Natalie Wasley, Chain Reaction #116, November 2012, www.foe.org.au/chain-reaction

Earlier this year, in a break with a long-standing bipartisan ban, the NSW Government announced it would allow uranium exploration across the state. This reversal of a 26-year prohibition came without warning or consultation and against the backdrop of the global nuclear industry reeling from the continuing Fukushima disaster.

At the time, Premier O’Farrell cited the narrowly won ALP national conference vote allowing uranium sales to India as rationale for the policy change. Responses ranged from wariness to outright hostility. The decision is fiercely opposed by NSW Labor and the Greens. Speaking against the move in both state parliament and a recent public meeting, shadow environment minister Luke Foley captured the strength of this resistance: “As long as I am in public life I will argue against this dangerous industry”.

Civil society and community groups are increasing both the light and the heat on the Premier’s atomic ambitions including through the launch of a NSW Uranium Free Charter. The Charter highlights the dangers of the nuclear industry, calls on government to rule out uranium mining in NSW and has already gathered strong support from state and national trade unions, environment groups, public health and student organisations. The Charter signals the start of a new campaign to keep NSW free from uranium mining and promises to increasingly locate this controversial mineral on the state political radar. (uraniumfreensw.org.au/charter).

The state government’s claim that lifting the ban on exploration does not signal an intention to allow uranium mining lacks credibility. The nuclear industry will not invest in exploration without the expectation of future mining activities. It is crucial to consider the impacts of mining now, while uranium remains where it is safest: underground.

Uranium mining causes sustained damage at and around mine sites, especially through the production of large volumes of long-lived radioactive mine tailings. These toxic mine residues retain around 80% of the original radioactivity of the ore and pose a profound management challenge. Before mining, this material is confined in a geologically stable cocoon. After mining, it is mobile in wind and water and able to be exposed to workers, nearby communities and the environment.

The track record of the Australian uranium industry is a litany of leaks, spills, breaches and accidents. A detailed independent Senate examination in 2003 found that the industry was failing to comply with its environmental obligations and called for urgent changes.

The uncomfortable and indisputable fact is that uranium is a dual-use fuel − it can be used for nuclear reactors or for nuclear weapons. Those who claim that export agreements adequately safeguard Australia’s uranium ignore the deep deficiencies in the existing system and the obvious fact that, at the very least, our exports free up uranium from other countries to be used in military programs.

The glowing elephant in the room remains the growing and unresolved problem of managing the radioactive waste that is created at every stage of the nuclear chain.

The federal government has confirmed that uranium from Australia was in at least five of the six reactors at the Fukushima Dai-Ichi nuclear plant when it entered meltdown last March. Following Fukushima the international uranium market remains depressed. Existing producers have seen reduced production and profit – the controversial Ranger mine in Kakadu has posted massive losses of $180 million in the past two years – while two advanced projects in Western Australia have recently been shelved.

The waste from any uranium mining in NSW would remain dangerous long after the O’Farrell government is gone. If the Premier truly has confidence in the case for uranium mining, he should have the political courage and respect to test these arguments via a dedicated public inquiry before approving any exploration or mining activities. Before allowing such a long lasting and toxic industry, it is prudent to examine the adequacy of NSW’s regulatory regimes, the experience of uranium mining in other jurisdictions and the views of all stakeholders. The government’s failure to do this at the last state election means they cannot now claim a mandate to mine.

Not only is uranium mining unwelcome – it is also unnecessary. Renewable energy is the world’s fastest growing energy sector. A recent report by the federal Bureau of Resource and Energy Economics has detailed how renewables are on track to become Australia’s energy source of choice as costs fall and community support blossoms. NSW is well placed to build on the state’s technical and manufacturing base to become a leading producer and supplier of renewable energy. These would be real, lasting and clean jobs − many based in regional areas. Rather than promoting the unsafe uranium sector the government should building an energy future that is renewable, not radioactive.

More information:

http://uraniumfreensw.org.au

http://beyondnuclearinitiative.com

Natalie Wasley is the national coordinator of the Beyond Nuclear Initiative. http://beyondnuclearinitiative.com

Since 2007, a saga has been unfolding regarding contamination accidents at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO), ANSTO’s handling of those incidents, ANSTO’s treatment of whistleblowers, the handling of the matter by the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA), and the independence or otherwise of ARPANSA.

The saga has exposed inadequate safety practices at ANSTO and an inadequate performance by the regulator ARPANSA. The problems would not have been exposed and partially rectified if not for a number of ANSTO whistleblowers.

27 April 2007 − ANSTO states that a radiopharmaceutical worker at ARI (Australian Radioisotopes − ANSTO’s radiopharmaceutical division) received a radiation dose to his hands above the annual limit earlier in the month. The dose was above the yearly limit of 500 millisieverts (mSv) to each hand. The incident was the result of a failure in process during a production run of yttrium-90. The worker was using gloves that extended into a boxed working area when the exposure took place.

3 September 2007 − Two contamination incidents at ANSTO involving yttrium-90. See the 19 June 2012 entry below.

28 August 2008 − Incident at ANSTO involving a vial of molybdenum-99 being dislodged from manipulator grips in one of the hot cells and a delay in the reporting of the incident. An audit found that proper processes were not followed: evacuation of the area did not occur, timely communication and event reporting, thorough investigation and follow-up did not occur. The staff member in question had not completed occupational health and safety induction training or a radiation safety course. ANSTO said that processes had been upgraded to ensure that formal training is completed and validated before allowing admission to ARI (ANSTO’s radiopharmaceutical arm) for work purposes.

