The Queensland Government is striding ahead with plans to open up the state’s significant uranium resources to any interested parties.

Recent assays have estimated over $10 billion worth of uranium rests under Queensland’s soil. The haul could be greatly profitable for whoever manages to wrestle it from the earth, though it would only be for export. Australia currently sits on top of some of the largest known deposits of uranium, but has never built the infrastructure to use it.

The Queensland Resources Council have welcomed the move, chief executive officer Michael Roche said: “Recently I was speaking to a major European company interested in uranium in Queensland and they will be spending millions of dollars just this year exploring for uranium in parts of the state not previously explored.”

There has been plenty of concern from conservationists over the plans since last October, when the Queensland Government repealed a uranium mining ban imposed in 1982. Getting the state back into the uranium game has been on the cards ever since, now detailed in an ‘action plan’ from the state government.

Mining Minister Andrew Cripps has countered claims that the re-enlivening of the uranium industry will force radioactive material to be transported through sensitive areas around the Great Barrier Reef. Mr Cripps says there are no current plans to move the material from ports in Queensland: “Any situation where the commercial volumes of uranium developed in Queensland requiring the licensing of an additional port somewhere in Queensland is many years into the future,” he said.

Felicity Wishart, a spokesperson from the Australian Marine Conservation Society (AMCS), says: “These things are just going to come back to haunt us... there are already thousands of boats travelling through the reef every year... there are plans to double that number with coal ships and now they want to add uranium ships into the mix... it only takes one accident from one massive ship to cause major damage to the reef and imagine if that ship was carrying radioactive material.”