The Radioactive Exposure Tour is a journey through Australia’s nuclear landscape. The Tour has exposed thousands of people to the realities of ‘radioactive racism’ and the environmental and social impacts of uranium mining, radioactive waste and nuclear expansion.
Run by Friends of the Earth, this year’s Tour will take place from Saturday June 27 to Wednesday July 8, 2015.
In 2014 we visited Muckaty Traditional Owners in the Northern Territory before their historic win, stopping a radioactive waste dump on their land. This year, we’re travelling to NSW in light of recent uranium exploration, and continuing on to South Australia.
Starting in Melbourne, we’ll travel to the south coast of NSW to learn about the abandoned nuclear reactor project at Jervis Bay before visiting Australia’s controversial and only reactor at Lucas Heights. We’ll hear about historic campaigns against radiaoctive waste transport in the Blue Mountains and visit hotspots of nuclear expansion in Dubbo and Broken Hill.
Travelling through the stunning Flinders Ranges we’ll head for Arabunna country and watch sunset over Lake Eyre and see the Mound Springs ? oases which are fed by the underlying Great Artesian Basin and host unique flora and fauna. Sadly, some of the Mound Springs have been adversely effected or destroyed altogether by the water intake for the Olympic Dam mine.
The Tour will visit BHP Billiton’s Olympic Dam uranium mine at Roxby Downs, the largest uranium deposit in the world. The mine is a longstanding environmental and social disaster and BHP plans to trial the contentious acid heap leach mining method.
Travelling south to Woomera we’ll hear accounts of the British nuclear bomb tests at Maralinga and Emu Field before arriving in Adelaide right on time for the Students of Sustainability Conference, and onwards back to Melbourne.
Participants get to experience consensus decision making, desert camping and vegetarian cooking in affinity groups while travelling to some of the most beautiful and ecologically significant environments in Australia. If you’re interested in anti-nuclear campaigning, the “Rad Tour” is an essential start or refresher.
The costs of the tour, including all transport and food: concession $550 ? waged $750 ? solidarity $950.
More information at www.radioactivetour.com and www.foe.org.au/radtour
Cam Walker http://www.foe.org.au/articles/2015-01-09/radioactive-exposure-tour-2015