LYNAS’S PDF
In his reply to my question posed in parliament on August 4, the Minister of Science, Technology and Innovation Khairy Jamaluddin revealed that Lynas’s Permanet Disposal Facility (PDF) will be placed under institutional control for 300 years.
This revelation confirmed that Lynas’s Water Leached Purification (WLP) radioactive wastes is toxic and harmful to the people and environment.
This revelation also confirmed that the people’s concerns over the last decade were not unfounded.
It is now proven that allowing Lynas to dump their massive toxic radioactive wastes in our country has brought long-term financial and health burdens to our children for generations to come.
It is heartbreaking that our leaders still have not learnt from the tragic experience in Bukit Merah and continued to allow the same destruction to repeat in our country.
We have lost many innocent lives and a kilometer square of our precious land In Bukit Kledang. And now, for the second time, we are surrendering another massive chunk of our sovereign land to a foreign corporation for 300 years!
How could we as a nation who has gained independence for more than 60 years and made so much progress in the science, technology, social and economic aspects stoop so low? How could we turn our country into a radioactive wastes dumpsite for a foreign corporation? For what gain?
To those leaders who have brought in Lynas or allowed Lynas to continue to operate in our country, where is your conscience？Where is your self respect? Where is your love for our country? Where is your responsibility towards our future generations? How are you going to explain to your children?
The government has to come clear on what is the cost to build, monitor and maintain Lynas’s PDF for at least 300 years. How much did Lynas pay for our precious sovereign land, including buffer zone areas of 1.7km, which the rakyat will lose for 300 years to store Lynas’s toxic radioactive wastes? What is the financial implications to the development in the surrounding areas, as I believe no developers or investors in their right mind will want to invest next to a radioactive wastes dumpsite.
SecondIy, the government must urgently increase the amount of security deposit required from Lynas. Lynas has currently placed a measly US$50 million with the Atomic Energy Licensing Board (AELB). This amount is clearly a joke and obviously insufficient to protect the interest of our people. If Lynas suddenly goes bankrupt, Malaysians will be left to deal with their almost a million tons of radioactive wastes already piled up on our soil. Furthermore, the amount of US$50 million was set when the original agreement was to remove all wastes back to Australia. Since Lynas has been allowed to get away from fulfilling this legally binding agreement, it is only right for our government to immediately increase Lynas’s security deposit requirement that appropriately reflects the actual future cost of managing their wastes for hundreds of years.
Thirdly, the government must explain how the institutional control period of 300 years is derived, since the Thorium content in Lynas’s WLP radioactive wastes has a half life of 14 billion years.
Fourthly, since Dr. Maketab Mohamed, a member of the executive review committee on Lynas, has made it clear that the entire Bukit Ketam site is a water catchment area for the whole of Kuantan district, the government must reject it outright as the site to build Lynas’s PDF.
Spending time to do feasibility studies on this site is clearly a waste of time. It is merely a manipulative dragging tactic. We don’t need to be rocket scientists to know that dumping radioactive wastes in a water catchment area is totally unacceptable and plain stupidity.
I strongly call upon Minister Khairy Jamaluddin to have the wisdom and courage to right all the wrongs by exercising his ministerial duties to stop the generation of new radioactive wastes by Lynas until all the pertinent issues highlighted are resolved and until the PDF is built and all wastes which have already been generated stored.
WONG TACK
Bentong MP
6 August 2020
