CANBERRA - The threat of terrorism is not the only cloud hovering over the 42-year-old Lucas Heights reactor in the wooded hills of southwest Sydney.
The decision to replace Australia's only nuclear facility has run into a storm roiling around the selection of an Argentinian company, and the threat of a
catastrophic accident.
Commissioned in 1958, Lucas Heights is central to new materials' research, to irradiate computer chips and to produce new materials used in minerals exploration, agriculture and environmental management.
Replacement of the facility is considered necessary to keep Australia's foot in the nuclear door, give it a credible voice in non-proliferation forums and to continue neutron-based research.
But with the reawakening of the anti-nuclear movement, Lucas Heights has come under increasing pressure and now a Senate inquiry has begun into the tendering process that gave the contract for its replacement to Argentina's struggling state-owned INVAP.
The Government is accused of pushing through the contract with indecent haste, running foul even of its own nuclear safety watchdog, the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency, which has said it will not approve a new reactor until a national waste repository has been established.
The Government said Argentina was a respectable member of the international nuclear community and that all reactors built by INVAP were subject to safeguards, which ensured they could not be used for military purposes.
There are other concerns around Lucas Heights.
In the surrounding district, surveys have found that 88 per cent of its neighbours do not want a new reactor, and Greenpeace reported 75 per cent reject the reactor until there is a new waste dump.
