An Australian government agency signed a deal this month to store nuclear waste from AUKUS submarines on a naval base in the country, despite community concerns.
The Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA) issued a license to the Australian Submarine Agency to prepare what the agency calls a “Controlled Industrial Facility” on naval base HMAS Stirling on Garden Island, about three miles away from where submarines would dock in Rockingham, a suburb of Perth on the coast of Western Australia. The Controlled Industrial Facility would temporarily store low-level radioactive waste, ARPANSA said on its website.
The community in Rockingham, the coastal town where submarines would be docked and serviced, has expressed “alarm” about the safety of the facility and any potential radiation leaks into the community by submitting 165 public complaints about the proposal, according to the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
“The consultation documents provided no details about the volume of waste or how long it would be stored at the island,” Mia Pepper, campaign director for the environmental nonprofit Conservation Council of Western Australia, said in a press release. “They also made confused and misleading claims about the types of low level waste that would be accepted.”
Australian defense industry minister Pat Conroy, however, said the waste management facility would be “completely safe, and has been approved by the regulatory authorities.”
According to a poll by The Guardian published Monday, only 37% of Australians believe the AUKUS agreement will improve Australia’s security, compared to 45% in September 2021. However, 19% believe the security pact will make Australia less secure.
The AUKUS pact is an agreement between the U.S., the United Kingdom, and Australia that was established in 2021 to help Australia build nuclear-powered, conventionally armed submarines by the 2040s, in part by selling the country U.S.-made Virginia-class submarines in the 2030s.
