Radioactive Exposure Tours
Join Friends of the Earth on our annual Radioactive Exposure Tour ('radtour') to South Australia where we visit the Olympic Dam uranium mine at Roxby Downs, the Beverley uranium mine in the Gammon Ranges, the beautiful Lake Eyre and Mound Springs, the Gammon Ranges, the gorges of the Flinders Ranges, and much more! We meet and travel with indigenous peoples and local communities campaigning against the nuclear industry. The tour offers a unique opportunity to go out on to country and witness the impacts of the nuclear industry on people and the environment. You can join the radtour in either Melbourne or Adelaide.
Update - the usual rradtour isn't happening in 2012 but these two exciting events are happening - the Road Trip for Change, and the Lizard's Revenge event ... read on!
Road Trip for Change
3rd to 20th July
Adelaide -> Students of Sustainability (Bendigo) -> Point Lowly (desal plant) -> Olympic Dam 'Lizard's Revenge' -> Adelaide
And there are options to join in part of the trip - check the website!
http://www.roadtripforchange.org
http://www.facebook.com/#!/events/383427608345393/
email peta.sedge@gmail.com and cristelchambers@hotmail.com
The Lizard's Revenge - Olympic Dam expansion music/art/festival/protest
Sat 14 July to Fri 20 July 2012
Location: Olympic Dam, Roxby Downs gates of hell - South Australia
Contact Email: izzybrown@live.com
Websites:
https://www.facebook.com/events/224524544273924
Youtube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWUWCZ4fBIU&feature=youtu.be
Hosted by the DLF - Desert Liberation Front in response to the governments decision to expand Olympic Dam mine.
Sleeping underneath the ground there is an old lizard, Kalta the sleepy lizard. The lizard ain't so sleepy anymore. BHP is mining right into that Lizards body. The government has just approved an expansion of the Olympic Dam uranium mine, making it the biggest uranium mine in the world. Kalta is angry and wants revenge. Arabunna elder Kevin Buzzacott is calling the people of the world to help the lizard shut down the mine. He is calling for people to come and heal the land in the name of peace and justice for the next 10,000 generations to come.
The land is being irreversibly poisoned in and around Roxby Downs by the tailings dam causing dust and ground water contamination, and contamination of its workers.
The uranium is taken all over the world and used to kill the land and all its creatures. It's destroying lives not only in Fukashima, with the reactor meltdown, but in the depleted uranium shells that children play with in the streets of Iraq and Kosovo.
With the governments numerous attempts to put a nuclear waste dump at Muckaty in the Northern Territory there is a danger that radioactive waste will be brought back, opening Australia up to accepting nuclear waste from all over the world. Lets stop the deadly cycle where it starts.
The land the lizard and the creatures of this earth are summoning everybody who gives a shit to the gates of Roxby Downs on the 14th of july 2012 for The Lizards Revenge - This is an open invitation to all people and a special call out to artists, musicians and activist community groups and media to get involved in the creation of this autonomous zone for the peace and healing of this land.
Party in a Dangerous Planet with Theatre, Cabaret and Art installations. Over 20 musical acts. Solar Powered sound system extravaganza and wind powered cinema. More to be anounced..
Stand up and boogie down at the Gates of Olympic Dam 14th July 2012
for more info email izzybrown(at)live.com
or check out Facebook page.
https://www.facebook.com/events/224524544273924
Click here to read articles about the radioactive exposure tours
Youtube clip from 2010 radtour:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXjFitw8Wcc
Pics from the 2011 radtour:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/owengpz/sets/72157626782349481
http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150288049251201.370072.713006200
Pics from the 2010 radtour: http://www.flickr.com/photos/50990226@N04/sets/72157624112149201
Pics from the 2006 radtour:
Olympic Dam mine: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cookielovescake/sets/72157594239016480
Radtour sunup: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cookielovescake/sets/72157594239014393
Radtour people: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cookielovescake/sets/72157594239128489
Radtour desert: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cookielovescake/sets/72157594239129315
Radioactive Exposure Tours
A summary of the tours from 1990 - 2004, taken from the book '30 years of creative resistance', a history of Friends of the Earth Australia.
The first Nuclear Exposure Tour was organised in 1990, six years after the Roxby Blockades of 1983 and 1984 where hundreds of people blockaded and hindered the establishment of Olympic Dam Operations (the copper/uranium mine at Roxby Downs in northern South Australia). During these blockades people had the powerful experience of seeing a uranium mine and listening to Aboriginal people who opposed the mine. Blockaders also had the opportunity to show their opposition to uranium mining in creative, colourful and sometimes dramatic ways.It was in this tradition that the idea of Nuclear Exposure Tours evolved. The Anti-Uranium Collective at Friends of the Earth organised the tours with the aim of letting people witness and experience the nuclear industry first hand. People would be able to see and walk on the country affected, to hear what Aboriginal people had to say, learn about the anti-nuclear movement and strengthen opposition to the nuclear industry. We wanted to give people the opportunity to support traditional land owners in their opposition to the nuclear industry, so that the tour participants could return to their colleges, work places or communities with the story of their experience and to encourage them to play a role in the anti-nuclear movement.