June 2009 − David Reid, an ANSTO employee and staff-elected health and safety officer, was suspended in June 2009 and sacked in June 2011. He raised concerns about contamination repeatedly and some of his concerns were later vindicated. ANSTO states that his suspension and dismissal were unrelated to his statements regarding safety problems at ANSTO.

12 February 2010 − ANSTO challenges a February 10 AAP media report concerning the 28 August 2008 incident:

• ANSTO states: “No staff member was exposed to significant radiation doses.”
• ANSTO states: “The independent nuclear safety regulator, the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA) has reviewed the 2008 incident and there have been four independent internal investigations. ANSTO has welcomed a review report received from ARPANSA in late January 2010. ANSTO will respond to the ARPANSA recommendations by the end of February. The workplace regulator ComCare is also currently reviewing the matter.”

5 May 2010 − ANSTO employee David Reid raises numerous concerns on ABC TV’s Lateline program.

• Mr Reid states: “If you don’t follow the safety regulations and the procedures and you don’t investigate when you do have an accident, the accidents are gonna get worse and worse and someone’s really gonna pay the ultimate price one day.”
• ABC: “ARPANSA is Australia’s nuclear industry watchdog and Lateline has obtained a copy of its report into the accident. It largely supports David Reid’s concerns and raises further questions about safety at Lucas Heights.”
• ABC: “ARPANSA’s investigation found that radioactive vials are regularly dropped, something that’s been tolerated for years. There have been no apparent attempts to introduce improved handling systems. Supervision and training have not been effective in delivering the standard of safety required at the facility. And there’s been a lack of management awareness about difficulties and failures at the facility.”
• ABC: “ARI says it will implement all of ARPANSA’a recommendations, but the nuclear regulator has at least two more inquiries into Lucas Heights underway.”

6 May 2010 − ANSTO responds to the Lateline report:

• “Mr Reid’s first complaint occurred in April 2009. ARI management immediately initiated an investigation. Two weeks later Mr Reid raised the same complaint at an ANSTO safety meeting acknowledging the ARI investigation was underway. A subsequent investigation by ANSTO management followed.”
• “In July 2009, Mr Reid was not satisfied and again raised concerns. This led to a major internal investigation ordered by the CEO. The investigation was completed in September and concluded there were no abnormal radiation exposures to staff. However, legitimate concerns about training and procedures in the medical isotope production facility were raised and have since been addressed.
• “In October 2009, ARPANSA initiated an investigation following an approach from Mr Reid. This was completed in January 2010 and substantially agreed with ANSTO’s four internal investigations. ARPANSA concluded there was no cover up, and no significant radiological event.
• “All of ARPANSA’s recommendations have been implemented or are substantially complete. The reports reflect the importance of attending to management issues that were identified in the investigations.”

01 June 2010 – Senate Estimates with Greens Senator Scott Ludlam and ANSTO’s Dr Paterson:

• Dr Paterson says the August 2008 incident has been discussed at Senate Estimates on 21 October 2009 and 10 February 2010 and has been the subject of two major investigations − one by ANSTO (concluded September 2009) and ARPANSA (began in October 2009, report submitted to ANSTO in January 2010).
• Dr Paterson: “What did these investigations find? The first finding is that management arrangements in place at the time were deficient in a number of respects. Firstly, the significance of the dropped vial was not understood by the worker. This meant that his colleagues working in the same environment as the event were not informed, although they were not directly exposed to the radiation from the vial. Secondly, the process of informing supervisors did not lead to immediate actions. Thirdly, the initial attempts to locate the source of the radioactivity did not immediately involve specialised health staff. The investigation also revealed that one of the workers had not completed his full in-depth training on working in a radiation environment. These management issues have all been addressed with completed and current actions. Importantly in this regard, ANSTO has a new management team in place at various levels in the organisation relating to the production of radiopharmaceuticals.”
• Dr Paterson: “In addition, two other claims have been made by Mr Reid. One is that there was a massive dose to a worker who was exposed to radiation from the dropped vial. Both the ARPANSA report and ANSTO’s internal investigation based on actual records have shown that this is not the case. This has been confirmed by calculations made independently by three specialists in the field. A second claim is that there has been a coverup. The investigations show that while there were management deficiencies at the time, there were no attempts to cover up this incident or not report it at any time.”
• Dr Paterson: “The ongoing development is ensuring that the changes we have made in our training system are indeed embedded. It is no longer possible to work in the radiation facility without completing all of the radiation training. We are just ensuring that all of those procedures are indeed followed and that they are embedded in the practices of the organisation. Secondly, we are still evaluating a number of engineering controls that would further strengthen the protection of workers so that they would not have to rely on management controls, because engineering controls tend to be more robust. These evaluations are ongoing in the case of the area immediately around the door and will be finalised within the next six months.”
• Senator Ludlam: “Going back to the original incident, have you identified the person or persons who were directly involved in not being able to retrieve the vial? My understanding is that when it eventually came out it was brought out with a device, some kind of a mirror stuck to a tool with a bit of sticky tape, which sounds like something you would have wanted to look at. You acknowledged in your new opening comments that were people on the work floor who had not been trained to a suitable level. Were there any suspensions or any consequences to those operators? Have they been retrained since then?”
• Dr Paterson: “Yes. I think we have now identified all people who were involved in that incident, and there is ongoing operator training. In addition, based on our incident reporting and our management procedures, wherever there is a radiological incident or a failure to comply with a management arrangement, retraining is essential, and we undertake that before the workers return to the cell face.”
• Senator Ludlam: “Would you say that the disclosures were validated by ARPANSA’s report? You have referred to them before as allegations, but would you say that they have been more or less completely validated by the subsequent reporting and all the action that you describe as having occurred since then?”
• Dr Paterson: “I would say that it was valuable that Mr Reid, as a health and safety representative, re-raised these matters in April 2009, and I said that to him when I met with him. I feel that that was a very useful action on his part, and the fact that the investigation chain, which has subsequently followed, was initiated by that action I regard as very positive. I think that it was helpful both to management and to the workforce as a whole in the radiopharmaceuticals production area to go through a process of internalising what had happened,
  working through it in some detail and coming to a solid set of conclusions about how we could improve management and how we could improve the interaction with the workforce in order to mitigate these effects. So I would say it was good.”
• Senator Ludlam: “It would appear to me, obviously not having been at any of these meetings and not having visited the radiopharmaceuticals plant, to be in pretty good example of the benefit of a whistleblower. This fellow has taken some risks, and you would hope, on the basis of all the reviews and all the changes that you are making, that conditions for the workforce in there are improving as a result of what he has done.”
• Dr Paterson: “I think he was absolutely correct in his position of an HSR to raise it internally, which he did. I applaud that. I applaud the fact that he and a colleague also raised it at the central committee, which we use for all of the union representatives, in May 2009. I certainly believe that those actions were very solid. Where I have a concern is that, as the information came out of the investigation, he has not changed his view about the dose to his fellow worker. We had a very fruitful discussion of that when I met with him, and I think
  we have achieved a difference of view but a respect for one another’s views.”

