The final MARTAC report was released on March 25, 2003. MARTAC was the Maralinga Rehabilitation Technical Advisory Committee. As expected the report is flawed and is not so much a finale as it is fuel to the controversy over the 'clean-up'. Below are critiques of the final MARTAC report written by two scientific whistle-blowers:
* US-based geochemist Dale M. Timmons, who was involved in the vitrification part of the project (and has more experience with vitrification than the rest of MARTAC put together)
* Canberra-based nuclear engineer Alan Parkinson, who has an immense amount of first-hand knowledge about the project (far more than any of the MARTAC members who signed off on the latest report)
* A more detailed critique of the final MARTAC report by Alan Parkinson is in a separate file <www.geocities.com/jimgreen3/parkinson3.html>

Other scientists with first-hand knowledge were critical of aspects of the project. For example:
* Dr Mike Costello objected to shallow-burial of plutonium contaminated debris, noting that it certainly would not be tolerated in the UK.
* senior ARPANSA officer Dr. Geoff Williams complained about a “host of indiscretions, short-cuts and cover-ups” during the clean-up (ABC Background Briefing, 16/4/00) although he has since claimed that "all bungles (whether accidental or deliberate) were detected by us [ARL/ARPANSA] and remedied by those responsible" (<www.radwaste.blogspot.com>, 24/4/03). I'm not sure how Dr. Williams can be so sure that all bungles were detected since ARL/ARPANSA frequently did not have a representative on-site. Whether all detected bungles were remedied is debatable.

The MARTAC report can be downloaded at: <www.dest.gov.au/radwaste/martac/default.htm>

Also in this file, critical commentaries on the final MARTAC report by:
* ALP shadow science minister Kim Carr
* Democrats Senator Lyn Allison

These comments are offered on the report entitled: REHABILITATION OF FORMER NUCLEAR REHABILITATION OF FORMER NUCLEAR TEST SITES AT EMU AND MARALINGA (AUSTRALIA) 2003. Issued by the Maralinga Technical Advisory Committee in March 2003. My comments are confined to Section 4.6 (In Situ Vitrification) because this is the portion of the project with which I am most familiar. Also, I do not have photographs that are referenced in the report. There are references to features in melt blocks claimed to have been observed by MARTAC that I did not observe. Seeing the photographs referenced would help clarify the position of MARTAC.

Page 221, 4.6.1.1:
The Battelle Memorial Institute, not the Dept. of Energy, developed ISV.

Page 224, 4.6.2.1, last 2 paragraphs:
Reference to Ca+Mg/Si+Al ratios being used to determine viscosity is incorrect. Use of the graph in Figure 4.15 was presented and identified in my Geochemical Design as a convenient preliminary evaluation tool only and was identified as such. This graph has nothing to do with how viscosities were calculated nor did it ever present any expectations. It was simply an interesting observation that was made and presented. MARTAC was informed of this on several occasions and this issue was addressed in my comments on the Final Draft Report. This fundamental mistake made by MARTAC affects their conclusions regarding the viability of ISV throughout their report. It is amazing that this glaring error has been repeatedly overlooked despite repeated advice to correct it. Although my final report presenting all of the geochemical conclusions was presented to MARTAC, it is not referenced so I can only surmise that it is not attached as it should be.

Page 226, first paragraph:
MARTAC reached their conclusion stated in this paragraph based upon the wrong trend and the wrong ratios presented in Figure 4.15. Thus, their conclusions are in error. In fact, a detailed evaluation of the relationship between chemistry, melt temperature, viscosity and a comparison of predicted and actual melt temperature/viscosity was conducted and presented to MARTAC. This evaluation conclusively showed that the predictions (predictions were stated to be accurate within 100 ºC) were more accurate than had been anticipated. Actual accuracy of the predictions ranged from an exact match to one comparison that was different from predictions by 99ºC. The average deviation from predictions was 37ºC. Thus, the predictions were very accurate. MARTAC has overlooked, forgotten or misplaced this carefully documented evaluation. MARTAC states that its “expectations” were not met. You must ask the question: What were MARTAC’s “expectations” and are they consistent with Geosafe’s contractual obligations? This is not stated.

Page 226, “Melt Temperatures”:
MARTAC presents a statement by Geosafe regarding melt temperatures in a soil consisting predominantly of SiO2 that is correct. However, MARTAC has omitted the remaining portions of this statement, which specify that this temperature is for the cover soil only and that temperatures are expected to decline as melting progresses. Thus, this statement and the conclusions presented with it are taken out of context and they appear to be used to discredit the technology.

The quote by me immediately following the Geosafe quote specifically states that the graph of “T100P” can be used as a “preliminary field prediction (to estimate)” the T100P (T100P is the temperature at which the melt viscosity is 100 Poise). Here, MARTAC has presented my statement regarding the use of the data presented in Figure 4.15 and the clear statement that it is to be used only for preliminary field predictions. Yet, MARTAC has used this graph as stated above to draw all of their conclusions regarding melt temperature and viscosity! This is a glaring oversight and significant error.

Page 228, Intermediate-scale demonstrations:
The first paragraph in this section states that the “surrogate trials showed a cerium distribution different to that of uranium and plutonium in subsequent trials.” What is “different”? Is this good or bad? The impression given is that it’s bad but it is not specified, just a general statement with nothing to back it up.

Page 252, Sec. 4.6.8, Transient Event, last paragraph:
MARTAC states that the Pit 17 Transient Event was “probably something other than active explosive material being present in the pit”. This is wrong. Everything in Pit 17 was melted completely and absolutely no pit contents were found despite an intensive search find some (personal observation by me which is documented). Further, a MARTAC representative was present less than half the time during the dissection of the Pit 17 monolith so their observations are incomplete. The Pit 17 melt progressed below the base of the established bottom of the pit (as agreed by MARTAC) by _ meter. The only logical conclusion that is consistent with all of the observations and data is the presence of an explosive package left over from when explosives were used to excavate the pit that was left in the subsurface (probably in a borehole) below the base of the pit. The commonwealth had guaranteed to Geosafe that nothing would be present in any of the pits that could explode.

Page 256, Further Considerations by MARTAC, first bullet:
MARTAC blames uncertainties in identifying the point at which melting should have been terminated on “limited understanding of the vitrification process” and “shortcomings” of the technology. In fact, and as pointed out by MARTAC in the Forward section of their report, the difficulties associated with determining when to terminate melts was due to a lack of documentation of pit size, depth, location and geometry. These have nothing to do with the technology. The onus of determining pit depths was MARTAC’s responsibility. This responsibility was never fulfilled. Geosafe stepped in and volunteered to make its best efforts to try to determine how deep the pits were and was fairly successful in doing so. In the end, it was MARTAC’s call on when to terminate melting for each pit and this call was made prematurely in at least one case (such as with Pit 15).

