news.

    It took more than two years chipping away looking for a chink in the armour of the mainstream media before the recent dust storms finally gave me the chance.

    I was quickly onto the blower and ABC’s current affairs flagship PM program picked up the story. The dust storms which originated near Roxby could come laden with radioactive dust next time if BHPBilliton’s plans for a radical open cut mine are given government approval I argued.

    ‘Balanced reporting’ demanded a reply so PM sought an academic from Uni of Qld’s Mining Rehab centre. No, no, no. There is no cause for alarm or thinking the radioactive tailings can blow in the wind to Brisbane or Byron Bay Associate Professor Barry Noller reassured listeners. Phew. The average listener feels there’s one less environmental concern to angst about after all. Alarmist Bradbury!

    A quick google by PM’s journalist would have shown that Associate Prof Barry Noller also believes the accidental spill of 260,000kgs of cyanide in the mouth of the Fly River, PNG would have ‘negligible impact’ on the environment and local indigenous population.

    (BHPB’s Environment Chief is head of the Advisory Board of Barry’s Centre who own the mine where the cyanide was spilled. Rio Tinto and Xstrata are also on the Board).

    Barry also believes the risk to humans from lead tailings at Mt Isa is ‘low’. Despite medical reports concluding it is having a major impact on local children’s brain development.

    I was stitched up good and proper. When I emailed and rang PM and pointed out how irresponsible their ‘balanced’ reporting was, I got no reply.

    BHPBilliton have their AGM in Brisbane Nov 26th. Make an effort to get there and let the Big Australian and its shareholders (probably your super funds…) know you don’t want more uranium mined. You don’t want the wishes of traditional owners here and overseas runover. Go to http://www.roxstop-action.org for more details.
    David Bradbury.
    Wilsons Creek

  22. from shareshark’s comment:
    “AN ESTIMATED 260,000kg of cyanide in metal drums that had sunk with a barge near the mouth of the Fly River is of no significant risk to the marine life, said Ok Tedi Mining Ltd (OTML) managing director Dr Roger Higgins.”

    Enter Barry Noller to back up the mining company:
    “Australia National Research Centre for Environmental Toxicology deputy director Barry Noller had said earlier this week, that a slow leak would result in dilution of the cyanide to almost undetectable levels.”

    He agreed with what Australia National Research Centre for Environmental Toxicology deputy director Barry Noller had said earlier this week, that a slow leak would result in dilution of the cyanide to almost undetectable levels.”

    from David Bradbury’s comment :

    “There is no cause for alarm or thinking the radioactive tailings can blow in the wind to Brisbane or Byron Bay Associate Professor Barry Noller reassured listeners [of the ABC]

    Barry [Noller] also believes the risk to humans from lead tailings at Mt Isa is ‘low’. Despite medical reports concluding it is having a major impact on local children’s brain development.

    Bradbury: “I was stitched up good and proper. When I emailed and rang [ABC] PM and pointed out how irresponsible their ‘balanced’ reporting was, I got no reply.”

    Mind Control: Theories & Practices; Propaganda, Social Control, Belief Monitoring and Manipulation, Attitude Formation, the Thought Police
    http://www.ftrbooks.net/psych/mind_control.htm

    Believing is “presumptive evidence – a magician’s trick”.

    Barry Noller only admitted to ABC listners that he “believes”.

    This could mean a number of things. eg “I do or don’t believe his words”; “We did or didn’t believe his stories about the cyanide”; “He believes in spirits”; “I believe him to be very cunning”; “When you hear his unproven words, maybe you will believe him.

    Do the government want us to believe they are not party to recklessly abandoning public health or creating a very viable sickness industry, so they bring in Barry Noller? Is he a believable con-man who is paid to say that he believes these things?

    Maybe I believe him, maybe I don’t. It turns out that I don’t. You can’t hang anyone for believing or not believing. Barry didn’t satisfy those of us with cancers and without a financial MOTIVE. Why?

    This could be answered in a comment which presented the following “contradictory report”….. Ah, so Barry’s beliefs lacked EVIDENCE? I seems this way as he didn’t present any. He only presented his school report!!!