January 2011 − A Comcare investigation found that ANSTO had acted prejudicially towards David Reid. ANSTO says that Comcare has decided to have its report independently reviewed. ANSTO says there have already been seven investigations into the August 2008 incident, including two by ARPANSA, and that “there was no significant radiological event, nor was there an attempt to cover anything up.”

8 February 2011 − ABC TV Lateline report:

• “The nuclear industry regulator ARPANSA backed up Mr Reid’s concerns, finding serious problems in safety standards and a lack of management awareness about the difficulties and failures of the facility.”
• “Australia’s workplace health and safety regulator, Comcare, has been called in to investigate the incidents. Lateline’s obtained a copy of its report. It goes even further, finding that ANSTO has breached health and safety laws. It says ANSTO did not take all reasonable steps to provide and maintain a safe working environment. It didn’t take all reasonable steps to inform, instruct, train and supervise ANSTO Health employees. It failed to comprehensively risk assess its radiopharmaceutical production process and it failed to notify Comcare of safety incidents.”
• “The Comcare report also expresses grave concern about ANSTO’s treatment of Mr Reid, who’s been suspended for nearly two years now after bullying allegations were made against him. It says Mr Reid’s suspension was somewhat extreme and Mr Reid was substantially denied procedural fairness.”
• “Science Minister Kim Carr says the [Comcare] report has now been independently reviewed and he can’t comment until that process is complete.”
• “ANSTO is facing more accusations that it’s singling out workers who raise safety concerns, with another two employees suspended for reporting a contamination scare in September last year. ANSTO denies that they’ve been suspended for reporting the incident, but rather for unduly creating safety concerns.”
• Tim Ayres from the AMWU states: “I look forward to having a constructive engagement with ANSTO about these issues this week. It’s gone on for far too long.”
• “Late this afternoon, the ABC learned of another incident just before Christmas, when an employee picked up a vile of highly radioactive material by hand. The risks of a spill makes it a serious safety breach. ANSTO says the newly-appointed supervisor was only slightly contaminated and has been advised of the correct handling procedures.”

Comcare recommended that ANSTO:

• engage a qualified person to conduct systematic monitoring of all workplaces that undertake radiopharmaceutical operations;
• direct a person with demonstrated competency in managing risks associated with hazardous substances to oversee an ongoing system of auditing to ensure radiopharmaceutical operations maintain appropriate systems of work to protect health and safety;
• provide ongoing documented evidence to Comcare that systematic monitoring is occurring; regularly audit its consultative protocols with persons involved in radiopharmaceutical operations to ensure its policies and procedures are effectively carried out;
• audit its record-keeping procedures to ensure appropriate information is recorded and retained in relation to the health and safety of employees engaged in radiopharmaceutical operations and;
• ensure that notifiable incidents are reported to Comcare.

9 February 2011 − Science Minister Kim Carr states: “I have asked my Department to examine the operation of the ANSTO radiopharmaceutical production facility and the OH&S practices in place at present at the facility.”

28 February 2011 − The Australian reports that at least six ANSTO employees claim they were bullied by management and, in some cases, suspended from work after expressing concern about the safety of the plant’s operations. “I find it disgraceful that ANSTO has so little concern for its employees,” said a worker exposed to radiation after a colleague dropped a vial of radioactive molybdenum-99. “It’s even more disgraceful the way they treat staff when they try to raise serious issues such as this. If you get on their bad books you’re out, regardless of your performance.”