Third bullet:
Geosafe guaranteed that the hybrid pod melts would meet specified requirements. I was part of the decision to offer such a guarantee.

Fourth bullet:
The only hypothesis forwarded by MARTAC that blames the Pit 17 explosion on an intrinsic deficiency of the ISV process (exploding graphite electrodes) was determined to be silly.

Last two bullets:
These make the conclusions quite clear. ISV was terminated due to cost in my opinion. I believe that the vast majority of the alleged technical deficiencies outlined by MARTAC were made to justify going with a cheaper option.

Page 258, Sampling of ISV product by the ISV Contractor, 1st paragraph:
I personally advised MARTAC, Carolyn Perkins & Jeff Harris not to uncover, force cool and break open the monoliths.

Page 260, paragraph beginning with: “Since neither….”:
MARTAC again states that ISV blocks did not live up to their “expectations”. MARTAC’s “expectations” are not specified. Based upon all of my observations, the blocks did conform to contractual specifications, as I understood them. In their own words, MARTAC specified (Minutes of Third MARTAC Meeting. Maralinga Technical Advisory Committee) :

* There should be a high degree of confidence that the contaminated soils and debris within the pits will be completely vitrified and all materials either melted or encased in the vitrified product.
* Temperatures of the melt at the base of the pit must reach a specified level (to be advised following the report on the Phase 2 trials at intermediate scale).
* Most of the plutonium should be distributed within the vitreous/ceramic component of the ISV product.

The ISV technology clearly accomplished this.

Page 260, paragraph beginning with: “After an inspection…”:
MARTAC fails to point out that Geosafe was instructed by MARTAC and GHD to terminate the Pit 15 melt prematurely. Now, in their report, the impression is given that this is somehow the fault of the technology.

Page 262, two sets of bullets at top of page:

The following statements were made in an attempt to establish an argument against the use of ISV. These do not make sense relative to my comments in brackets following each bulleted item. As you can see, most of these issues were known before the project was ever started. Why were they not issues then?

Substantial earth works were required prior to the ISV process for:
* building the berms and pads; (Known before project started.)
* adding the fluxed sand; (Known before project started.)
* probing the pit dimensions with a rock hammer; (Pit dimensions should have been provided by MARTAC before project started. They never were provided.)
* constructing a trench for melt confinement; (Known before project started.)
* placing thermocouples, to fracture the pit edges. (This doesn’t make sense.)

Following the ISV treatment, works required included:
* removal of the off-gas containment hood; (Known before project started.)
* scraping off the cold cap material and removing the protruding section of the electrodes; (This was not required, they simply should have been covered.)
* chiselling away the component of some of the melt blocks that remained standing above grade after termination of the melt. (This was not required; they simply should have been covered.)

Page 262 Safety of Process:
Geosafe presented MARTAC with a safe alternative for processing the hybrid pits. It was rejected.

Page 263, first line:
The monoliths fractured because MARTAC insisted on uncovering them and force cooling them with water. This was done against my strong recommendation not to do so for this very reason!

Page 263, second paragraph:
This conclusion is inconsistent with all of the photographic evidence that I have, it somehow misses the point that steel is heavier than silicate melt and will always sink to the bottom of a melt and the cartoon presented in Figure 4.2 bears no resemblance with my observations or photographic documentation. It is truly a cartoon.

Page 263, “The ISV Process”, 1st paragraph beginning with: “It was the ISV…”:
The incorrect assumption and thus incorrect conclusions are again presented regarding melt chemistry, temperature and viscosity. Again, the predictions were far more accurate than anybody anticipated. This statement and conclusion are completely false.

The next paragraph is also completely false. Predicted melt temperatures and viscosities were proven to be highly accurate. Such proof was provided to MARTAC.

Page 263, footnote 20:
MARTAC correctly states that monoliths could have been advantageous at Maralinga. The “open pathways” or cracks in the monoliths are stated to be the reason why they needed to be removed and buried. What this doesn’t say is that the cracks observed in the monoliths were the direct result of MARTAC’s insistence on prematurely uncovering the melts and force cooling them with water in order to sample them. If they had been buried and left to cool slowly (per my recommendations), cracking would not have developed. I strongly advised Caroline Perkins, Jeff Harris and MARTAC against uncovering and cooling the monoliths because cracking would result thus compromising the integrity of the monolith. Much to my shock and surprise, this advice was ignored. In essence, this major error on the part of MARTAC is being used to discredit the technology.

Page 265, Quality Assurance:

First paragraph: Core drilling was recommended following cooling. Intrusive physical investigations were not required.

Second paragraph: All predictions on melt temperature, chemistry, viscosity and chemical durability were not only accurate but surpassed expectations by a significant margin.

Third paragraph:
To the best of my knowledge, only one pit (Pit 15) exhibited the features described here. Premature termination of melting Pit 15 was ordered by MARTAC and GHD.

Page 286, Conclusions on ground water:

My personal observation at the Maralinga site during my time there was frequent rainfall and infiltration. Further, the tens of thousands of liters of water poured on the contaminated monoliths to cool them and accommodate sampling infiltrated the soil column in less than 15 hours. This water did not evaporate. These observations are not consistent with Footnote 23 on Page 286. (By the way, in addition to being a geochemist, I am a Registered Professional Hydrogeologist in the state of Washington, Reg.#1037)

Lastly, in recent years, colloidal plutonium has migrated in soils over one mile at the Nevada Test Site and at the Los Alamos Nuclear Facility. Similar to the belief stated in the MARTAC report, it was always thought that the insolubility of plutonium would prevent migration in the subsurface. The possibility of migration of plutonium as a colloid has been overlooked by MARTAC.

Summary:

The above comments are the highlights of my review that point out some of the glaring difficulties with the report. There are many more minor issues that could be addressed and collectively raise questions in my mind regarding the objectivity of the report. But due to time constraints, I cannot address all of them. The statement below summarizes my general impression of what I reviewed.

Throughout the discussion of ISV in the MARTAC report, there is great usage of terms like:

“Technical uncertainties”
“Difficulties”
“Occupational risks”
“Inconsistencies”
“Shortcomings”
“Randomness in analytical results”
“Failure to meet expectations”

However, trying to determine from the report specifically what these terms mean is challenging. In addition, use of these terms seem not to be related to the requirements set out for the technology by MARTAC.

By combining the use of these nebulous terms, the absence of their definition, the errors and mistakes outlined herein and the successful use of the ISV technology elsewhere in the World, I can only surmise that the sections of the report that I reviewed present a skewed and subjective interpretation of the viability of the ISV technology.

