Lessons from the ‘clean-up’ of the Maralinga nuclear test site
Reactor links
Woomera dump: questionable rationale
Why SA?
The thin edge of the wedge
Environmental & public health hazards
More information on Woomera dump and related issues

Lessons from the ‘clean-up’ of the Maralinga nuclear test site:
* beware of safety compromises motivated by cost-cutting.
* the government breached its own standards for disposal of long-lived waste at Maralinga (shallow burial of plutonium-contaminated debris); national and international standards may be breached again at Woomera.
* beware the ‘experts’, sometimes they’re competent, responsible and independent, sometimes they’re not.
* federal government offcials responsible for both Maralinga and Woomera have demonstrated a lack of scientific and nuclear expertise
* beware the ‘independent’ regulator: the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency is too close to the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO - the main waste producer) and too close to the federal government.
* beware of secrecy.
* beware of PR campaigns masquerading as ‘public consultation’.

The plan for a dump at Woomera should be cancelled and Maralinga cleaned up properly instead. A clean-up of Maralinga will most likely involve vitrification of contaminated debris currently in shallow-burial, or at least a concrete lining for the debris. Possible scope for further remediation work at Maralinga.

Substantial cross-over between personnel and organisations involved in Maralinga and the planned Woomera dump.

The Australian public would know nothing about the problems at Maralinga if not for nuclear engineer and Maralinga ‘whistle-blower’ Alan Parkinson. There is no prospect of genuine independent oversight of the Woomera dump.

Some sobering comments and warnings from nuclear engineer Alan Parkinson:
* “The clean-up was not the success the department claims. In fact the second phase of the project was an abject failure and the solution adopted for the disposal of plutonium contaminated debris would not be allowed in Britain, the source of the plutonium.” (The Australian, letter, 22/5/01.)
* “From its inception, the nuclear industry has had problems with worker and public safety and with environmental degradation. Too often these problems have been caused by ineffective management, cost-cutting measures, or ineffective regulation. The Maralinga project reflects all three of these factors. The public servants responsible for the last years of the project had no background in radiation or project management, as is illustrated by several statements they made on the public record, asking, for example, what was meant by alpha radiation, or how to convert a milliSievert (a unit of radiation dose) to a picoCurie (a unit of radioactivity), or claiming that soda ash is neutralized by limestone.” (“Maralinga: The Clean-Up of a Nuclear Test Site”, Medicine and Global Survival, , Vol.7 No.2, Feb. 2002, pp.77-81. <www.ippnw.org/MGS>.)
* “The disposal of radioactive waste in Australia is ill-considered and irresponsible. Whether it is short-lived waste from Commonwealth facilities, long-lived plutonium waste from an atomic bomb test site on Aboriginal land, or reactor waste from Lucas Heights. The government applies double standards to suit its own agenda; there is no consistency, and little evidence of logic.” (“Double standards with radioactive waste”, Australasian Science, August 2002.)
* “Those with responsibility for the proposed national waste repository are the same people who have recently buried long-lived plutonium waste (half-life 24,000 years) in an unlined burial trench only 2-3 metres below ground [at Maralinga] - slightly deeper than we place human corpses. If accepted, this precedent should now allow the Commonwealth to place all radioactive waste in shallow, unlined burial trenches, with no regard for its longevity or toxicity, and no regard for the suitability of the site.” (Canberra Times, letter, 24/7/00.)
* “The outcome of the Maralinga project is clear evidence that neither the Minister [former science minister Nick Minchin], his department, nor ARPANSA have any credibility in the management of radioactive waste ...” (Comments on DISR / National Store Advisory Committee, July 2001, “Safe Storage of Radioactive Waste”.)

More information on Maralinga:
* numerous articles inc. several by Alan Parkinson at: <www.geocities.com/jimgreen3>
* Alan Parkinson, 2001, “Maralinga Rehabilitation Project, Dissection of Statements”, <www.geocities.com/jimgreen3/parkinson2.html>
* ABC, Background Briefing, 16/4/00, transcript at: <www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/bbing/stories/s120383.htm>
* clumsy attempts by politicians, bureaucrats and the regulator to defend the Maralinga clean-up in Senate Estimates hearings, e.g. 2/5/00 and 3/5/00. <www.aph.gov.au>.

