The Atomic Energy Licensing Board (AELB) had been monitoring natural radiation in and around Lynas Advanced Materials Plant (Lamp) daily for the past 18 months to obtain a baseline for comparison.

The measurements are taken by a team of officers at 26 locations: seven sites within Lamp, three sites at 1km away, three sites at 5km away, three sites at 10km away, three sites at 20km away and seven along the route from Port Kuantan to Lamp in Gebeng, Pahang.

NONE AELB director-general Raja Abdul Aziz Raja Adnan ( left ) said the radiation monitoring would be intensified once operations commence at the plant.

“We will continuously monitor the situation so that any waste water leaves the plant as water, not as contaminated water, not as industrial waste water, but it leaves as water acceptable to standards,” he said.

He added that the move to monitor the environment follows the lessons learnt from the Asian Rare Earth factory in Perak.

“Because when allegations come along that suddenly the background radiation is high, and if we do not have the background reading it would be very difficult to assure them whether inherently it has been high or it is because of a certain activity,” he told reporters at a press conference at AELB’s headquarters today.

Raja Abdul Aziz also responded to PKR’s allegations yesterday that the pipes at Lamp were leaking: “I haven’t received any reports. You are the first to mention this. We would be very happy to look into it.”

He pledged to “pursue and investigate” the leaking pipes, but assured that no radioactive material had been introduced into the environment because Lamp has not begun operations.

On the call for the suspension of licence, he said the matter does not arise since the licence has not been issued although it has already been approved.

NONE At a press conference yesterday, Kelana Jaya MP Loh Gwo-Burne revealed a purported leaked email from a Lynas contractor, which says that out of 19 ‘packages’ fibre-glass pipes, only five passed tests.

The email carried the subject ‘water leak detection’, but Bukit Koman Anti-Cyanide Committee member Hue Shieh Lee speculated that it is unlikely to be intended for carrying clean water, since the pipes would be significantly more expensive than high-density polyethylene pipes normally used for the purpose.

Loh and Pahang PKR central committee member Lee Chean Chung called for the licence to be suspended until the structural integrity of the plant is investigated, including allegations of shoddy construction published in the New York Times on June 30, last year.

On media reports citing Health Minister Liow Tiong Lai’s suggestion that the waste should be shipped back to Australia, Raja Abdul Aziz said that Liow was merely reiterating the AELB’s conditions to Lynas.

“In the TOL, the condition reads, if necessary, Lynas will give a letter of undertaking that they would accept the return of the waste during the temporary operating licence period.

“I think he (the minister) was reiterating the board’s statement - which is correct,” he added.