General Comments

• No doubt the Minister and his department will think the cover-up is now complete.
• The report is at odds with some public statements made by Senator Minchin and others.
• The report is that of a part-time advisory committee which met on three or four occasions a year and did not have day-to-day contact with the project.  The report shows the lack of detailed knowledge of the project.
• The report claims that it would be helpful to others faced with the clean-up of a similar site.  Since it does not fully describe how the work was done, nor what problems were encountered and what was done to overcome them, it is of little help.
• The report does not say how the final remnants of contaminated soil were removed.
• The report does not describe how dust suppression was finally achieved.
• The report is wrong in its description of how work procedures and health physics procedures were approved.
• The report is incomplete, misleading or in many instances simply wrong.
• The committee has gone to a lot of effort in its attempt to discredit in situ vitrification technology (ISV) even though they all voted for that option and said it was a far superior method of dealing with the waste.
• The report includes the draft criteria for acceptance of ISV blocks, but it fails to note that they were not included in the contract and were therefore not contractual.  It also fails to realise that they were not practical but they inadvertently admit that without admitting it.
• Several times the committee demonstrates its lack of understanding of ISV and basic heat transfer.
• The report does not tell of the turning point in the application of vitrification.  That was the appointment of GHD as both Project Authority and Project Manager even though they knew absolutely nothing about the technology and therefore could not participate in decision making.
• While being critical of some aspects of ISV as applied to Pits 3 and 15, the report fails to mention the part played by the department and the project manager in the decision to stop treatment of those pits.
• The project was an engineering project, but the report is heavy on science and light on engineering.
• Unwittingly, the report admits that there are still some areas of concern.
• The arguments for simple burial of debris instead of treatment by ISV, or ex situ vitrification (ESV) are illogical.
• The acceptance of ISV blocks, particularly in relation to unmelted steel, debris under the blocks, or plutonium under the blocks changed depending on personalities.
• It is clear from the report that cost was the driving factor in moving away from ISV of all Taranaki pits.
• It is also clear that cost was the most important factor in the decision to cancel ISV altogether.
• The report claims that: “As well as the use of informal channels of communication, a more formal system of meetings and reports was instigated aimed at achieving an informed, efficient, cooperative and harmonious Project environment.”  They failed in this respect. After I had left the project but was still an adviser to the Maralinga Tjarutja, I heard about meetings in which there was open hostility.  A senior person refused to attend a joint meeting of MARTAC and the Consultative Group (that I attended) because of the hostility.  Note this was raised in Senate Committee hearings in 2000.

DETAILED COMMENTS

Depth of Knowledge in the Report

As it says in the covering letter, this is the report of MARTAC.  It is not a report which describes the project.

MARTAC was a group of scientists in an advisory capacity and met only three or four times a year.  They did not have day-to-day contact with the project and thus were not fully informed of events or processes.  As a result, there are many statements that are incomplete, misleading or wrong.  The report is somewhat jumbled with the same subject sometimes addressed in two or more different sections.

The report is very vague in many places, using indeterminate terms like:

• burial at depth
• satisfactory outcome
• heavily contaminated
• generally highly active
• significant debris
• relatively shallow depth
• appropriate depth
• buried at depth
• deep trench.

It also quotes different numbers for the same piece of information, such as the area bounded by the boundary markers and the amount of soil scraped up at Taranaki.  On page 120 we are told that the path of the boundary markers was endorsed by MARTAC and the Consultative Group in early 1999 - but that work was complete in 1997.

No doubt the Minister and his department think the cover-up is now complete.

Development and Approval of Procedures

The report is quite wrong in its vague descriptions of how work procedures and health physics procedures were developed and approved.  MARTAC seems to think that the department had no say at all in the approval process.  All work procedures were subject to approval by the department, at least until the end of 1997.  All health physics procedures and radiological work permits were approved by both ARPANSA and the department.

The report says (page 63): “The Regulator formally approved all health physics procedures and had the opportunity to review all radiological work permits and method of work statements that subsequently followed.”  The regulator did more than review radiological work permits - they were approved by both the department and ARPANSA.

The report says (page 185) that workers were required to sign the Job Safety Analysis.  This is wrong, they were required to sign the Radiological Work Permit  - quite a different document.

The Removal and Burial of Contaminated Soil

The area within which contaminated soil was to be removed for burial was delineated by technicians from the Australian Radiation Laboratory (ARL).  It is not clear from the report how they decided where the soil removal boundary should be.

A reader can gain the impression that the establishment of the soil removal boundary was somewhat haphazard.  Some areas were added after soil removal at Taranaki was complete, suggesting that there was insufficient monitoring before setting the boundary.  Page 189 describes how ARL set the boundary and says: “the final soil removal boundary was set at least 30 m outside the last detected visible fragment or particle exceeding MARTAC criteria.”  But there were fragments only four metres beyond the boundary.

The report does not mention that GHD gave wrong instructions to the contractor with the result that one strip of land at Taranaki that should have been cleared was missed and has not been cleaned because the regulator later said it would be acceptable as it was.  However, some parts of that strip were later dug up and buried.  The report is vague as to the removal of this soil (from Lot 42) but in reference to removal of soil from Lot 41 (on the same page 205) the report says the soil was “removed in the usual way”.  But by then the scrapers had left site and they would not have been taken back for such a small area - so the lots were not treated “in the usual way”.

The report describes how soil was removed by scrapers with assistance of a bulldozer and then by using a road-sweeper to brush and vacuum away the soil.  But it does not describe how the final bits of contamination were removed by a man with a pick and a vacuum hose.  This is clearly shown in the official video record of the project.

Dust suppression

The report describes (pages 193 and 194) the need to suppress dust during soil removal.  While the report describes measures that were adopted, it fails to mention that they were not adopted until the work moved from Taranaki to the TM site.  The dust suppression at Taranaki was ineffective ? it was hopeless.  At the bottom of page 324 is a statement: “Considerable effort was therefore devoted to the control of dust during soil removal, mainly through its suppression during soil removal …”  But again it ignores the very poor dust suppression at Taranaki.  A photograph is reproduced at page 335 with a caption that says in part “Work suspended during dust storm arising from south-westerly winds in excess of 40 km/hr.”  In the draft report, the photograph was titled Dust Storm.  The photograph does not give a true picture of a dust storm; a better idea would have been to have captured a still from the official video of the project, or from the problems faced by troops in Iraq.

Page 194 relates how work had to be stopped on about 15 occasions because of the heavy dust (surely GHD would have records of exactly how many times work was stopped).  The report however fails to mention that on at least one occasion, the health physicists evacuated the forward area facilities (offices, laboratory, change rooms, maintenance facilities and the like) because of the huge amount of dust in the air.  Some of the workers in those facilities were non-designated workers; that is they were not under the umbrella of the health physics regime.

Neither does the report mention the thousands of tonnes of contaminated soil that simply blew away ? across the soil removal boundary.

In fairness to the contractor, after the work moved to the TM site and revised procedures were adopted, the dust suppression was excellent.