Reactor links

The Woomera dump proposal is not being driven by concerns to safely manage existing wastes; it is being driven by the government’s attempt to minimise opposition to a new reactor in Sydney by getting the waste off-site. Reactor approvals (past and future) contingent on getting the waste off-site.

ANSTO responsible for 80-90% of the waste volume the government wants to dump in SA. A new reactor would generate another 1600 spent fuel elements, and the annual production of other waste categories is projected to rise four-fold between 1993-2025 according to ANSTO, with a 12-fold increase for liquid long-lived intermediate-level waste. ANSTO’s reactors to be dismantled and dumped in SA: the reactors alone could comprise a waste volume greater than the entire existing national inventory accumulated over the past 40-50 years.

In July 2001, the government said the largest Lucas Heights reactor (HIFAR) would generate 500 cubic metres of waste for the Woomera dump (DISR, July 2001, “Australia’s radioactive waste: what it is”). Now we’re told in the dump EIS it could be five times that amount. More surprises to come?

No need for a new reactor for nuclear medicine:
* little or no disruption during the three-month reactor shut-down in 2000, e.g. Dr. Barry Elison, President of the Association of Physicians in Nuclear Medicine, did not know about the shut-down until informed by a journalist after the event.
* Dr. Alan Zimmet, cancer specialist: “I don't believe it will make much difference to patient treatment whether we have a new reactor or not.” (The Australian, November 5, 2001.)
* a former head of a nuclear medicine department in a capital city teaching hospital: “I do not know exactly why the strategic thinkers within ANSTO pushed the radiopharmaceutical line [to justify a new reactor]. They would have been aware that the case was not entirely solid.” (pers. comm.)
* Professor Barry Allen (former Chief Research Scientist at ANSTO, Fellow in the Department of Pharmacy at the University of Sydney, Head of Biomedical Physics Research at the St. George Cancer Care): “(The new) reactor will be a step into the past .... (It) will comprise mostly imported technology and it may well be the last of its kind ever built. Certainly the $300 million reactor will have little impact on cancer prognosis, the major killer of Australians today.” (Search science magazine, October 1997.)

On non-reactor technologies (esp. cyclotrons) for isotope production, see for example Gregory Morris and Robert J. Budnitz, June 2001, “Alternatives to a 20 MW Nuclear Reactor for Australia”, <www.geocities.com/jimgreen3/medicine5.html>.

There is no doubt that the real agenda behind the reactor is a foreign policy agenda:
* the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade and the Australian Safeguards and Non-proliferation Office say that the Lucas Heights reactor "first and foremost" serves "national interest requirements" (i.e. foreign policy) (1998, Submission to Senate Economics References Committee, Inquiry into Lucas Heights Nuclear Reactor.)
* the federal Department of the Environment and Heritage says that foreign policy issues form the "cornerstone" of the alleged need for a new reactor (report on ANSTO’s reactor EIS, 1999.)
* even ANSTO’s medical research director says: "The real agenda [behind the plan for a new reactor] has nothing to do with science or medicine; it's international politics." (pers. comm.)

The foreign policy agenda is based on the contradictory premise that Australia can best pursue nuclear non-proliferation objectives internationally if it operates a domestic research reactor. History and common-sense suggest a need to rethink the premise, e.g. the use of small research reactors to produce plutonium for weapons in India and Israel. Good critique of the foreign policy agenda: Jean McSorley, 1998, "The New Reactor: National Interest and Nuclear Intrigues", Submission to Senate Economics References Committee, <www.geocities.com/jimgreen3/mcsorley.html>.

South Australian critics of the government’s waste dump plans are accused of jeopardising the production of medical isotopes ... but Australia doesn’t even need a new reactor for isotope production let alone a waste dump, let alone a waste dump in SA. Compared to SA, seven times as many nuclear medicine procedures in NSW, four times as many in Victoria, twice as many in Queensland. Beware the federal government’s scare-mongering and guilt-tripping.