The same report in The Australian states that Comcare confirmed that investigations were underway into claims that three ANSTO employees were stepped down after raising safety concerns against ANSTO.

3 March 2011 − The Australian reports that:

• “Two employees of Australia’s only nuclear reactor facility who were suspended after raising safety concerns will return to work in what amounts to a tacit admission by the plant’s administrators that the accusations against them were overstated.”
• an AMWU report states: “We have ANSTO, a nuclear facility, threatening to dismiss employees for alleged misconduct arising from a contamination incident in which they had no part, yet ANSTO is unable to provide empirical evidence confirming the source of the contamination, or the level of contamination, after a seven-week investigation.”
• “The [AMWU] reports claim ANSTO failed to investigate suggestions by safety officer David Lee that contamination levels on Mr Semrani’s clothing after the September spill could have been up to a hundred times higher than were eventually reported. They further claim ANSTO lost data that could have clarified the issue.”

30 March 2011 − the ABC reports: “Australia’s nuclear industry regulator, ARPANSA, is under review over its handling of safety breaches at the nation’s only nuclear reactor. Last year, ABC 1’s Lateline revealed allegations of serious safety and operational breaches at the Lucas Height’s reactor in Sydney, which were later backed up by Australia’s workplace regulator, Comcare. A departmental investigation was launched by Science Minister Kim Carr last month, but now a party to that investigation – ARPANSA – is itself under review. The Chief Auditor is investigating how ARPANSA handled the original allegations of safety breaches and bullying at the nuclear site. ARPANSA last year released two conflicting reports on the claims at the Lucas Heights facility.”

31 May 2011 − The Australian reports that:

• “[ANSTO] has been cleared of safety breaches and a culture of cover-ups in a report tabled in Canberra yesterday but the Government-appointed panel that authored the report said the Lucas Heights reactor in Sydney’s south was ageing, staff were worried that maintenance occurred only for the most urgent matters, and an even more open approach to reporting health and safety problems should be adopted.”
• “… But the report also said staff were concerned that their managers lacked a good grasp of the plant’s production processes and that there was not enough long term or strategic maintenance work done at the facility. Despite the existence of maintenance plans, “staff argue that maintenance is only undertaken for the most urgent matters,” it said.”
• “The report also recommended the organisation allow staff to report safety problems directly to the radiation safety watchdog and Comcare if managers failed to respond to their concerns. In 2009-10, ANSTO Health had one breach of its licence and 56 radiology “events or near misses.””
• “The facility is also the subject of other, ongoing review, including one by the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency.”

30 May 2011 − The ABC reports:

• “The independent panel did not investigate individual incidents. While it didn’t find management has breached workplace safety laws, it said some staff members could be more open about reporting safety problems.”
• “David Reid says the review’s narrow terms of reference have meant that serious problems have been glossed over.”
• David Reid: “If you do not take safety seriously and do a root cause analysis of each accident, the accidents, they won’t learn from them and they’ll keep repeating the same accidents, which has happened over and over again. You have the same few people having the same accidents and the same people under-reporting or not reporting them.”

30 May 2011 − Senate Estimates − Greens Senator Scott Ludlam with ANSTO’s Dr Paterson.

• Senator Ludlam corrects a previous assertion by Senator Carr that the Comcare report was leaked − it was released under freedom of information.
• Senator Ludlam: “Dr Paterson, have the two union reps, Messrs Howe and Bourke, who were suspended around an incident in September last year, been vindicated of charges in relation to bringing up safety issues? Are they back at work on normal duties?”
• Dr Paterson: “In our agreement that we reached with the union for their return to work we agreed that we would continue our investigation, but on a no-blame basis. That investigation is still in train. ANSTO management still retains the view that they were suspended in relation to inappropriate behaviour in respect of escalating an incident and potentially intimidating some of their colleagues in the workforce. We retain that position. We also recognised, in discussion with the union, that with proper assurances from staff members it was more appropriate to return them to work to give them the opportunity to be in the workplace. We have been encouraged in that process that we were able to find a resolution that returned them to work while we continued a no-blame investigation in order to discover the types of behaviours and the types of approaches that we might take in the future to these sorts of incidents.”

June 2011 − Federal Department of Health and Ageing statement regarding its ‘Review into ARPANSA’s Handling of Certain Safety Matters at ANSTO’:

• The Secretary of the Department of Health and Ageing advised the ARPANSA CEO on 25 March 2011 of assistance which would be provided by the Department to undertake an initial investigation into ARPANSA’s handling of investigations into Yttrium 90 and Molybdenum 99 incidents at ANSTO with specific regards to matters relating to impartiality.
• In June 2009, an ANSTO employee advised ARPANSA of contamination incidents relating to Yttrium 90 and Molybdenum 99. The investigation of the contamination incidents within Building 23A raised questions concerning the appropriateness of ARPANSA’s handling. ARPANSA commenced a series of inspections with the Molybdenum report being finalised in March 2010 and the Yttrium 90 report in September 2010. With regards to the ARPANSA Yttrium 90 finalised report this incorporated extensive input from ANSTO as to timelines and did not include a reference to contamination of two employees during the morning of 3 September 2007.

7 July 2011 − The ABC reports: “The Health Department’s audit and fraud control branch has been investigating how ARPANSA handled allegations of safety breaches and bullying at the nation’s only nuclear reactor in Sydney. Whistleblowers had alleged ARPANSA was too close to the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO), which runs the Lucas Heights research facility. The whistleblowers claimed that safety reports were being compromised. The Health Department review also questioned ARPANSA’s impartiality.”

