South Australia starts consultation on plan to build nuclear waste dump in state

The Fukushima nuclear disaster happened more than four years ago in 2012, but the scare it gave Japanese residents of a meltdown resulted in Japan temporarily closing all nuclear power plants. The lessons of Fukushima would explain why future nuclear projects, such as South Australia’s planned nuclear waste dump, could expect opposition from residents and businesses in the state.

On Friday, South Australia starts consultation for the nuclear waste dump project. SA Premier Jay Weatherill opens the first information session to be held at the Rundle Mall in Adelaide. Next week, the consultation would take place in regional centres, reports SkyNews.

Although Weatherill is open to holding a state referendum to settle the issue, he believes it would be unnecessary and the consultations would be sufficient to get the public’s pulse on the matter. He is not too keen on a referendum which the premier thinks tends to close down public debate instead of allowing the discussion to be developed.

More consultations all over SA through informal meetings in more than 100 sites would be held over the next three months. Weatherill says the state government would be ready to announced by the end of 2016 its decision if SA would proceed with the construction of the nuclear waste dump facility or not.

To help inform SA residents of its decision, the state government formed several citizens' juries, reports ABC. The first is made up of 50 randomly selected people who believes a wider public consultation must concentrate on the business community’s stand.

The second jury is made up of 350 more people who would be convened to study the feedback and present a final report to the state government.

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Source: DNews