Rex Patrick (SA, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

In the lead-up to the transportation of radioactive waste to Woomera that came from CSIRO and St Marys, there's a report I got under FOI that dates back to 1995. The report is called Review of arrangements for the recent transportation of radioactive waste. It describes some of the material that is on the Koolymilka site. I want to understand what the plans are in relation to that particular material, noting the fact that it is not low-level radioactive waste. The paragraph reads:

The waste includes obsolete medical radium sources, radium-based luminescent paint powder, obsolete radium-contaminated laboratory equipment, electronic valves, luminescent watch and compass faces, night markers, and spent sealed medical sources. The radionuclides which comprise the main part of the waste are cobalt-60, radium-226, americium-241, strontium-90, and caesium-137. The waste also contains very small amounts of other radionuclides, including a minute amount of plutonium-239.

This material is intermediate-level waste. If a site is chosen in Kimba, I wonder whether the government plans to shift that particular waste into the facilities at Kimba, in effect making it almost immediately an intermediate-level waste facility. If that is the case, what is the process by which this material will be rendered safe?