7 July 2011 − Parliamentary Secretary for Health and Ageing Catherine King said in a media release that the Department of Health and Ageing will review the regulatory powers of ARPANSA. This review follows the receipt of an independent audit by the Audit and Fraud Control Branch of the Department of Health and Ageing into ARPANSA’s handing of two safety incidents at ANSTO in September 2007 and August 2008. The audit, requested by the new CEO of ARPANSA, found that while the incidents were investigated and concluded at the time, there was a lack of consistency in evidence and transparency in the handling of one of the incidents.

7 July 2011 − An initial review conducted by the  Department of Health and Ageing into ARPANSA’s handling of safety incidents at ANSTO in September 2007 and August 2008 finds that: perceived doubts about ARPANSA’s impartiality have been resolved by a recent management reorganisation; the actions of ARPANSA in relation to the Molybdenum 99 incident of August 2008 were performed in an impartial manner; and ARPANSA’s investigations into the September 2007 Yttrium 90 contamination events in Building in 23A at ANSTO should be subject to further investigation. As a result of the report ARPANSA will be reopening an investigation into its handling of the Yttrium 90 safety incident of September 2007. An independent investigator will be appointed to assist with this investigation. ARPANSA will also be undertaking a number of actions to improve its regulatory functions including strengthening ARPANSA’s oversight of ANSTO and improving transparency within the agency.

8 July 2011 − the ABC reports that the review of ARPANSA found an improper relationship with ANSTO. The Health Department’s audit and fraud control branch has been investigating how ARPANSA handled allegations of safety breaches and bullying at the nation’s only nuclear reactor in Sydney. Whistleblowers had alleged ARPANSA was too close to ANSTO. The whistleblowers claimed that safety reports were being compromised. The Health Department review also questioned ARPANSA’s impartiality. The Federal Government is now reviewing ARPANSA’s regulatory powers, with Thursday’s report recommending they be strengthened if necessary.

19 October 2011 − Senate Estimates (Economics Committee) with Greeens Senator Scott Ludlam and ANSTO’s Dr Paterson:

• Dr Paterson tables the Review of Current Health and Safety Arrangements at ANSTO Health: ANSTO’s Response October 2011.
• Senator Ludlam refused access through FoI process to the June 2011 report arising from the Department of Health and Ageing’s review into ARPANSA’s handling of certain safety matters at ANSTO. ANSTO has only been given the Executive Summary − Dr Paterson says that “it was not an investigation of ANSTO but a department of health internal audit review of ARPANSA, which is their instrument.”
• Senator Ludlam: “How many reports of radiological contamination do you get in an average month?”
• Dr Paterson: “In a typical month we would be talking about between three and perhaps 10, if there had been a significant number in relation to particular production activities. For example, if there is contamination in one area it may affect more than one worker at different times. We can provide the summary you request.”

15 November 2011 − Nuclear and radiation safety experts assembled by the International Atomic Energy Agency concluded an eight-day mission to review ARPANSA. This follow-up mission examined ARPANSA’s progress in acting upon the recommendations and suggestions made during the 2007 mission and reviewed the areas of significant regulatory changes since that review. The review team found that ARPANSA has made significant progress toward improving its regulatory activities, as most of the findings identified in the 2007 report have been effectively addressed and therefore can be considered closed. The team also made recommendations and suggestions to further strengthen ARPANSA’s regulatory system. The team identified areas where the Australian Government should take actions to enhance the national regulatory infrastructure for nuclear safety and security, including revising the ARPANS Act to take full account of international principles, recommendations and IAEA safety standards and guides; and enhancing the national framework for nuclear and radiation emergency preparedness by clearly identifying and assigning responsibilities to ARPANSA and other appropriate organizations.

20 February 2012 − Senate Estimates with Greens Senator Scott Ludlam and ANSTO’s Dr Paterson:

• Senator Ludlam: Dr Paterson, welcome back. I note that a Department of Health and Aging review was undertaken into ARPANSA’s handling of certain safety matters in ANSTO, that there was a report issued last year and that, as a result of that report being produced, an investigation, I believe, has been reopened within ANSTO into an incident that happened five years ago with yttrium-90. Can you tell us why that is?
• Dr Paterson: ANSTO has not reopened an investigation into that matter, but we have received notification from ARPANSA that an independent person appointed by ARPANSA is going to undertake a review of whether an incident with yttrium-90 took place on the morning of 3 September 2007. …
• Senator LUDLAM: Are there particular recommendations that have fallen out of that [Comcare report] that you are taking up?
• Dr Paterson: Yes, there is a set of recommendations that were made in the report. We have reviewed those recommendations. We have accepted all of those recommendations and we have met with Comcare to brief them on the actions we are taking to meet those recommendations. …
• Dr Paterson: “Over time, certainly over the last two years there has been an improvement in incident reporting and the effectiveness of that incident reporting and in the total number of reports, and I think that that has been a really good benefit.”
• Dr Paterson: I think it is very clear that the original Comcare review found that Mr Reid had not been sanctioned for any health-and-safety related matter. The second Comcare review in relation to suspension of employees found that there was no breach in respect of the suspension process and that the suspension process was not in any way associated with health or safety concerns.