Monitoring of cleared areas

Page 190 describes how ARPANSA monitored the site after soil removal by driving over it with ‘the Nissan’.  This was a vehicle with four radiation detectors fixed to a bar across the front.  What the report doesn’t say is how ARPANSA monitored the ground that was too rough for the Nissan.  Some parts of central Taranaki were scraped right down to rock and the resulting surface was so rugged that the Nissan could not traverse it without damage to the detection equipment.

Several times, (eg page 200) the report says that all lots met the clean-up criteria satisfactorily.  What the report does not say is that not all lots met the criteria ? ARPANSA granted concessions in those lots because the effort to get down to the criteria would be excessive compared with the benefit.

In Situ Vitrification

It is in addressing the ISV part of the project that the report really fails.

It is quite clear that the members of MARTAC had little understanding of the ISV technology.  This is demonstrated later when discussing lead in the ISV blocks.  At page 253 there is a tacit admission of the committee’s lack of knowledge, viz: “Factors considered by MARTAC included:

• the limited understanding of the vitrification process ...”

Even though all members of MARTAC considered ISV to be a far superior technology to any other option, the report has gone to great lengths in its attempts to discredit the technology.

The problem really started by the failure of the department to specify the acceptance criteria in the contract with Geosafe.  The report includes the draft criteria (developed by MARTAC) but fails to add that they were not transferred to the contract.  What is a basic requirement in any contract, a statement of what has to be achieved, was not included in the contract.  Page 137 lists the draft criteria:

• There should be a high degree of confidence that contaminated soils and debris within the pits are completely vitrified and all materials either melted or encased in the vitrified product;
• Temperatures of the melt at the base of the pit would reach a specified level, to be advised following the Report of Phase II trials at Intermediate Scale; and
• Most of the plutonium should be distributed within the vitreous/ceramic component of the ISV product.

Actually these criteria were quite impractical.  There was no way to verify the first and third without breaking up the blocks, and that would diminish the value of ISV.  At page 254 of the report is the statement: “MARTAC remained concerned that the only secure method of verification might still be exhumation of the completed blocks.”  This we always knew and that was why we had to have a very cooperative working relationship with the ISV contractor.

The report presents a different interpretation of the criteria at page 241.  It says:

“In intent [the objectives of ISV] were

• That the contents of the pit were fully incorporated in the melt
• That the melt temperature was sufficient to melt steel; and
• That the plutonium was uniformly distributed within the calc-silicate melt phase.

Again these are impractical, especially the first and third.  And again, they do not note that they were not contractual.  In fact at page 260 is a statement referring to the blocks of Pits 3 and 19A: “Since neither of these blocks lived up to MARTAC’s expectations …”  Expectations are not contractual unless they are defined and included in the contract.

It is noticeable that in neither set of criteria is there a requirement to melt the steel.  The second criterion only says that the melt has to achieve a temperature at which steel would melt.  But the report makes constant reference to unmelted steel in the blocks.

Step 1 of the chart on page 223 of the report is an attempt to portray these criteria as contractual.  Step 4 of that chart claims that ARPANSA (which at the time was ARL) reviewed the finding of a report prepared by Ansto about ISV.  It says they did this without knowledge of the criteria.  But at that time, Keith Lokan was a member of MARTAC and the Director of ARL, so they did have access to the draft criteria.

The problem was compounded when the department appointed GHD as both Project Authority and Project Manager for the ISV phase of the project.  Nobody from GHD had been involved in the three-year development program to match the technology to the Maralinga geology and nobody had even seen the full-scale equipment that was then undergoing final trials before being shipped to site.  The point that GHD were totally unqualified for the appointments was made several times to the department but for some unknown reason they persisted with the appointment.

The problem was further compounded by the fact that after the appointment the department had no-one involved in the project who had any knowledge of ISV or project management.  So Geosafe, the world’s experts in ISV found themselves reporting to, and taking technical direction from, a company with no knowledge or experience who in turn reported to a client who was similarly ignorant. [This was after I was removed from the project.]

Un-melted steel in ISV blocks

There was always the question of how we could know that melting had reached the bottom of the pit being treated.  But there was general agreement that since any uncontained debris would be under a 500 tonne rock it was not a serious issue.  To give some assurance that all debris was treated, when treatment of the pits started, Geosafe were instructed to continue treatment 600 mm beyond the reported depth of each pit, of course with an increase in cost.

It is interesting to pick up a couple of the criticisms made about the melt not reaching the bottom of a pit or the presence of unmelted steel in a block.

Page 244 relates some assessment of Pit 3: “It was found that the melt had not reached pit bottom and had been terminated prematurely.”  It is not clear who instructed Geosafe to stop the melt but a fax from GHD to Geosafe dated 23 June 1998 states that DPIE [the department] wished to “be involved in deciding when to stop the melt”.  A fax from Geosafe to GHD on 25 June 1998 says that the matter was discussed with Dr Perkins of DPIE prior to stopping the melt.  So who did decide the melt was complete?  And why criticise Geosafe if the decision was taken by DPIE?

Great play has been made of unmelted steel in the block of Pit 15.  Again, the report does not tell of the instruction from GHD to Geosafe by facsimile of 17 October 1998: “This fax provides written confirmation of the advice to terminate melt 8 pit 15 today.”

This unmelted steel was used by Senator Minchin in an attempt to explain why ISV was cancelled.  In a letter dated 6 August 1999 to the Maralinga Tjarutja, Senator Minchin said “Also, doubts have been raised as to the quality of the vitrified product with unmelted steel which is still contaminated being found in the bottom of at least two of the melts only some two metres below the surface.”  But there never was any requirement to melt the steel.

Debris and Plutonium Under an ISV Block

Long before the ISV treatment of pits started, it was generally accepted that some uncontained plutonium beneath the ISV block would be acceptable.  This view continued after the treatment got under way.  In a paper, MARTAC Recommendations to ISR - Remediation of Pits, dated 29 April 1999, Keith Lokan, a member of MARTAC, and previously Director of the Australian Radiation Laboratory, said: “I still consider that, in view of the engineering trials and the outcomes so far, that the product is ‘good’, in that it incorporates/encapsulates the plutonium in a very stable waste form.  I am not swayed much by arguments about intrusion, deliberate or inadvertent.  I do not think that a tiny remainder below or at the edge of a buried 400 tonne block presents a significant intrusion risk (recall Peter Burns view at the last MARTAC that up to 10 grams would be acceptable).”  Another statement at a meeting of the Consultative Group held on 13 April 1999 confirms that containment of all plutonium was not a requirement.  The minutes show: “Dr Williams noted that unincorporated plutonium at the bottom of a pit was not a major concern to ARPANSA ....”

