Save Malaysia Stop Lynas (SMSL) has vowed to carry on its campaign to shut down the Lynas plant after two members of parliament and three state assemblymen who had campaigned on the issue were voted in.
SMSL welcomes the election of all candidates committed to the Stop Lynas cause in the Kuantan and surrounding areas near the Lynas plant at the general election held on 5 May in Malaysia. Two members of parliament and three state assemblymen who had campaigned on the Lynas issue were all voted in.
SMSL spokesperson Tan Bun Teet says, “This encouragingly positive election outcome for us is most rewarding as we have staged a concerted campaign to urge the public to vote to stop Lynas. It goes to show that the majority of the people here want to see the Lynas plant shut down.”
The five candidates won a comfortable and convincing majority in their respective seats delivering a clear message that the public have overwhelmingly rejected the Lynas rare earth processing plant near Kuantan.
The plant owned by Australia’s Lynas Corporation has yet to find a safe permanent site for its massive amount of radioactive and toxic waste to date. It has several serious deficiencies as shown in the detailed analysis and evaluation by Germany’s Oeko Institute. Instead Lynas has proposed to turn its toxic waste into building and road paving materials as well as fertilisers – which will result in its hazards spreading everywhere in Malaysia. This is a serious health and public safety issue for Malaysians in light of the poor track record of toxic waste management here.
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Ismail Abu Bakar, another SMSL spokesperson, explained, “For the government to issue to Lynas the licence to operate when its risks and hazards have yet been dealt with properly is unacceptable. This is why the public has voted for the opposition candidates in Kuantan and in the area near the Lynas plant. We want to send a strong message to the Government that we want the Lynas project shut down.”
Tan and Ismail are two of the Kuantan residents who have filed a judicial review case to revoke the Lynas temporary operating licence (TOL). This is in light of serious risks and problems related to the Lynas project, which have been identified by health, scientific and engineering experts.
“If the government or Lynas think that we will end our campaign to shut down the Lynas plant with the election, they are wrong. We are now moving into a new phase of the campaign. The people have given us the mandate to fight on. With this renewed energy and newly elected political representatives, we will soldier on to end this public hazard …,” Tan asserted.
For further comments, please contact:
SMSL Hotline :+60 (0) 12-982 3302
Mr Tan Bun Teet, Hp: +60 17 973 0576
Haji Ismail Abu Bakar – Hp 019 953 0921
Summary of the German Oeko Institute:
Lynas rare earth plant in Malaysia has some serious deficiencies
Solid waste management:
The WLP waste with the highest radioactive content would exceed by a factor of more than 1,000 above internationally accepted protection levels for the release of radioactive materials from regulatory control (Beyond Regulatory Concern, BRC level).
Any hopes that this waste can be re-used in the public domain are scientifically and technically nonsense and, with respect to the so posed risks, careless.
The operation of a facility that generates those wastes should only be (temporarily or permanently) allowed if the permanent disposal facility (PDF) is available, otherwise another dangerous legacy is created and the burden of caring about and disposing these wastes is unacceptably shifted to future generations.
The fact that neither the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA, in it‘s review) nor Lynas (in its Radioactive Waste Management Plan RWMP) nor the regulators AELB and MOSTI recognise, mention and respect the dose criteria and do not set this as their prime condition for any re-use scenario is irresponsible.
Interim storage of wastes on-site:
Lynas’‘ Residue Storage Facilities (RSF) constructed with only 1mm HDPE layer and a single 30cm clay layer would not be allowed in Germany, not even for the lowest toxic waste categories. Leakage and seepage from the beginning of the storage period on will enter ground, and groundwater under the RSFs will contaminate to an unknown extent because no experiments were made/published/presented to allow for a thorough environmental evaluation. The poor layout of the RSFs should not have been accepted by the regulating agency.
Other pollution risks and hazards:
The filtering equipment used by Lynas to reduce gaseous emissions from its cracking stage is not sufficient. Neither the removal of acidic gases nor of particulate matter from the off-gas of the plant would be acceptable.
The wastewater of the plant has a high salt content, comparable to seawater. This content is not even mentioned in the Environmental Impact study nor is it evaluated. The wastewater flows into a several km long open channel, easily accessible by men and animals. Neither the salt nor the rare earth content of the wastewater is limited and monitored. It is not understandable why these serious environmental issues were not detected when the Impact study was checked by the responsible agency. The preliminary EIA should be rejected on this basis.
Save Malaysia Stop Lynas(SMSL) is a people-backed organisation set up to protect the public interest, specifically those directly or indirectly affected by the risks to life and livelihood, deprivation of property and other rights enshrined in the Malaysian Federal Constitution that arose as a result of the Lynas Advanced Materials Plant (“LAMP”) being constructed in Gebeng, Kuantan, Pahang.
