A FINAL hurdle needs to be cleared before nuclear waste from the Lucas Heights facility can be returned for storage next year after being treated overseas.
Public consultation has begun on an application by the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO) for a licence to operate a new, interim waste storage area.
Independent regulator, the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency, is exhibiting plans and has invited public submissions until January 16.
The agency's chief executive will make a decision on the licence application.
It has already approved the site for a storage area and allowed construction to start.
Spent nuclear fuel rods, generated during medical production at Lucas Heights over 50 years, were sent to France and Britain for treatment to make it suitable for permanent storage.
The contract stipulated the waste be returned by the end of 2015.
It was envisaged a national waste repository would be operating by then, but the federal government is still battling to establish one, with sites in the Northern Territory being pursued.
An ANSTO spokesman said construction of an interim waste store on the Lucas Heights campus was "well under way".
The safety agency issued a licence to build it in November last year.
"The licence to operate the interim waste store is the third step in [the safety agency's] standard licensing process," he said.
The spokesman said the waste would be "safely managed" at Lucas Heights until a national radioactive management facility was established.
"Australia benefited from decades of nuclear medicine production made possible by this material, and along with those benefits comes the responsibility to safely manage the by-products," he said.
"ANSTO has decades of expertise in safely managing infrastructure in Sutherland Shire."
Medical products produced at Lucas Heights had helped in "the effective diagnosis of heart disease, cancer and skeletal injuries of a whole generation of Australians".
Details: ansto.gov.au
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