Even after the hybrid option had been adopted and some debris was to be vitrified ex situ, the regulator did not require or expect all of the plutonium to be encapsulated.  In a letter to Jeff Harris of DPIE dated 4 August 1999, Dr John Loy, the CEO of ARPANSA said:“For the ex situ vitrification to proceed there would also need to be a clear demonstration that ISV could incorporate the majority of plutonium contamination into a melt.  Without such a demonstration it cannot be accepted that ISV encapsulates the contaminated material in the melt matrix.  ARPANSA would require these issues to be resolved before it could approve the use of ISV in this option.”  The looseness in distinguishing between in situ and ex situ vitrification is apparent.

But the statement in the report (page 271) is different.  It says “The Regulator (Loy, 1999) pointed out at this stage (30 July 1999) that the inability of ISV to incorporate all debris brought into question the ISV process, particularly when large quantities of contaminated steel were involved.  It stated that it would require a clear demonstration that ISV satisfactorily encapsulated the contaminated material in the melt matrix before it could approve the use of ISV in the hybrid option.”  The report omits the sentence: “For the ex situ vitrification to proceed there would also need to be a clear demonstration that ISV could incorporate the majority of plutonium contamination into a melt.”

So any comments in the report about plutonium under any ISV block should be discounted.  For example, the strange and somewhat meaningless statement on page 265: “The presence of this pedestal, meant that unincorporated and transferable plutonium contamination lay at a distance below the ground surface which was not acceptable to the regulator.”  It doesn’t say how much plutonium, where it could be transferred, nor how deep below ground surface, and there is no reference to any statement from the regulator saying this was unacceptable.

At pages 271 to 277, MARTAC presents very brief information of the exhumation of the ISV blocks.  In nearly every case, they note that there was no contamination found beneath the blocks demonstrating without doubt that vitrification was encapsulating all of the contamination.  The list does however note for Pit 4: “reasonably high contamination levels were found on the underside” and for Pit 13: “elevated readings were recorded” and Pit 15: “high gamma levels were found on the steel ..... and ....with high gamma levels” and Pit 19A: “found to be slightly contaminated”.  None of these statements are worth much, they need to be quantified.  It is not good enough to use meaningless terms such as these in what is really a report by scientists.  This is particularly so if the levels of contamination can be accepted.

Cracking of ISV Blocks

After the first pit had been treated, MARTAC decided it should check to see how the resultant block compared with their criteria.  John Morris, a member of MARTAC took on the task of comparing the block with the criteria.  But instead of allowing the block to cool naturally, the soil was removed from around the block and the block was then drenched with cold water.  This cracked the block in the reverse fashion of pouring boiling water into a crystal bowl.

At page 263, MARTAC states: “The Taranaki blocks were not monoliths as they had fractured during cooling.”  And in a footnote to that page they add: “Monoliths could have been advantageous at Taranaki, had they been produced, as they would have contained no open pathways to the atmosphere through which air and water could have penetrated to attack the steel masses.  This matter would not have attained any significance, however, if the ISV treatment had incorporated all of the pit contents and if it had melted all of the steel contents, to ensure the transfer of all plutonium to the oxide phase of the melts.”  Why should MARTAC criticise the cracked ISV blocks when it is quite clear that the blocks were cracked because of the water drench that they applied?

From then on MARTAC were much more involved than would be expected of an advisory committee.  At page 260, under the heading MARTAC’s Quality Assurance (QA) Program is the statement that MARTAC’s QA program had two main components:

• Verification that all the waste components were incorporated or encased into the ISV ceramic phase.
• Verification that the plutonium was uniformly mixed within the ceramic phase of the melt.

It seems the purpose of the MARTAC QA program was to find evidence that ISV did not satisfy the non-contractual criteria.  It was not in MARTAC’s terms of reference to be so involved in the project.  The Quality Assurance program should have been the responsibility of Geosafe or GHD.  Step 7 of the chart on page 224 shows that MARTAC “reviewed melts against original criteria”.  This should have been done by the project manager GHD.

What Happened to the Lead?

I sat through a joint meeting of MARTAC and the Consultative Group and heard members of MARTAC ask “What happened to the lead?”  They could not understand why there was very little lead showing up in the analysis of ISV blocks.  It is when the report relates the finding of lead beneath the ISV blocks that MARTAC really demonstrates a lack of understanding of ISV and basic heat transfer.  Pages 280 and 281 go into great detail about the discovery of lead beneath the blocks, and MARTAC members seem to be surprised at this discovery.  Had they understood how the molten pool of soil and pit debris advances down into the pit, they should have realised that the lead was going to melt ahead of the pool and trickle down to the bottom of the pit and into the fissures in the rock.  But then they removed some of this lead from 5 metres below ground, trapped in rock, and placed it under friable soil less than five metres down.

At page 263 MARTAC says: “Lead metal in the pit debris was not generally processed by the ISV treatment and a substantial proportion of the total lead inventory escaped from the pits during the processing.”  Why would that surprise them?

Comparison of ISV and Exhume and Bury Option

A demonstration of how illogical everything became where ISV blocks were concerned appears at page 246.  The report relates how the regulator “proposed that the finished blocks be capped with concrete and that the whole of inner Taranaki be covered with a 1m layer of clean soil.”  How does this compare with the fact that the buried debris does not have a concrete cap?

Another statement is on page 271: “The confirmation that the steel in Pit 15 had not melted, followed by the discovery of relatively large quantities of plutonium contamination on the base of the steel, contributed to the regulator raising concerns as to whether the remaining completed melts could be left in their present state within 2 to 3m of the surface.”  So the blocks were broken up and placed in the debris burial trench on 2.7 metres below the surface.

To show how illogical is the stance by MARTAC and ARPANSA we have only to compare even partially encased debris in a vitrified 500 tonne block with no encasement at all under friable soil.

Introduction of the Hybrid Scheme

When the contaminated soil was removed from central Taranaki, it became obvious that the debris pits were larger than the British reports indicated.    This meant that ISV would cost more than had been quoted.  The department then said that some way must be found to cut the cost of treating the Taranaki pits.  That was towards the end of 1997.

Even before ISV started at site in May 1998, GHD had put forward a proposal to exhume the outer pits and simply bury the debris (see page 138).  Page 245 says that the hybrid option, in which some pits would be vitrified and some exhumed, the contents sorted, some vitrified and some buried, developed from a MARTAC proposal in mid-1998.  But the GHD proposal predates this by a couple of months.  At the time, the excuse for this was that the outer pits contained less plutonium than the inner pits ? how they could come to that conclusion is a mystery.  In fact the report states at page 271: “[the ISV blocks] make up a distinctive marker layer on top of the more highly contaminated debris from the outer pits.”

In Senate Estimates hearings on 3 May 2000, Senator Minchin (then the Minister responsible for the project) said: “Can I refute the scurrilous suggestion which I see floating around in the media that suggests that this decision [to cancel ISV] was made on cost grounds.”

