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BHP Billiton is the 100% owner of uranium miner [[Western Mining Corporation]].
SW: →Subsidiaries: - add ref
==Subsidiaries==
BHP-Billiton are is the owners 100% owner of uranium miner [[Western Mining Corporation]], which owns the Olympic Dam (or Roxby Downs)uranium mine in South Australia. It ==Uranium Miner== BHP Billiton is a mining company – one of the world’s fourth largest producer top five producers of uranium, but also the world’s second largest exporter of coal. <ref>Our Business, [1http://www.bhpbilliton.com/bb/home.jsp BHP Billiton website] accessed December 2007.</ref>
Olympic Dam has, so far, produced 60 million tonnes of radioactive tailings, and the waste is growing at 10 million tonnes per year, but there are no plans for the long-term management of these toxic tailings. The mine’s daily extraction of over 30 million litres of water from the Great Artesian Basin has adversely impacted on the fragile ecology, and the mine is a large consumer of electricity and a major contributor to South Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions. [2]
The Olympic Dam mine enjoys a range of exemptions from the South Australian Environmental Protection Act, the Water Resources Act, the Aboriginal Heritage Act and the Freedom of Information Act. A 2003 Senate inquiry into the regulation of uranium mining in Australia reported “a pattern of under-performance and noncompliance”. It identified many gaps in knowledge and found an absence of reliable data on which to measure the extent of contamination or its impact on the environment, and it concluded that changes were necessary “in order to protect the environment and its inhabitants from serious or irreversible damage”. The committee concluded “that short-term considerations have been given greater weight than the potential for permanent damage to the environment”. [3]