    ABORIGINAL CANCER “DOUBLES” NEAR URANIUM MINE
    Liz Minchin and Lindsay Murdoch report:
    CANCER cases among Aborigines near Australia’s biggest uranium mine appear to be almost DOUBLE the normal rate, according to a study by the Federal Government’s leading indigenous research body.

    The study also found there had been no monitoring in the past 20 years of the Ranger mine’s impact on the health of local indigenous people. Yet since 1981 there have been MORE than 120 spillages and leaks of contaminated water at the mine, located in the World Heritage-listed Kakadu National Park.

    It found the diagnosis rate was 90 per cent higher than expected in the Kakadu region………….more
    http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/aboriginal-cancer-doubles-near-uranium-mine/2006/11/22/1163871482163.html

    [Q.) What does a uranium mine do? A.) It plunders the wealth of the Indigenous people. You must remember here that the indigenous people have sovereign title to the land and everything under it.]

    DO ANY WHITE PEOPLE LIVE IN INDIGENOUS COMMUNITIES? (Or are they too busy “believing in racism” and exercising territorialism on deliberately contaminated traditional lands?)

    What cancer rate were they expecting amongst the unsuspecting population of Indigenous people? Were the white communities included in this survey of expected cancers? The same as Maralinga targetted the massive Kokatha tribe, the casualities also included opal mining towns and pastoral families!

    Why does the dull, gullible population believe people like Barry Noller when you are continually burying your relatives who live near these nuclear test sites and uranium mining areas?

  23. We know there is a massive coverup about hazards of uranium mining and the nuclear industry.

    Even the “antinuclear” movement is infiltrated by those who try to “moderate” radicals so the radioactive nuclear industry can march on.

    However, NATURE will not be fooled by the antics of human criminals and can effectively counter human nuclear deviationism.

    NATURE can:

    1. cause extreme severe deadly drought to deprive mining industry from using precious water to process deadly ore

    2. summon advanced UFO Beings to visit near human nuclear occult superUnNatural evil magic sites ato prevent human total destruction of Earth

    Ref:

    http://www.strangeharvest.blogspot.com

    3. instigate, inspire and implement natural protection to prevent those most responsible for nuclear holocaust from further destruction of Earth

    e.g. Race War to remove problematic human race from Planet Earth

    “Dont Ya Know
    Tis a Shame and a Pity
    You was Raised
    Up in a City
    and Never
    Learned Nothin About a Country Way
    Oh About a Country Way”…

    Country Joe McDonald and The Fish (60’s)

  24. The book by Australian Helen Caldicott from 2006, endorsed by Meryl Streep and many others, says that nuke energy is unnecessary and creates immense global warming due to the oil needed to run and build the plants. The dangers of the waste are obvious. Caldicott is the person who got the French to put their tests underground in the ’70s, as the fallout was hitting Australia.
    British people have always been duplicitous, and it is a disgrace that Eastern politicians permitted these tests on SA–they don’t like South Australian you see.
    I have very narrow forearms and have always wondered if it was the tests… I was born in the ’60s and my mother knew had visited Woomera in the ’50s. Who knows.

    When will people wake up?

    You do not need nuke energy–wind and solar is fine. There are a lots of evil people running companies, and governments.

  25. I was involved in the Maralinga cleanup many years ago, I’m now aged in my 50’s and am developing ailments with internal organs, some of which are a bit baffling to specialists. I had some of my bowel removed recently and the specialist surgeon told me it was quite unual, not like he had encountered before. I jokingly replied about Maralinga and he seemed more than interested in my story, so much so I believe that all my body parts that I have removed are biopsied for more than usually are screened for……..It’s probably too late for me but anyone who has ever had contact with Maralinga or worked in the Woomera Rocket Range area from 1950 until present should you feel slightly unwell or out of sorts, get it checked as soon as possible. There is a chance that you may have abnormal blood counts and organ damage that you don’t even know about. Early detection could help save your life……….All the best, hope I have helped at least one of you.

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