Maralinga problems also apply to ANSTO, e.g. dishonesty and secrecy:
* Tony Wood, former head of ANSTO's Divisions of Reactors and Engineering: "I believe that it is very important that the public be told the truth even if the truth is unpalatable. I have cringed at some of ANSTO’s public statements. Surely there is someone at ANSTO with a practical reactor background and the courage to flag when ANSTO is yet again, about to mislead the public.” (17/2/01, ARPANSA public forum.)
* on the new reactor plan, a senior Canberra bureaucrat said: "The government decided to starve the opponents of oxygen ... catch them totally unawares, catch them completely off-guard and starve them of oxygen until then. No leaks, don't write letters arguing the point, just keep them in the dark completely." (ABC Radio's Background Briefing, 29/3/98, <www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/bbing/bb980329.htm>.)
* as an example of a specific fib, the government and ANSTO claim that Australia needs a new reactor because the most important medical isotope, technetium-99m, has a half life of 6 hours and therefore cannot be imported. True, but Tc-99m can easily be extracted from a solution of the longer-lived parent isotope molybdenum-99m (Mo-99). Mo-99 is imported into Australia every week. About two-thirds of all nuclear medicine procedures all around the world use Tc-99m drawn from imported Mo-99. (Also short- to medium-term option of accelerator/cyclotron production of Mo-99/Tc-99m as discussed by Gregory Morris and Robert J. Budnitz, June 2001, “Alternatives to a 20 MW Nuclear Reactor for Australia”, <www.geocities.com/jimgreen3/medicine5.html>.)

Conflicts of interest:
* ANSTO is Australia's biggest producer of radioactive waste (excluding uranium mines) and also has a formal role as adviser to government on radioactive waste issues.
* ANSTO was directly involved in selecting the head of the ‘independent’ regulatory agency ARPANSA.

Comments in a Department of Industry, Science and Tourism (DIST) briefing paper, April 1998, obtained by Sutherland Shire Council under Freedom of Information legislation - this is the same Department responsible for the Woomera dump:
* “Be careful in terms of health impacts - don't really want a detailed study done of the health of Sutherland residents.”
* there is “no point in consulting with potential/hypothetical recipients of a new reactor. It was discovered through the course of inquiry into the new airport that such a course of action serves only to inflame the communities for no good reason.”

Responsible radioactive waste management, Canberra style: a senior government bureaucrat said spent nuclear fuel is “an issue for another generation. ... Someone else can worry about it.” (ABC Radio National, Background Briefing, 29/3/98, <www.abc.net.au/rn/talks/bbing/bb980329.htm>.)

Woomera dump: questionable rationale
* rule of thumb: above-ground storage preferable to underground dumps as the former facilitates monitoring and remediation of problems
* rule of thumb: waste storage at the point of production preferable to centralised stores/dumps because it avoids transport risks, it encourages waste minimisation, it avoids out-of-site-out-of-mind neglect, and because institutions using radioactive materials generally have (or ought to have) the expertise to manage waste.
* many of the institutions currently storing waste will continue producing and storing waste even if a central dump is built; in cases where storage facilities are inadequate they need to be fixed up regardless of whether the dump proceeds; if and when such improvements are made the case for a dump is further weakened.

Why SA?
* the government says that SA was the safest place on scientific criteria, but that is not true: the government’s siting study found equally suitable land in the Olary region of western NSW, which has the advantage of being far closer to the main source of waste (Lucas Heights)
* why was SA chosen ahead of Olary? Possibly because of some political horse-trading in the mid-1990s between the Liberal state government and the federal Labor government, possibly because the federal government made the judgement that it had a better chance of overcoming public opposition to a dump in SA.

