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Toxic anger towards Sydney dump site

Toxic anger towards Sydney dump site

Hundreds of Western Sydney residents have promised to keep fighting plans to dump radioactive waste in their neighbourhood.

At a heated public meeting in Penrith the State Government failed to convince locals that nothing harmful would be buried in their backyard.

For decades radioactive waste has sat underneath home in Hunters Hill, a former uranium refinery.

The government will clean the site, with western Sydney residents fearing the waste will be dumped in Kemps Creek.

"It's supposedly very safe but it needs to be in a place where it's monitored. I'm very confused as is everyone I am sure," one resident said.

"We're hearing the word hazardous being exchanged for the word contaminated. I don't think there's been a lot of clarity," another resident said.

No ministers attended, leaving it to local MP Tanya Davies and bureaucrats to explain.

"Will they have been trained?”

“No because it's not radioactive material," Simon Furness from the State Property Authority said.

Anxiety quickly gave way to anger with one resident telling Councillor Cornish to "shut the hell up.”

"Nobody is suggesting this is good stuff...can you just let me finish," Simon Furness said.

The clean up will start early next year, and the state government says it will sift through the rubbish.

It says it will send any radioactive waste to another licensed site in western Sydney, meaning the fight over this waste will continue.