Global Security Newswire

An expert has warned that relocating unwanted nuclear material to a proposed national repository in Australia could make the waste vulnerable to seizure by extremists, the Sydney Morning Herald reported today (see GSN, May 11, 2009).

The proposal would open a trove of material usable in a radiological "dirty bomb" to theft during transit, said John Large, a British nuclear analyst who has consulted for government and private groups. The plan would involve the land-based transfer of radioactive material over great distances to the proposed site, located at Muckaty station in Australia's Northern Territory.

The "transport of radioactive waste by road raises concerns relating to the security of waste [while] in transport to the facility and the potential for a significant impact on transport routes as a result of an accident," the Northern Territory's government said in a statement to an Australian Senate panel.

The Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organization, though, informed the panel that the waste relocation would not pose a significant risk.

Last Friday, the legislative committee acquiesced to Australian Resources Minister Martin Ferguson's plan to establish the new storage site. Australia's governing administration could submit a bill to the legislature as soon as this week to permit establishment of the facility.

A current nuclear waste storage site -- located about 20 miles from Sydney -- is under constant police surveillance and is surrounded by fencing topped with razor wire, said David Sweeney of the Australian Conservation Foundation. Army antiterrorist personnel are also based in the area.

By contrast, no more than six security guards would monitor the proposed waste dump in shifts, Sweeney said.

Large's firm, Large & Associates, said in a report that extremists in the United Kingdom had obtained atomic energy plant blueprints and the site of radioactive waste storage plants. Terrorists have "no reservations about the use of radioactivity" to produce chaos, according to the report (Lindsay Murdoch, Sydney Morning Herald, May 11).