In every discussion of the move away from ISV towards exhumation of some pits there is mention of the potential cost savings.  In some discussions the question of cost seemed paramount.  A paper prepared by GHD, dated 21 August 1998 that is not appended or attached to the MARTAC report says: “The recent consideration of alternative treatments for these outer pits has arisen as a result of the revised estimate for ISV being considerably above the project budget.”

Page 140 reports discussions of the hybrid scheme.  Foremost in these discussions is that the option saves money.

In its discussions leading up to the cancellation of ISV altogether, not just its curtailment in the hybrid option, the report mentions at page 253: “the costs associated with the delays [while investigation were completed and modifications made], and the high cost of continuing with vitrification.”  And that exhumation and burial offered “a valid low cost alternative.”

So it is quite clear that cost played a major part in first of all curtailing ISV and then abandoning it altogether.

Occupational Health and Safety

In discussing injuries and accidents, the report says at page 321: “The one serious accident that could have caused major injuries or fatalities was the explosion of the ISV melt at pit 17.”  While acknowledging that nobody was in the vicinity of the explosion and nobody was injured, the report neglects other accidents which did involve workers and could have been very serious.  There were at least two vehicle accidents; one in which the vehicle overturned and the other which could have been even more serious in which a truck stopped just short of plunging down an embankment.  Nobody was hurt in those two accidents either, but both could have had serious consequences.

The report also fails to mention the occasion when the windscreen of an excavator was broken during exhumation of a debris pit.  This broke the sealed environment for the operator.  Work was suspended for two days until a replacement screen could be made and flown in from Adelaide.

Safety of the Site After the Clean-up

On page 317, the report tells of the worker who arrived at the ARPANSA facility for his final lung monitoring and was found to be wearing a shirt contaminated with plutonium.  The report tells how he had “made occasional forays into the red area” [in his own clothes].  There was no investigation to check the person’s home and no knowledge of how many times he was contaminated.  There is no statement that he was the only one to breach the procedures ? did any others?

The report also tells (page 317) of occurrences of non-designated employees working in red areas.  There was no explanation of how this could occur since to enter a red area the worker had to pass a health physics check point.

[Note workers in red (contaminated) areas were “designated” workers, subject to medicals and health physics control.  Non-designated workers were not under that regime.]

Page 317 also mentions several further minor occurrences of low level skin contamination towards the end of the project.  What the report does not say is that by then health physics was out of control and they were monitoring workers outside red areas, even in white areas.  [A white area was one in which there was no radiation and no health physics control.]

"These occurrences raise some questions about the safety of the site post clean-up. All of these workers showered every day and changed clothes every day.  Intinerant Aboriginals might not do these things so what happens when an Aboriginal goes into the cleared areas and picks up the same amounts of contamination and then repeats the event next day and the day after.  Will there be a build up of contamination? On my last visit to site we were made to wear overshoes when we entered central Taranaki even though that area had satisfied the criteria and had been covered with clean soil.

A couple of mistakes on page 306 are about the site passes.  The report tells that: “workers were issued with either red or blue colour-coded passes.  Each pass was bar-coded and electronically scanned as they moved in and out of red and blue areas.”  There was also a white area pass.  Only the red passes were scanned as workers moved into or out of the red area.  Passes were not scanned as workers moved into or out of blue areas.

Aboriginal Acceptance of the Clean-up

It is of course entirely up to the Maralinga Tjarutja to accept or reject the return of their lands after the clean-up.

They should take note of the slight contamination of workers moving into and out of the cleaned areas as mentioned above.  They should also take note of the statement on page 214 that the loader had difficulty lifting some contaminated debris and that the health physicists stopped work because of the “rising levels of contamination”.  This debris was then left where it was and will be removed “next time suitable plant is on site.”  But the road leading to this debris has been ripped up.

Page 46 of the report tells that the Maralinga Tjarutja accepted the clean-up described in Option 6 (c) of the TAG report, subject to payment of $45 million financial settlement for restriction of access to the fenced area of the Vixen B plumes”.  Page 48 tells that the settlement to the Tjarutja was $13.5 million plus ‘significant’ non-cash items.  It seems to me that they did not get much for their non-cash items, only a bit of employment on the project.

The Tjarutja also have to realise that they will be relying on the government for assurances for thousands of years and the government did not keep to agreements made only ten years ago.  For example, part of the agreement in the settlement of claims and agreement to Option 6 (c) was that there would be no changes without discussing the proposed changes without discussion with the Aborigines.  The decision to move to the hybrid scheme was made without adequate discussion with the Tjarutja and the decision to abandon ISV altogether was simply announced with no discussion.

Transcript:

On 25 March, the Science Minister Peter McGauran released the long awaited MARTAC Report; the final report of cleaning up the Maralinga atomic bomb site in South Australia.

In his speech to Parliament, the Minister said: “The project achieved its goals and a world’s best practice result.” The report itself claims the experience will benefit others on similar projects.

But anybody looking to this report for guidance will be disappointed. It is not a description of the project. It is a report prepared by an advisory committee which met three or four times a year without day-to-day contact with the project.

The Maralinga project was in two parts. The first was to collect and bury soil from three contaminated sites. The second part was to use electricity to convert plutonium-contaminated debris in twenty-one pits, into a hard glass-like rock which immobilises the plutonium for thousands of years. A process known as in situ vitrification or ISV for short.

The report contains many mistakes, it glosses over problems encountered or ignores them altogether. It is wrong in some details, such as a reference to the concrete cap of Pit 19A; a pit that had no cap. More importantly it is completely wrong about how work procedures and health physics procedures were approved, and it is also wrong in saying which documents had to be signed by the workers.

The report glosses over such problems as the suppression of dust during the removal of contaminated soil. A photograph of scrapers collecting soil for burial shows very little dust raising; a more truthful photo could have been taken from the official video record of the project. The report fails to mention that on at least one occasion the dust was so thick the health physicists evacuated offices more than a kilometre from the work site. Although the dust problem was eventually overcome, the report does not tell how. Neither does it tell how the final remnants of contaminated soil were removed.

Perhaps the biggest failing is that the committee did not have the courage to criticise the government’s handling of the second part of the project; the vitrification of those 21 pits.

The problems started with the contract for that work which did not include a statement of what had to be achieved. Although MARTAC had some draft acceptance criteria they were not contractual.

The problem was compounded when the department appointed a company as Project Authority and Project Manager over that part of the project, even though that company knew nothing at all of the complex technology that was to be applied - they had not seen the equipment and had no involvement in the three year development program to match the technology to the Maralinga geology. Further, nobody in the department knew anything of the technology either. The government relied on the part-time advisory committee to provide that knowledge.