The first tour to Roxby Downs was carefully planned, with members of the Friends of the Earth anti-uranium collective doing what we call, a "dry-run". Such a trip was not new; members of the collective had been visiting the Mound Springs area in northern South Australia and working with the Marree/Arabunna community there since 1987. The Mounds Springs are 120 Kilometres north of the Olympic Dam copper/uranium mine at Roxby Downs. Water for the mine, metallurgy plant and town was, and still is, being taken from the Great Artesian Basin and unique springs have dried completely and others have had a drastic reduction of flow. A trip to the Springs area led us to do a round trip to the town at Roxby Downs, the mine there and the tailings dam. Members of the anti-uranium collective were becoming familiar with the Springs and Roxby; this was another motivation for the tour, to share this experience with other people in an organised and constructive way.
The “dry-run” was important as permission from traditional land owners was needed to camp in their country and to obtain information on culturally appropriate behaviour. The anti-uranium collective also needed to meet with communities whose land they would be passing though to organise joint actions against nuclear activities in their areas. These included CRA's proposed mineral sands development near Horsham in Victoria and the Rare Earth Tailings dump at Port Pirie. Future tours took in the Beverley Uranium Mine and the Honeymoon Project, and at the invitation of the Kupa Piti Kungka Tjuta, camping at Ten Mile Creek just out of Coober Pedy. Recent tours have become focused on the proposal for a low to intermediate level nuclear waste dump in the Woomera area.In organising the tours we at FoE always endeavour to make them more than just an out-back adventure! At Roxby Downs we organised public meetings on radiation exposure levels at the community centre, we leafleted the entire town on workers' and community health issues, we organised awareness stalls with local environmentalists and produced a performance at the Woomera Primary School that involved all of the students as well as the people on the tour.
Following a tour in 1996 the participants formed a collective and organised the 'Roxstop Action and Music Festival' in 1997, where over 300 people gathered at Roxby to protest against the expansion of the mine. Here they hosted a public meeting attended by over 120 people with the United States epidemiologist Dr David Richarson as the key note speaker talking about his work and the effects of low level radiation exposure on nuclear workers. Roxstop also included an exhibition of paintings by the Melbourne Artist Lyn Hovey in the Roxby Library. After three days at Roxby the protestors moved to Alberrie Creek on Finnis Springs Station where a music festival was held over three nights to celebrate the Mound Springs, while during the day there were cultural workshops and tours given by members of the Arrabunna community including Reg Dodd and Kevin Buzzacott.
In August 1998 the collective that had organised Roxstop received a fax from the Kupa Piti Kungka Tjuta. It said: "We're trying hard about this rubbish - the radio-active waste dump. We don't want that... We want your help! We want you to come up here to Coober Pedy and have a meeting with Aboriginal people (and any whitefellas from here who want to come)". In September of that year a group of over a dozen people travelled from Melbourne to Coober Pedy and held a public meeting with the Aboriginal people to discuss the dump.
Things have not always run smoothly for the anti-uranium collective. One year we were stranded for a night on the Borefield Road between the Oodnadatta Track and Roxby Downs with forty people and three buses when the road became impassable due to rain! Another time at Mambury Creek in the southern Flinders Rangers, emus raided our camp and scattered our provisions including cereal, bread and fruit all over the campsite while the campers were protesting in Port Pirie! But, there have been great highlights.
The first time we were invited to the Ten Mile Creek (just outside of Cooper Pedy) by the Kungka Tjuta, we saw the beautiful sight of moon rising over Lake Eyre South. At Ten Mile Creek we saw the effects of the leaflet on workers' health and exposure to low levels of radiation, we protested outside the Woomera Detention Centre, we saw the representatives of the Honeymoon Uranium Project squirm as tour participants asked difficult questions about the chemical structure of the waste solution to be pumped back into the aquifer. And we will never forget the warm greeting from members of the Adnyamathanha community at Nepabunna, even though we were four hours late!
There have been many great and rewarding outcomes from the Nuclear Exposures Tours. What stands out for us and what must be acknowledged here is the strengthening of the close working relationships we at Friends of the Earth have with the Aboriginal communities and the many individuals who have taken part in our tours. Every person who has gone on a tour has had an amazing, never-to-be-forgotten experience and many of the participants from various tours have made a considerable contribution to the anti-nuclear movement.
-- Ila Marks