City powerless over nuclear waste trucks on roads - Illawarra Mercury - 0 views
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Energy Net on 25 Feb 09Wollongong City Council's long-held position that the city is a nuclear-free zone could prove meaningless, as local government has no power to stop nuclear waste being transported along the area's roads. After receiving notification from the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation last November of plans to transport waste through the "Sydney-Illawarra" region, the city's general manager David Farmer wrote to ANSTO informing the federal agency of the council's position. "In March 1980 (the) council resolved to declare its area a nuclear-free zone, to the extent that it would prohibit the mining, storing, manufacturing, transporting and shipping of fissionable nuclear materials, by-products and wastes," Mr Farmer wrote. "(The) council became a member of the Australian Nuclear Free Zones Secretariat in 1986 and remained a member until the abolition of the Secretariat in 1995" and "reaffirmed its nuclear-free stance in November 1996 and again in March 2002."