It appears the committee took a lead role in this part of the project. When they wanted samples to see if the outcome satisfied their non-contractual criteria, they uncovered the blocks and then drenched them with cold water, instead of allowing them to cool over several months. Of course the blocks cracked. This is the reverse of pouring boiling water into a crystal decanter. The report then says: “The blocks were not monoliths as they had fractured during cooling” and “monoliths could have been advantageous had they been produced.”

Nor does the report mention the role played by the department and the project manager in terminating the vitrification of individual pits.

And the surprise expressed in finding that lead melted ahead of the molten pool and trickled to the bottom of the pits suggests the committee had little understanding of the ISV process or even basic heat transfer.

But the report does at least show that the ISV part of the project, which every member of the Minister’s advisory committee considered a far superior option, was curtailed in a cost cutting exercise, thus denying the government’s line.

The Minister may well commend the report, but I cannot support his commendation. There are too many things wrong with it.

This report was begun in 1998. It has been a long time coming, which is possibly due to intractable political problems that have beset both the program and the government when it comes to issues of nuclear waste. In his speech, the minister refers to three previous unsuccessful attempts to clean up Maralinga —this may well be the fourth. The minister also makes great play of the claim that this program achieved world’s best practice. This is a claim that
remains in dispute.

The importance of this claim to the minister is evident when, in the course of his statement, he attempts to explain away the dumping midstream of the preferred in situ vitrification, ISV, process of treating contaminated material for a cheaper reburial option. While he claims the decision was made due to safety reasons, a more convincing reason can be found buried on page 138 of the report—that is, the attraction of adopting an alternative approach that would save the government more than $5 million. That is a significant figure at a time when the program was over budget. In light of the number of versions of this report that I am aware of, I suspect that this report has been politically doctored in an attempt to disguise the government’s parsimony as a concern for safety.

At the heart of the government’s problem is its overriding concern with cost control at the expense of quality control. It is notable that even today the minister seeks to justify the cheaper alternative by reference to the national code of practice for the near surface disposal of radioactive waste. It sounds impressive, but is it in reality? When it is understood that this code of practice applies to low level or shortlived waste and not to lethal long-lived plutonium, then government claims in regard to best practice appear increasingly fragile. This is even more evident when one considers that despite the minister’s reliance on the certification by ARPANSA of the construction of the burial trenches, neither ARPANSA nor its CEO, Dr John Loy, can produce any report or certificate to substantiate the claim. As I have observed on previous occasions recently, the role of ARPANSA in regulatory matters requires closer scrutiny, especially to ensure that the independence of that agency is not compromised.

One further issue that ARPANSA perhaps should consider is whether the burial of small quantities of longer-lived radioactive materials is, in fact, in accordance with the government’s own paper Safe storage of radioactive waste—the national store project, which, among other things, states that such waste is not suitable for near surface burial. The treatment of contaminated debris on site by burial in shallow trenches leaves potentially hazardous material near the surface. The previous commitments by the minister never to opt out of Maralinga also need to be challenged in this context. The government, as we are well aware, is in the process of seeking a decommissioning licence from ARPANSA prior to handing over the land around the Maralinga site to the traditional owners. Labor believes that, instead, the minister should amend the ARPANS Act to provide an ongoing role for the Commonwealth after the handover.

Maralinga as a test site demonstrates the legacy of bids by conservative governments to seek out and win the approval of great and powerful friends and the lengths that they would go to secure these, irrespective of the social or human cost to the Australian community. In 1954, at the height of the Cold War, the then Prime Minister Robert Menzies agreed to a British request for a permanent site to test nuclear weapons. Seven A-bombs—atomic bombs—were detonated at Maralinga in the late 1950s, while over the next six years hundreds of smaller experiments, using plutonium, uranium and other radioactive materials, were conducted. It now appears that most of the contamination at the site is the result of these smaller, and often clandestine, trials rather than the A-bombs themselves.

The Maralinga Tjarutja Aboriginal people were prevented from entering these lands during the period of the tests and their aftermath. Steps are now in train to return the land to their control. Andrew Collett, the lawyer for the Indigenous people, said: “There’s a very, very heavy burden on the community to weigh up how effective this clean-up will be, so the issues include how good is the clean-up, what does that mean in the future, will there be problems in the future, will the proposed burial of plutonium in a deep burial trench last a quarter-of-a-million years, what happens if it doesn’t, who’s going to meet the cost if it doesn’t.” Those are statements he made on ABC Radio on 16 April 2000.

Despite three attempts, there was no effective clean-up conducted by the British nuclear authorities. In fact, the British only succeeded in worsening the problem, by spreading radioactive waste further around the site, as a result of their various botched attempts at a clean-up. Despite this, the British believed that they had signed off on the problems associated with the site. It took a very effective inquiry, initiated by the then Labor government, to demonstrate the ineffectiveness of the British and earlier Australian clean-up attempts, and the need to comprehensively deal with the problems associated with Maralinga.

The report of that inquiry, the Rehabilitation of former nuclear test sites in Australia, was produced by a government appointed technical assessment group, was published in 1990 and has become the benchmark for subsequent rehabilitation programs.

As a result of this report and the efforts of the then Minister for Agriculture and Energy, Mr Simon Crean, in December 1993 the British government agreed to pay £20 million to settle Australia’s claims and contribute toward the rehabilitation of the Maralinga site. The British contribution was anticipated to meet approximately half the costs of site rehabilitation.
The effectiveness of Labor’s response stands in sharp contrast to the history of blunders that mark the current government’s management—or, one should say, mismanagement—of the process.

Clearly there is a problem in the way in which the government deals with the issue of nuclear waste and the storage and management of the low-level and intermediate level nuclear waste repositories. The selection of a site for a repository for low-level waste was set in train in 1992 under the previous Labor government. The crucial stages of the process of site selection have taken place under the current government.

The parameters for the siting of a waste repository were set by the Labor government and included the twin principles of scientific evaluation and genuine community consultation. It is quite apparent that, in the case of the community consultation, this government has neglected its responsibilities to a woeful degree. We have seen the neglect of the Aboriginal community within the region. Now we see a situation in which the people of South Australia are told that they have to accept this new site, and a $300,000 propaganda campaign has been initiated by this government to persuade them that this government knows best.

In addition to its culpable neglect of community consultation, the government has mishandled the process in many other ways. The government has now backflipped on its commitment to release the 667 submissions that were provided to the consultative process the government did establish. This lack of transparency has triggered further problems. The defence department has said that they are not happy with the government’s preferred site for a repository —next door to a missile testing range.

The problems with the Maralinga strategy include the government’s preference for cost control over quality control. Take, for example, the retreat from the use of in situ vitrification—a process agreed in 1996 to be the best, preferred solution for the cleanup of the material within the various pits within the Maralinga precinct. In 1999, this was dumped in favour of simply reburying the plutonium. The reason for that was the government felt that their adherence to the national code of practice for near surface burial was adequate. Quite clearly it was not. It was, in fact, driven by the desire to cost cut at a time when the project was overbudget. What has become patently clear is that the decision to abandon the preferred ISV methodology followed increasing pressure to modify or abandon the process as the costs of treating the contaminated material became larger than anticipated.

