Grey nomads who have travelled far and wide in Australia cannot fail to have noticed the impact that activities such as mining and fracking have had in many areas.
Some are shocked by the devastating impact that the huge open-cut mines such as Rio Tinto’s Warkworth coal mine in the NSW Hunter Valley are having on the landscape and the nearby communities. The expansion of Warkworth, for example, is threatening the very existence of historic rural villages such as Bulga and the 135 households that live there.  Other travellers  see this sort of mining activity  as the price of progress and a sort of necessary evil  required to drive the Australian economy forwards and to create jobs.
The giant open-cut Warkworth mine threatens the existence of surrounding villages
On occasion, this quest for economic progress has a direct impact on grey nomads and their favourite places. For example, a few years ago many of those who had camped, fished and swam on the Kimberley’s pristine Dampier Peninsula joined protests against Woodside Petroleum’s plans to build a giant gas hub there. The controversial $45 billion project at James Price Point, north of Broome, was eventually shelved.
Now, a new battle is potentially looming with an area of the Flinders Ranges being shortlisted as a possible site for a nuclear waste dump.
Opponents says the site at Barndioota Station near Hawker is environmentally unsuitable as it is geologically unstable and prone to flooding. It says the area is of immense cultural significance for the Adnyamathanha people and the arrival of a nuclear dump would inevitably hit the local tourism industry hard.
According to previous reports on the ABC, there are mixed feelings in the community about the proposal.
“Nuclear is a fairly emotive term and there are a number of people who are opposed to any nuclear storage in the area,” Flinders Ranges Council Mayor Peter Slattery said. “There are other people who have had a bit of a look at what’s proposed and don’t think it poses much of a threat and see great opportunity … it’s really about jobs and securing the future of the communities.”
Denni Rose, who has lived in Hawker for 25 years, told the ABC she agreed.
“It’s far off the beaten track for the tourists. It’s not even in the direction that tourists tend to travel,” she said. “It’s far enough from the town, that the town, if necessary, can disassociate itself.”
The nuclear dump will be safe. We do have to find a place to store our waste. Most of which comes from hospitals. I believe that it is to be stored under ground so for the better part you would not it is there. The problem comes when transporting it to the dump. Road accidents etc.
Everyone wants good medical help and better hospitals, you have to pay the price.
I agree we need to store our own nuclear waste but the government is proposing importing foreign waste as well, I can see this as a lifetime of problems down the track.
Agree ,let others find their own dumps.
Why not use Maralinga??? It has been used for testing in the 1960s. The site is stable, the local Maralinga people don’t want it and tghe income will benefit their communities. Id you visit Maralinga and speak to people there, most of the local are agreeable. No need to dirty up anotehr site .. Maralinga is already there and pretty much unusable for anything but as a nuclear waste facility.