Friends of the Earth, a conglomerate of independent and local groups vying for environmental sustainability, have visited the region to voice concerns over ongoing plans to have a nuclear waste dump at Kimba or Hawker, and the four ports named by the federal government as transport avenues for Australia's nuclear waste.
They say the lack of wider community consultation and the use of ports such as Port Lincoln lack logic.
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Mara Bonacci, Friends of the Earth nuclear waste campaigner, said ballots for consultation, now on hold after action from traditional landowners, were narrow in scope.
Fellow campaigner Jim Green also voiced the same concerns.
"The government was planning a ballot for Hawker and Kimba, but there was a Barngarla injunction and from the traditional landowners from Hawker," he said.
Ms Bonacci said the traditional landowners had lodged a formal complaint for racial discrimination and bad consultation.
"It is a non-binding ballot, and very narrow in scope," she said.
"There are Kimba farms five kilometres from the site but aren't in the district and so are not eligible to vote."
She also said towns along transport routes and around the four ports named should also be consulted, which would include Port Pirie, Whyalla, a proposed port on the east coast of the Eyre Peninsula, and Port Lincoln.
"It's Australia's waste, it's a national issue, the burden of responsibility shouldn't fall on two small regional communities," she said.
Both Mr Green and Ms Bonacci instead advocate for the continuing interim storing of intermediate-level nuclear waste to remain in Lucas Heights in New South Wales, and the continuing storage of low-level waste on defence land.
As Kimba and Hawker are proposed as above-ground, non-permanent (up to 100 years) storage sites of nuclear waste, Friends of the Earth are advocating for a permanent solution to be discussed while capacity is still viable at Lucas Heights.
"Move it once, not twice," said Ms Bonacci.
"There is no proven need for this facility and there is certainly no need for it to be sited in SA."
Mr Green said there was "no logic" to moving the waste to South Australia, and the government has no permanent solution for the long-term storage of low-level and intermediate waste.
"There's no reason for (the government) to drive it," he said.
"Lucas Heights will be operating decades into the future."
Friends of the Earth nuclear waste campaigners have travelled to Port Pirie, Port Augusta, Whyalla and Port Lincoln to meet with councils, Grey Candidates, trade unions and traditional owners to raise their issues.
"It's divisive and unnecessarily expensive," said Mr Green.
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"Whoever fights the least hardest gets nuclear waste transported through their ports."
Mayor Brad Flaherty met with the advocates this week and said it was the first he had heard of the Port Lincoln port being named as a potential thoroughfare.
"I think it would be an early consultancy report, I believe that to be the case...it's the first I've heard of it and no one has contacted me," he said.
"But I don't see it as likely (to be used), they would have just looked at the radius around the geographical area and chosen four of the closest ports."
He said he believed if ports were needed for transportation, there would be better options that were not near populated areas, allowing Port Lincoln to remain an efficient grain port.