More detail: <www.geocities.com/jimgreen3/waste9.html>

The thin edge of the wedge
* low-level dump (unknown/expanding radioactive inventory; unknown timeframe 50 years ++; unspecified waste acceptance criteria; changing definitions of low-level waste)
* the latest waste classifications from the government leave wriggle-room. For example, low-level waste is said to include “low levels of beta and gamma emitting, and normally very low levels of alpha emitting radioactive material”. What is a “low” level or a “very low” level, and who decides? What is meant by the term “normally” - Mondays to Fridays inclusive?!
* + store for long-lived intermediate-level wastes (LLILW) inc. spent nuclear fuel reprocessing wastes (co-location was the ‘first siting option’, now the government says co-location is off the agenda but twice this year the science minister has refused to rule out co-location)
* the ‘interim’ LLILW store may become a permanent fixture, or a deep underground dump or some other "purpose-built facility" may be established for LLILW disposal. (Very small possibility of this leading to a deep underground dump for tens of thousands of tonnes of high-level waste from nuclear power plants overseas - Pangea Resources investigated sites in WA and SA. Pangea changed name to ARIUS <www.arius-world.org>.)
* + contingency plan: unreprocessed spent fuel rods sent directly to LLILW store for “extended interim storage” (reactor draft EIS, 1998, p.10-18)
* + another contingency plan: domestic spent nuclear fuel processing plant if overseas options not available (several sites in SA considered for a reprocessing plant by federal government in 1997 - Mt. Lofty Ranges, Woomera, and Roxby Downs). (Dept. of Industry, Science and Tourism, July 1997, "Siting Cabinet Submission".)

Beware of the ‘consistent use’ argument in the EIS: the federal ALP government sent radioactive waste to Woomera in the mid-90s as an ‘interim’ measure, now the presence of that waste is being used to support a dump in the same region (‘consistent use’), so if a dump is established then expansion of nuclear activities in the region can/will also be justified with this ‘consistent use’ argument.

“[T]here is no agreement within the department [of industry, science and resources - now education, science and training] nor with other Australian nuclear organisations as to the definition of the various levels or categories of waste.” (Alan Parkinson, Comments on DISR / National Store Advisory Committee, July 2001.)

More detail: Jim Green, “SA nuclear dump: but wait, there’s more!”, Green Left Weekly, 15/5/02, <www.greenleft.org.au>. Longer, referenced version at <geocities.com/jimgreen3/waste10.html>.

Environmental & public health hazards

No benefits so dump proposal must fail risk-benefit analysis. Transport risks: 23% risk of truck accident moving existing national inventory; additional risks with future transportation. Risks associated with missiles/rockets identified in EIS. The EIS identifies "operational hazards" associated with the dump but dismisses them with the assertion that: “Appropriate procedures would be developed to address these issues.” In other words ... ‘trust us’.

Government figures purporting to demonstrate a small and acceptable risk mask various assumptions:
* acceptable to whom? 76-95% of South Australians do not accept the dump.
* social as well as technical aspects to safety analysis (lack of expertise and experience, no independent regulator, track record of dishonesty and secrecy) ... no accounting for social dimensions in EIS.
* risk assessments based on “generic assumptions at the present time and assumptions about future arisings” (EIS), i.e. uncertainty.
* a myriad of other unknowns: nothing more than an “indicative design” for the dump; debates over the health effects of radiation; uncertain long-term impacts of erosion and climate change; waste acceptance criteria still not established; timeframe 50 years ++; volume 10,000 cubic metres ++; etc.
* the possibility of the dump becoming the thin edge of a more hazardous radioactive waste wedge.

Worth reading on mixed experience with overseas dumps: Kirsten Saunders (for ACF), May 2002, "Nuclear Waste Dumps: A Review of the United States Experience", <www.acfonline.org.au/docs/publications/rpt0021.pdf>.

More information on Woomera dump and related issues:
* Australian Conservation Foundation <www.acfonline.org.au>
* Iratiwanti <www.iratiwanti.org>
* Friends of the Earth <www.foe.org.au>
* Nuclear Information Centre (SA) <www.ccsa.asn.au/nic>
* SA Nuclear News: <www.ace.net.au/nnnews/index.html>
* Greenpeace <www.greenpeace.org.au>, esp. <www.greenpeace.org.au/nuclear/whatawaste/pdf/gpap_report.html>
* <www.sanuclearfree.org.au>
* federal government waste site <www.dest.gov.au/radwaste>