We are left with a cheap and nasty solution which aimed to save money but which failed to meet the standards adopted at the outset of the rehabilitation process. (Time expired)

In his statement accompanying this report the Minister for Science says that the Maralinga Rehabilitation Project is something the government can be proud of. I do not think so; at least, I do not think it ought to be proud of its record on this issue. The minister’s statement and the 403 pages of this report by the Maralinga Rehabilitation Technical Advisory Committee have not persuaded the Democrats that the clean-up was anything but botched and inadequate.

No matter how many reports are produced, the fact of the matter is that 22 kilograms of plutonium are buried in simple unlined earth trenches, some of it just a couple of metres below the surface. The government says, ‘That is not right—five metres of clean soil was put on top,’ but those who were involved say that it was much more like two or three metres in some places. The government has consistently said that these simple earth burials were constructed consistent with the national code of practice for near-surface disposal of radioactive waste. What it does not admit is that this code of practice is not suitable for—was never designed for, never written for—debris which is highly contaminated with plutonium. Why else would a government—Labor, as it happens—have decided in the first place to vitrify the debris before it was buried? After the explosion in 1999 in one of the pits, this government agreed to drop the process. The minister says that the explosion caused major damage to ISV equipment and the process was discontinued for safety reasons. It just so happens that that decision saved the contractor an enormous amount of money.

Critics of this government—and there are plenty of them—argue that had the debris been properly sorted to make sure material that was likely to explode had been removed prior to vitrification there would have been no explosion. We still have no explanation about what caused that explosion. The only thing the government knows is that it was enough to stop that process. The minister’s statement says the melt blocks were excavated and reburied at greater depth.

This is simply not true; the blocks were cracked and broken up and, in so doing, the plutonium was exposed. The minister says ARPANSA considers that a simple earth burial is a useful benchmark of scientifically acceptable standards for plutonium buried as radioactive waste. This is complete nonsense. The government says the amount of uranium, plutonium and americium buried in trenches at Maralinga is well below the levels allowed in the NHMRC code of practice. Here they have used the oldest trick in the book: they have averaged out the contaminated material and counted in the enormous amount of lightly and noncontaminated material—some 360,000 cubic metres of material, largely soil—that is in the pits.

I understand why the government would want to silence, denigrate and discredit its critics—they have been extremely critical of the government and this process. I am not talking here about conservation groups or the Democrats, who might not be expected to have inside knowledge about the detail of the clean-up or understand the complex technical nature of processes like ISV—vitrification. The people most critical of this botched clean-up are professional people —engineers and the like—who were intimately involved in the process but who can now speak openly and honestly, independent of government and independent of contractors who stood to gain so much from this change in process. The government— the minister in particular—has done its best to vilify these people. The most recent of them is Mr Dale Timmons, who this week was described as a loner by Minister McGauran. The minister said that Mr Timmons’s motivation is different from that of the Australian government. Well, yes it is; it is different in respect of Mr Timmons wanting to see that the Australian public are properly informed about this botched clean-up. The minister went on to say: “Mr Timmons, I suspect, has launched a pre-emptive strike”— getting right with the language of the time— “so as to maintain the reputation of his technology and Mr Timmons has a certain motivation, I believe, because his technology exploded.” Wrong, Mr Minister. Mr Timmons has no financial interest in the vitrification process or technology nor in the company that offers this technology. He was a consultant hired to assist with the Maralinga project because of his expertise in high-temperature geochemistry and his experience with vitrification technology. Mr Timmons thinks the Australian public should be aware of what actually went on at Maralinga. He thinks we have been left with anything but world’s best practice.

World’s best practice is vitrification; it is said to encase and immobilise plutonium for a million years. Not even the United States would consider burying this kind of material in unlined earth pits, and it certainly would not describe it as world’s best practice. Some members of MARTAC, the authors of this final report, held the view that the debris should not have been buried this way but, at the very least, have been encased in concrete. The government says the problem with vitrification, apart from the explosion, was that the blocks were cracked. Mr Timmons, an expert in the field, points out that the blocks should have been allowed to cool naturally over a period of about 12 months but, instead, the contractors uncovered the blocks then drenched them with cold water so that they could take samples. It is little wonder they cracked.

The report is very lengthy at 403 pages, and it is not possible to do it justice in only two hours. However, it is useful to examine the minister’s statement. We found it riddled with errors and misleading statements. I hope, in this respect at least, that his statement does not reflect the report itself. Let us go to the second paragraph. The minister says: “The project achieved its goals and a world’s best practice result.” One of the goals of the project was to treat the Taranaki pits by ISV; that was option 6(c). This was not done; therefore, the minister cannot claim that the project met its goals.

It is interesting to talk about world’s best practice because if you look at the ARPANSA web site, which was apparently written by Geoff Williams from ARPANSA, you will see that he says that terms such as ‘world’s best practice’ are ‘bureaucratise and the last resort of scoundrels’. So the minister himself is using this last resort of scoundrels. The minister misquotes the 1985 royal commission, saying it recommended that Maralinga and Emu should be cleaned up so that the land could be fit for habitation by the Aboriginal traditional owners. In fact, it recommended the clean-up be done so that the land could be fit for unrestricted access. This is not what we are left with. The minister says: “The implementation of option 6 (c) would permit unrestricted access to about 90% of the 3200 square kilometre Maralinga site and permit access ...” In fact, this is completely misleading because the area enclosed by the boundary markers is about 450 square kilometres out of a total of 3,200 square kilometres. That is not 90 per cent which is available to unrestricted access—it is more like 86 per cent. Also, the only land that has been added that is suitable for unrestricted access is that cleaned at the TM sites and Wewak, and that area is 0.5 square kilometres. The 1.6 square kilometre cleaned area at Taranaki is within the boundary markers and the Indigenous people have been advised that access is restricted. In other words, very little has actually been added to the land available for unrestricted access.

The minister indicates: “The Maralinga Rehabilitation Project was oversighted by the Commonwealth Department of Education, Science and Training ...” Then, two paragraphs down, he says that it was oversighted by ARPANSA. This is just another example of getting it wrong. In fact, ARPANSA was responsible for the regulation, not for the oversighting at all. The minister says that one of the problems was that the vitrification process did not melt the steel. It was not meant to melt the steel; in fact, it was meant to encase the plutonium which was coated on that steel. The minister says that it was the 11th melt of the series which exploded. Again, that is wrong; it was the 13th. The minister says no worker received any measurable take-up of plutonium during the clean-up. The draft report said otherwise. It said that two workers received a measurable uptake of uranium.