Dean Johnson says the Eyre Peninsula community of 1300 people first heard about Resources Minister Madeleine King’s Thursday morning announcement to veto the project from the media.

“And we are yet to receive any official correspondence or even a phone call from the minister or the department on the decision and the reasons for the decision,” Johnson said in a statement on Thursday afternoon.

“This is a kick in the guts for our community who have invested eight years of extraordinary effort and determination to do what is right for our region and in the national interest to create a suitable facility for Australia’s low and medium level radioactive waste.”

The region was promised around $31 million in incentives to build the nuclear waste facility and the potential for 45 new local jobs and some $300 million expected to be injected into the local economy through site construction work.

King pulled the pin on the region’s Napandee site which is already owned by the federal government, saying the government would not appeal the Federal Court ruling last month in favour of the Barngarla Determination Aboriginal Corporation.

Justice Natalie Charlesworth quashed the decision to build the National Radioactive Waste Management Facility near Kimba, finding the decision to choose the site was affected “by bias”.

The government has already spent at least $10 million in legal work around the site selection decision by former Morrison Government Resources Minister Keith Pitt.

SA senator Barbara Pocock was told in response to questions on notice in Federal Parliament last September that since January 1, 2017, at least $9,905,737 had been spent on legal work for the nuclear waste dump and the Australian Radioactive Waste Agency.

Johnson said the announcement yesterday was disappointing for the Kimba township and its surrounding farming region located halfway across Australia on National Highway One.

Kimba Council had already “undertaken a significant level of planning and critical decision making for the economic future of our community on the basis the radioactive waste facility would proceed,” he said.

“All of that work has been for nothing.”

He called on the government to remember that the council had invested in planning for extra essential services like health and childcare based on the town’s anticipated growth.

“We sincerely hope the federal government recognises the hard work and sacrifices, and the impact of this decision on Kimba, and they make every effort to provide ongoing support and assistance so that we may be able to secure the economic prosperity of our region,” Johnson said.

“Even if the government does not appeal the Federal Court decision, there are options available to government to continue to pursue the siting of the facility in the region, including revisiting the process of broad community consultation rather than simply walking away.”

King said yesterday that already completed work on the Napandee site was “non-permanent and will be reversed”, adding that the government was already searching for other facility site options.

“The site is currently being supervised to ensure it remains safe and cultural heritage is protected while we work through dispossession of the land,” she said.

King also told federal parliament that she has “reached an agreement with the Barngarla Determination Aboriginal Corporation on costs” regarding the recent court decision and that the government would not pursue the previously shortlisted Lyndhurst and Wallerberdina sites for a nuclear waste repository.

“I am deeply sorry for the uncertainty this process has created for the Kimba community, for my own department, for the Australian Radioactive Waste Agency, and for the workers involved in the project at Napandee,” King said.

“I also acknowledge the profound distress this process has caused the Barngarla people, and I am sorry for that too.”

The Barngarla corporation had argued in court that Indigenous owners were not properly consulted when the Morrison Government announced it had won “majority support” of 61 per cent in a community ballot for the Napandee site.

Barngarla Determination Aboriginal Corporation chairperson Jason Bilney welcomed the decision yesterday to “listen to our voices and walk away from the atrocious conduct of the former government”.

But local federal MP Rohan Ramsay, who lives near Kimba, said the announcement called into question the federal government’s ability to find an alternative site, when the process already had been debated over two decades.

He said the storage of low-level radioactive waste was reaching a crucial stage and he was concerned about how the government could reach a decision about storing high-level waste for the AUKUS nuclear-powered submarines planned to be built in Adelaide.

Conservation Council SA chief executive Craig Wilkins said the decision was welcome as there was no way forward “legally or morally” around the Kimba facility site selection.