AGENDA RAKYAT - Lima perkara utama
- Tegakkan maruah serta kualiti kehidupan rakyat
- Galakkan pembangunan saksama, lestari serta tangani krisis alam sekitar
- Raikan kerencaman dan keterangkuman
- Selamatkan demokrasi dan angkatkan keluhuran undang-undang
- Lawan rasuah dan kronisme
(Comment deleted due to use of capital letters.)
QUOTE REPORT ON LYNAS BY OEKO : “3.1.3 Gamma doses and dose limitations The gamma rays, emitted during the decay, can easily be detected. In the vicinity of the ore concentrate a gamma dose rate of 2 to 3 μSv/h can be measured, adding up to approx. 26 mSv/a if a person were to stay for a whole year (8,760 h/a) in this vi-cinity.. This dose would • slightly exceed the adopted protection level for workers of 20 mSv/a, • exceed accepted protection levels for the general public from the controlled emissions of nuclear installations of 1 mSv/a by a factor of 26..” UNQUOTE. COMMENT: The dose coefficients given by IAEA is 0.39 microSv/hr/Bq/g for radiation at 1 metre from a pile of Thorium, and by UNSCEAR is 0.604 microSv/hr/Bq/g m for radiation dose from an infinite field of Thorium. Therefore if a worker is at 1 metre from a pile of Lynas waste, he would be exposed to a dose of: 0.39 x 6 = 2.34 uSv/h AND SINCE NO LIVE SANE WORKER CAN EVER STAND IN FRONT OF A PILE OF RADIOACTIVE WASTE 24… Read more »
Quote Gerhard Schmidt, of Oeko Institute said: “MAIN RESULTS: WASTE MANAGEMENT Our own dose calculation based on Lynas waste data shows: # The WLP waste with the highest radioactive content would be by a factor of more than 1,000 above internationally accepted protection levels for the release of radioactive materials from regulatory control (Beyond Regulatory Concern, BRC level). # Even if diluted 1:1 with gypsum the WLP waste is 200-fold above those internationally accepted levels! # Even if diluted 1:100 with gypsum (technically unrealistic) the doses would still exceed BRC level! # Even the less contaminated wastes FGD and NUF are above that level and require 1:4 resp. 1:9 mixing before they can be released (assumed that the material properties meet the necessary requirements and their toxic by-product content is below any non-radiological environmental concern).” Unquote. COMMENT: The operation of the plant will result in the generation of three major residue streams, namely the 1. WLP .. Water Leach Purification Residue (WLP) from the cracking and separation process. This is the only slightly radioactive residue at ~ 6 Bq/g m or about 5.7 Bq/g of Thorium-232.… Read more »
THE GERMAN OEKO Institute REPORT ON LYNAS COMMENT: The above report reminds me of the Chinese saying “If you have enough money, you can make even the Devil pull your cart for you !” There is actually nothing new in this report but rather the same old mundane arguments that have been persistently harped on by the Anti-Lynas clique. What this report does is exploiting the well known technique of presenting the incontestable facts in a devious complicated way so as to confuse the general population and to evoke a response that is completely opposite to that if the same facts were presented in a SIMPLE HONEST WAY ! For instance, instead of saying that my rocket propelled car is capable of a maximum speed of 100 Km/hr (which is obviously very slow for a rocket car), I can just boast and say that my rocket car is capable of going at 100 x10^3×10^15 femtometers/hr or 100,000,000,000,000,000,000 femtometers/hr ! This makes it look like going at warp speed ! Example 1: “USING A UNIT OF MEASURE UNFAMILIAR TO MOST PEOPLE.” The RADON-220 concentration is stated as… Read more »
Please be scientific and matured. If you are so critical of the rare earth plant stop using products that use rare earth. Be truthful to yourselves and your children. If you continue to use such products you are only creating the demand for rare earths. Please stop the hypocrisy .
We had one great hypocrite who politicised the Lynas issue to his own benefit – standing as a
Candidate for the GE 13 – yet denying that his green movement is apolitical – of course his family (allegedly) even owned acres of environmentally unfriendly oil palm plantations.
Please stop the lies.
won tack lost ? Didn’t he ? You get more pollution from China over the border than the pollutions collectively Australians mines generate. Lynas’s influence is drop in an ocean
You pro-Lynas propaganda boys are quick to jump at any news critical of your pet project, aren’t you? What’s in it for you?
So who are the politicians, then? Interesting that SMSL and Aliran make no mention of them. Is this more of Wong Tack’s wishful thinking? By the way, did he come up with the court costs yet?