February 2012 − Senate Estimates – Greens Senator Scott Ludlam with ARPANSA’s Dr Larsson:

• Senator Ludlam: I would like to acknowledge your decision to ask the department of health to review some of the investigations into practices at ANSTO. We heard their side of the story a little earlier in the day. I am informed of a vastly improved safety culture at ANSTO. That shows, I suppose, that there was enormous room for improvement from when we started this a couple of years ago. I asked ANSTO this morning about an investigation that was being reopened as an outcome of that department of health investigation held five years ago into an incident involving Yttrium-90. They said that that is being reopened because what has been revealed is the possibility that a relationship between ANSTO staff and someone at ARPANSA might have influenced a report. We had some of the story described very briefly from ANSTO this morning, but they have handballed it to your desk. So can you just tell us what is occurring there?
• Dr Larsson: I will recap. You might remember that I actually called for a review of two of the previous inspections that we had done at ANSTO—one that related to an incident in 2008 and the other that related to an incident in 2007; the one that you mention about the protection of Yttrium-90. I asked for assistance from the department of health and I got a report from the department of health which said that the incident in 2008 relating to the production of molybdenum could be a closed case. There was still a possibility of questions that needed to be asked in relation to the Yttrium-90 incident, which was back in 2007, 4½ years ago. As a result of that review that I got from the audit and fraud unit of the department of health, I contracted KPMG to look further into this. The report is likely to be delivered to me by the end of March. Before that, I do not have any more information to provide to you.

16 March 2012 − The Australian reports that:

• “[ANSTO] used findings of an inaccurate, biased and partially fabricated in-house report as the pretext to suspend − and recommend the dismissal of − two employees who raised health and safety concerns over the mishandling of radioactive materials. The conclusion comes from an investigation by the national workplace regulator, Comcare, into events surrounding an incident in September 2010 in which a third employee was contaminated with radioactive yttrium-90 at the radioisotope production facility (ARI).”
• “The Comcare investigation report, completed last December and obtained by The Australian, confirms long-running claims of bullying and cover-ups at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation’s Lucas Heights facility in Sydney’s south.”
• “Comcare found the ANSTO investigator’s report “was not impartial or reliable”. He noted as well, that the investigator included fabricated statements and “relied on hearsay and opinion from personnel . . . in the form of emails, conversations and handwritten notes”.”
• “Comcare concluded that the men had been denied procedural justice, and that the ANSTO investigation’s findings “cannot be accepted as factual evidence”.”

22 March 2012 − The Australian reports that ANSTO is facing legal action brought by David Reid, a former technician and staff-elected health and safety officer. Mr Reid is seeking compensation for harm he claims he suffered after raising concerns about contamination incidents in the radioisotope production facility between 2007 and 2008.

28 May 2012 − Budget Estimates – Economics Committee, Greens Senator Scott Ludlam and ANSTO’s Dr Paterson:

• Senator LUDLAM: Yes, if you want to make nuclear weapons and stuff, but let us not go there. Mr Paterson, I do not think you addressed this in your opening statement. On 16 March, 2012 a piece that ran in the Australian reported that ANSTO had used findings of an inaccurate, biased and partially fabricated in-house report as the pretext to suspend a number of workers, and ANSTO still appears to be a rather unhappy workplace. An investigation by a regulator into activities at ANSTO finds room for improvement in some fairly basic and fundamental areas, and nine recommendations were made by Comcare. Could you please tell the committee how ANSTO is making the multiple additional improvements identified by Comcare in its report? Do you want to just give us an update on what ANSTO is doing in response to that report?
• Dr Paterson: The media report or the report of Comcare?
• Senator LUDLAM: No, the report of Comcare.
• Dr Paterson: In respect of the that report, the first point that I wish to make is that ANSTO and I, as the leader of ANSTO, do not tolerate any kind of workplace bullying. The employees concerned continue to work at ANSTO in positions mutually agreed by ANSTO, the unions and the employees concerned. ANSTO continues to have a good relationship with those employees and their union representatives. They are performing a valuable role. In respect to the Comcare report, Comcare made no findings of any breach. Comcare proposed a series of recommendations that ANSTO has accepted and has developed into an action plan agreed with both Comcare and the relevant union. The report made recommendations about ANSTO improving investigations, which have been accepted. ANSTO has now adopted the Australian government investigation standard as the basis for all of our investigations, and is rolling out appropriate training to those staff who are involved in such investigations to ensure that they meet the relevant standard.
• Senator LUDLAM: Who were not appropriately trained.
• Dr Paterson: They were trained in investigative processes, but we were not aware that there was an Australian government investigation standard. Our investigators have always been trained, but this is a higher bar and we are very happy to complete with that higher bar. We urge all other institutions that conduct human resource investigations to meet the same standard.
• Senator LUDLAM: Could you table for the committee the action plan that you mentioned?
• Dr Paterson: I would be prepared to take that on notice, but we can table it.
• Senator LUDLAM: I do not know whether there would be privacy implications.
• Dr Paterson: There may well be some privacy implications, but those will not be extensive. I think we would be very happy to share that action plan.
• Senator LUDLAM: Take names out if you will, but that would be much appreciated.

