Shifting goalposts in Lynas waste disposal

YOURSAY 'If Lynas is now claiming that they will convert the waste into a commercially safe product, does that not confirm that the waste itself is indeed not safe?'

TOL does not require export of waste, Lynas insists

Giudice: This is precisely why there were, and still are, such strong objections to the Lynas rare earth processing plant. Neither the government nor Lynas can be trusted.

First, it was claimed that the waste would not be hazardous and would be exported. It was claimed that it was a condition of the temporary operating licence (TOL).

Then it was said the waste cannot be exported because international conventions prohibit the export of toxic waste, i.e. the waste is hazardous.

Now it is claimed that was never said, that exporting was never a condition of the TOL and the waste would instead be converted into a commercially safe product.

How incompetent can the government be? Surely all terms and conditions must be decided upon and made clear before Lynas can be given any authority to operate?

Why does it seem that the goalposts are being shifted every time a legitimate issue is raised?

And if Lynas is now claiming that they will convert the waste into a commercially safe product, does that not confirm that the waste itself is indeed not safe?

And will there be hazardous waste arising from the conversion process and if so, where does that waste go? I think we can safely say that the objections to the Lynas plant are well and truly justified.

Not Confused: What a shambles. One half of the government says it is a condition of the TOL to export the waste, others, including the Atomic Energy Licensing Board, say it is non-binding.

Lynas Malaysia managing director Mashal Ahmad says on Al Jazeera that the waste cannot be exported as it is toxic and cannot be shipped under an international convention and now Lynas Corporation executive chairperson Nicholas Curtis comes out and says that they will export the residue, suggesting that the waste "could be" converted to commercial non-toxic products.

This entire affair has come back to bite the government on the rear - just so that some pockets of government cronies can be lined with silver. What a disgrace.

Malaysia is a laughing stock for being so gullible and influenced by the personal gain of those in power.

Mahashitla: After four years, PM Najib Abdul Razak has come out to admit that his 1Malaysia is vague (or intended to be vague). Now after Lynas has been granted the TOL to operate, the removal of the toxic waste out of Malaysia has also become vague.

International laws do not allow such waste to be exported and there is no known technology to convert these toxic wastes to harmless commercial material.

Lynas said that it has been made a political football. We, the rakyat, feel that we are the ones who are being kicked around.

Vii: I think the people of Malaysia have been cornered by Lynas, thanks to the BN government. Indeed, what kind of licence conditions has multiple interpretations?

Kgen: I think Curtis is probably right that the export of waste is not a condition of the TOL. It was all a ‘sandiwara' (act) by BN politicians to fool the public.

As usual, the AELB (Atomic Energy Licensing Board) director-general has come out in support of Lynas as their unofficial spokesman.

How do you expect AELB to regulate Lynas when they are sitting on the same side of the table?

Chipmunk: It is clear that no licence should be issued for the Lynas Advanced Materials Plant (Lamp) to operate until all of the issues related to the long-term management of the factory's waste and construction inadequacies have been resolved.

The issue of the pre-operating licence by the AELB on Feb 2, 2012 ignores this fundamental requirement and places the environment and public health at serious risk.

This proposal would not be approved in Australia without this information. Why the difference in Malaysia? What have the four ministers to say about this matter?

In the context of the Lamp plant, the sources of rare earth element exposure would be from air emissions, fugitive dust and contaminated water discharges.

Over the projected 10 to 12 years of operation of the Lamp, the cumulative levels of rare earth elements (REE) can be expected to rise in the environment surrounding the plant as the REE migrates through fugitive stockpile emissions and stack emissions.

These transport methods will deposit REE on soil and into the sediments of surface water bodies. REE will also migrate through wastewater discharges and leakages from tailings ponds.

The Balok River sediment can be expected to act as a reservoir for REE due to deposition from treated waste water discharges.

The matter of long-term disposal of the radioactive waste from the Lamp must be resolved immediately. When the entire decay chain radioactivity of the waste is accounted for, specific radiation levels are as high as 61 Bq/g.

This clearly places the waste in the low level waste (LLW) category for radioactive waste requiring isolation for hundreds of years.

The environmental and human health risk assessment of this radiation exposure is clearly inadequate and the disposal methods very poor in an inappropriate environment.

Under these circumstances, it would appear that environmental radioactive contamination and human exposure is unavoidable. This proposal would not be approved in Australia and the Malaysian government should revoke the TOL on this basis.

Lamp, which is expected to produce 22,500 tonnes per annum of lanthanum oxide equivalent, can be expected to generate annual waste streams of:

• 191.25 tonnes of fluoride compounds;

• 292.50 tonnes of flue dust particulate;

• between 216 million m3 and 270 million m3 of waste gas (containing NOx, CO, SO2 ,HF, dust concentrate and H2SO4);

• 1,687,500 m3 of acidic waste-water and

• 22,500 tonnes of radioactive waste residue (containing water).

Historically, China has been the main global producer of rare earths accounting for up to 90 percent of global production allowing pollution to occur as a result of rare earth mining and refining.

The result has been severe localised environmental contamination in areas where these activities take place.

In turn, residents of these areas have reported high rates or respiratory illness, skin diseases, cancer and birth deformities.

So tell me Mr Curtis, why isn't Australia taking back this waste?

Blogsmith: Maybe there is a small silver lining in this very dark and gloomy cloud. Maybe this episode, which shows how little Umno-BN really cares about its people, will tip the majority of the voters to vote them out this coming 13th general election.

Then let us pray hard that the Pakatan government will start to right all the wrongs.

Swipenter: This goes to show that the four ministers have no idea what the AELB is doing and vice versa. This is how screwed-up our ministers and our authorities are.

Don't be surprised that Lynas is going to operate on a TOL for the next 12 years, after which good luck and goodbye to Malaysia and we will end up with 12 years of accumulative radioactive waste.