Authorities moved swiftly to put up warnings signs at Pelindaba outside Pretoria despite denials about nuclear waste dumping, the Pretoria News website reported on Friday.
It said journalists were removed from the site on Thursday.
President Thabo Mbeki on Thursday rejected as ”reckless” Earthlife Africa’s allegations that the nuclear facility at Pelindaba has been dumping radioactive waste.
The site is about 10km from the Atteridgeville and Saulsville townships and their surrounding squatter camps, that are home to more than 1-million people.
Mbeki said Earthlife’s statements are without foundation ”and are, in my view, totally impermissible”.
He said: ”We cannot go on scaring people about something that does not exist. These statements have been made by an NGO in order to promote its own interests, which is regrettable.”
Earthlife earlier said it had received information that nuclear waste was being dumped at Broederstroom, about 1km from Pelindaba. A low-cost housing development is being planned for the area.
When the Pretoria News arrived at the site on Thursday, no radioactive warning signs were to be seen. A chicken-wire fence has been erected around the site.
About 30 minutes later, Nuclear Energy Corporation of South Africa (Necsa) officials ”escorted” reporters off the site before putting up ”private property” boards as well as signs warning of radioactivity.
Officials from the National Nuclear Regulator (NNR) and Necsa also spent the day conducting radiation level readings.
Necsa spokesperson Nomsa Sithole said the signs ”are part of the organisation’s security measures and are used to warn people to keep off the land”.
”I categorically deny that the site is a nuclear waste dump. All our waste is dumped within the nuclear facility itself,” she said.
Sithole said the site, a former calibration facility established in 1979, was used to calibrate the instruments used by Pelindaba staff.
”While I admit that the fence around the area is not up to scratch, there is no need for fear of radiation leaking from the site,” she said.
Sithole said the radiation warning signs had been posted to warn people about enhanced levels of ”naturally-occurring” radioactive materials mixed into the concrete calibration pads.
She could not say why they were erected only on Thursday.
NNR communication manager Phil Nkhwashu confirmed the regulator was investigating the site, but declined to comment further. – Sapa