19 June 2012 − A KPMG report commissioned by ARPANSA finds that:

• on 3 September 2007, two personal contamination events were reported
• it is likely that one or more ANSTO employee received radiation exposure during the 3 September 2007 incidents
• “The recollection of events by existing and former ANSTO employees is imprecise at best.”
• “In summary, we find that it is possible that the version of events in Mr Reid’s allegations did occur.”
• a 28 May 2010 report by ARPANSA notes that ARPANSA “investigators were not able to piece together the full events of the day.”
• the incidents were “most likely caused by escape of materials through the service port of the “glove box” used to manufacture Y-90, not through a pinhole in the glove as the internal ANSTO review had found.”
• ARPANSA supplied ANSTO with transcripts of interviews with ANSTO staff.
• on 18 May 2010 ARPANSA provided ANSTO with a preliminary inspection report, and the final inspection report was supplied to ANSTO on 10 September 2010.
• on 23 February 2011, the CEO of ARPANSA sought assistance from the Department of Health and Ageing (DoHA) to undertake an investigation to incidents in September 2007 (Y-90) and August 2008 (Mo-99)
• on 10 June 2011 the DoHA investigation concluded that Mr Reid’s allegations regarding 3 September 2007 incidents had not been adequately tested. DoHA recommended that an independent reviewer be engaged to reinvestigate the allegations − hence this ARPANSA-commissioned review by KPMG.
• neither the interim report nor the final report by ARPANSA “sufficiently examined Mr Reid’s allegations that a contamination incident … occurred during the morning of 3 September 2007.”

More information on inadequate safety practices at ANSTO and inadequate regulation:

• Friends of the Earth website
• Lucas Heights whistleblower sparks nuclear safety fears, ABC, 5 May 2010
• 1 June 2010 – Senate Estimates with Greens Senator Scott Ludlam and ANSTO’s Dr Paterson
• Report slams Australian nuclear reactor, ABC Lateline, 8 Feb 2011
• Safety breaches at reactor The Australian, 8 Feb 2011
• Nuclear whistleblower treated unfairly The Australian, 8 Feb 2011
• Video: Report slams Australian nuclear reactor (ABC Lateline), 9 Feb 2011
• Report scathing of nuclear reactor safety ABC, 9 Feb 2011
• Nuclear reactor under investigation The Australian, 9 Feb 2011
• Nuclear safety breaches concern Opposition, ABC, 9 Feb 2011
• Reactor staff ‘bullied over safety concerns’, The Australian, 28 Feb 2011
• Backdown at Lucas Heights over safety claims, The Australian, 3 March 2011
• Nuclear agency safety ‘stuck in 70s’ The Australian, 24 May 2011
• 30 May 2011 − Senate Estimates − ANSTO
• 19 October 2011 − Senate Estimates − ANSTO
• 20 February 2012 − Senate Estimates − ANSTO
• February 2012 − Senate Estimates – ARPANSA
• Lucas Heights nuclear reactor bullying exposed, The Australian, 16 March 2012
• Third nuclear worker in bullying claim, The Australian, 22 March 2012
• KPMG report commissioned by ARPANSA
• 28 May 2012 − Budget Estimates – ANSTO

Updates

• Nuclear agency boss emotional as whistleblower taunts, 18 October 2012, Bianca Hall, The Age, http://www.theage.com.au/national/nuclear-agency-boss-emotional-as-whistleblower-taunts-20121017-27riz.html

“KPMG conducted the most recent investigation into the incident, reporting in June that many current and former ANSTO employees had ”imprecise at best” recollections of the incident. But it found the regulator – the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency – failed to properly investigate the matter and neither its interim, nor final inspection reports, ”sufficiently examined allegations that a contamination incident … occurred”.”

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Fukushima “under control”?

Jim Green, 28 March 2015, The Ecologist

www.theecologist.org/News/news_analysis/2810545/after_fukushima_japans_nuclear_village_is_back_in_charge.html

Public opposition to nuclear power in Japan remains strong, writes Jim Green, but piece by piece, Shinzo Abe’s right-wing government has been putting the country’s infamous ‘nuclear village’ back in control − boosted by draconian press censorship laws, massive interest-free loans, and a determination to forget all the ‘lessons’ of Fukushima. Is another big accident inevitable?

Public opposition to reactor restarts (and the nuclear industry more generally) continues to exert some influence in Japan. Five to seven of the oldest of Japan’s 48 ‘operable’ reactors are likely to be sacrificed to dampen opposition to the restart of other reactors, and local opposition may result in the permanent shut down of some other reactors. Currently, all 48 of Japan’s ‘operable’ reactors are shut down − and the six reactors at Fukushima Daiichi have been written off.

However, slowly but surely, the corrupt and collusive practices that led to the Fukushima disaster are re-emerging. The ‘nuclear village’ is back in control.

Energy policy

After the Fukushima accident, the Democratic Party of Japan (DPJ) government commenced a review of energy policy. After deliberations in a committee that included more or less equal numbers of nuclear critics, proponents and neutral people, three scenarios were put forward in June 2012 − based on 0%, 15% and 20-25% of electricity generation from nuclear reactors.

These scenarios were put to a broad national debate, the outcome of which was that a clear majority of the public supported a nuclear phase-out. The national debate played a crucial role in pushing the DPJ government to support a nuclear phase-out.

After the December 2012 national election, the incoming Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) government repudiated the DPJ’s goal of phasing out nuclear power. The LDP government also revamped the policy-drafting committee, drastically reducing the number of nuclear critics. And the committee itself was sidelined in the development of a draft Basic Energy Plan.

“From a process perspective, this represents a step back about 20 years”, said Dr Philip White, an expert on Japan’s energy policy formation process.

