A public meeting will be held before Christmas for residents to express their views on the State Government’s plan to transport waste from the site of a former uranium smelter to SITA’s waste management facility in Kemps Creek.
The contentious three-year battle over whether waste from the former Hunters Hill uranium smelter should be transported to Penrith has come to a head after the State Government released its management plan for public display two weeks ago.
Penrith City Councillor, Prue Car, has called for a report back to Councillors on the impacts of this proposed plan and said that she hopes Council reaffirms its long held opposition to any of the waste being deposited in Kemps Creek.
“We need to fight this tooth and nail and demand that Barry O’Farrell and Tanya Davies honour their pre-election commitment not to dump the waste in our community,” she said.
“This meeting is our community’s chance to tell the Government we don’t want their radioactive waste.”
The State Government’s proposal states that there could be up to 5,000 tonnes of restricted waste transported to Kemps Creek.
A spokesperson for SITA said that the waste management facility is currently reviewing the NSW Government report into waste from the Hunters Hill site.
“We are yet to enter into any agreement with the State Property Authority to accept this waste at Kemps Creek,” the spokesperson said.
“Kemps Creek is licensed to accept waste designated as ‘restricted’ and has well-established and well-monitored processes for handling such waste safely. SITA takes the safety of our employees and the local community very seriously and will not be accepting any waste that is outside of our licence condition for Kemps Creek.”
Meanwhile Councillors are looking to extend the time they have to respond to the State Government’s proposal.
The public meeting will be held on Monday, December 17 at 6.30pm at Penrith City Council.
