Right throughout the nuclear cycle water is used and abused in efforts to quell the effects this industry has on the environment. Before mining, radioactive elements are locked into impervious rock - only a small proportion reaches the open environment. But once mined, radioactive elements get into waterways and the atmosphere.

Here in Australia the story is no different. Right now the Great Artesian Basin is under threat from the activities of the nuclear industry.

Mining uranium . . .

During the mining stage, the volumes of low-level radioactive waste left at abandoned mining sites are huge. These look like liquid mud and are called tailings, and are pumped into a retention pond called a tailings dam. Litres upon litres of water are continuously pumped from natural water courses into these dams in an effort to ensure the waste cannot blow away in wind-borne dust particles. But tailings dams have a poor reputation. Sudden collapse or erosion allows the contents of these often poorly constructed dams to flow into waterways.

And radioactive tailings have not always been kept in a tailings dam: ore from the now defunct Radium Hill uranium mine ore was processed at Port Pirie situated on the Spencer Gulf. Tailings from the operation were left to be washed away by high tides and eroded by high winds.1

Water is used at this stage of the nuclear cycle to 'control' radioactive wastes, the unwanted leftovers.

At the enrichment and rod fabrication plants (the reactors which transform uranium into reactor fuel), the spent fuel is stored in water-cooled ponds on the reactor site. The spent fuel emits fierce heat and lethal radiation, and water is used to attempt to temper its effects.2

Reprocessing . . .

Then, at the reprocessing level, it is the oceans which suffer. Reprocessing was first developed for the isolation of plutonium for nuclear weapons. Today, two commercial reprocessing plants service the world's reactors. One is at Sellafield in Cumbria, Britian, and the other is at Cap La Hague in Normandy, France. Every day, millions of litres of effluent carrying plutonium and other transuranic elements and fission products are discharged from the Sellafield plant into the Irish Sea. Radioactive elements are washed onto nearby beaches, and carried by ocean currents to as far away as the Scandinavian coast. In Cumbria local fish shops bear the sign "No Irish Sea fish sold here".3

Waste . . .

Often, waste has been stored under the ocean bed or on the ocean floor. It was not until 1994 that a moratorium on dumping radioactive waste in the ocean was declared. Now, it is the water under the earth that is at risk: plans for a national radioactive waste dump, and proposals for an international waste dump here in Australia threaten the Great Artesian Basin, the inland sea of Australia.