ABOUT 200 families in Buntong, Perak, are crying foul over plans to relocate them to a site near a radioactive waste dump in Lahat.
The squatter families, invol-ving almost 1,000 people, are reluctant to move to the site without an assurance from the state government on their safety, said state assemblyman A. Sivasubramaniam on Wednesday.The families, he said, were frightened their health could be threatened by dangerous emissions of radioactive gas, and the possible repeat of the 20-year-old controversy involving the Asian Rare Earth factory and the Bukit Merah New Village residents.
During the general election last year, all 200 families, initially from Kampung Chikadee were asked to move, said Sivasubramaniam.
“They received offer letters from the district land office informing them that their new homes would be sited in Pusing.
“We discovered that the site is just about 2km away from the permanent dump to store radioactive materials and thorium hydroxide, a kind of radioactive waste from Asian Rare Earth,” he said in a press conference at Wisma DAP.
In 1979, Asian Rare Earth came under close scrutiny after it was discovered that its operation was releasing radioactive emissions in the area. It was extracting yttrium, which is used in making colour TV tubes, from monazite, and the process created the radioactive thorium hydroxide waste.
The company was decommissioned in the early 1990s after a long-drawn legal battle and countless public protests.
Sivasubramaniam said that during the Pakatan Rakyat government’s tenure, former Mentri Besar Datuk Seri Mohammad Nizar Jamaluddin had planned to move the squatters to a 15ha Ipoh City Council land reserve in Buntong itself.
“Since the takeover of the government, there has been no word on the matter from the Barisan Nasional or from Mentri Besar Dr Zambry Abd Kadir,” he said.
He added that a check at the land office last month showed that developers were being identified to build the homes in Pu-sing.
In response, Dr Zambry said the residents had approached him and he had already instructed the land office and the council to solve the matter.
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