KIMBA, Australia — A giant gray and rosy pink bird towers over travelers as they enter this dry, isolated rural town on the edge of a vast grain-growing belt in South Australia.

The aging 8-meter statue, of a local species of cockatoo called the galah, marks a roughly midway point between the eastern and western coasts of Australia. Standing in front of the Halfway Across Australia Gem Shop, the Big Galah is all Kimba was ever really known for — until about a year ago.

That’s when two local farming families offered their properties to the federal government as potential storage sites for Australia’s nuclear waste.

Now, as the federal government considers whether to build the site on one of these two farms in Kimba, this community of about 650 people finds itself divided and angry. The prospect of jobs and subsidies that the site would bring has split locals between those who want to preserve rural Australia’s way of life and those who say the glory days of farming are over.