“A major step toward greater public participation and disclosure of information occurred after the December 1995 sodium leak and fire at the Monju fast breeder reactor.” Dr White wrote. “Although public participation was not conducted in good faith, at least lip service was paid. It seems that the current government has decided that it doesn’t even need to pay lip service.”

The Basic Energy Plan approved by Cabinet in April 2014 contains nothing more than a meaningless nod to widespread public anti-nuclear sentiment, stating that dependence on nuclear energy will be reduced ‘to the extent possible’.

Junko Edahiro, chief executive of Japan for Sustainability and one of the people removed from the energy policy advisory committee, noted in November 2014: “Now what we have is a situation where government officials and committees are back to doing their jobs as if the March 2011 disasters had never occurred. They have resumed what they had been doing for 30 or 40 years, focusing on nuclear power … In Japan we have what some people refer to as a ‘nuclear village’: a group of government officials, industries, and academia notorious for being strongly pro-nuclear. There has been little change in this group, and the regulatory committee to oversee nuclear policies and operations is currently headed by a well-known nuclear proponent.”

‘An accident will surely happen again’

Yotaro Hatamura, who previously chaired the ‘Cabinet Office Investigation Committee on the Accident at the Fukushima Nuclear Power Stations of TEPCO’, recently told the Asahi Shimbun newspaper that pre-Fukushima complacency is returning.

“Sufficient investigations have not been conducted” into the causes of the Fukushima disaster, said Hatamura, professor emeritus of mechanical engineering at the University of Tokyo.

The Cabinet Office Investigation Committee report called on the government to continue efforts to determine the cause of the nuclear disaster, but “almost none” of its proposals have been reflected in recent government actions, Hatamura said.

He further noted that tougher nuclear safety standards were introduced after the Fukushima disaster, but with the exception of this “regulatory hurdle … the situation seems unchanged from before the accident.”

“It does not appear that organizations to watch [government actions] are working properly”, Hatamura said. “There could always be lapses in oversight in safety assessments, and an accident will surely happen again.”

Hatamura questioned the adequacy of evacuation plans, saying they have been compiled without fully reflecting on the Fukushima accident: “The restarts of reactors should be declared only after sufficient preparations are made, such as conducting evacuation drills covering all residents living within 30 kilometers of each plant based on developed evacuation plans.”

Japan Atomic Energy Commission

In September 2012, the DPJ government promised that a review of the Japan Atomic Energy Commission (JAEC) would be conducted ‘with its abolition and reorganization in mind’. The government established a review committee, which published a report in December 2012. After taking office, the incoming LDP government shelved the report and commenced a new review.

The second review recommended that the JAEC no longer produce an overarching Framework for Nuclear Energy Policy. But an LDP committee has reportedly decided that the JAEC will be tasked with putting together a nuclear energy policy that would effectively have equivalent status to the Framework for Nuclear Energy Policy.

Two reviews, very little change − and far from being abolished, the JAEC retains a role in framing nuclear policy. Moreover, the government has proposed that the JAEC, a promoter of nuclear power, could acts as a ‘third party’ in the choice of a final disposal site for nuclear waste. Some experts who attended a ministry panel meeting in February questioned the JAEC’s independence.

Government’s massive financial support for TEPCO

Many have called for TEPCO to be nationalised, or broken up into separate companies, but the LDP government has protected and supported the company. The government has also greatly increased financial support for TEPCO.

For example in January 2014 the government approved an increase in the ceiling for interest-free loans the Nuclear Damage Liability Facilitation Fund is allowed to give TEPCO, from 5 trillion yen to 9 trillion yen (€39.0-70.2 billion)

The government will also cover some of the costs for dealing with the Fukushima accident which TEPCO was previously required to pay, such as an estimated 1.1 trillion yen (€8.6 billion) for interim storage facilities for waste from clean-up activities outside the Fukushima Daiichi plant.

The government has also amended the Electricity Business Act to extend the period for collecting decommissioning funds from electricity rates by up to 10 years after nuclear plants are shut down. The amendments also allow TEPCO to include in electricity rates depreciation costs for additional equipment purchased for the decommissioning of the Fukushima plant.

Special Committee for Investigation of Nuclear Power Issues

An early example of the LDP government’s reconstitution of the nuclear village was the Special Committee for Investigation of Nuclear Power Issues, established by the LDP government in 2013 to monitor nuclear power administration.

A majority of the Committee members double as members of the LDP. “We avoided anti-nuclear lawmakers”, said a senior official of the LDP’s Diet Affairs Committee.

LDP parliamentarian Taro Kono, a member of a multi-party group of anti-nuclear parliamentarians, wanted to join the committee but was snubbed.

Ironically, the Special Committee was formed as a result of a recommendation from the Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission, which was scathing about the sort of cynical cronyism that its recommendation led to.

Media censorship and intimidation

Japan has steadily slipped down Reporters Without Borders global ranking for press freedom since the Fukushima disaster, from 11th in 2010 to 61st in the latest ranking.

Journalists have been threatened with ‘criminal contempt’ and defamation suits, and Japan’s ‘state secrets’ law makes investigative journalism about Japan’s nuclear industry a perilous undertaking. Under the law, which took effect in December 2014, the government can sentence those who divulge government secrets − which are broadly defined − to a decade in jail.

Benjamin Ismaïl from Reporters Without Borders wrote in March 2014: “As we feared in 2012, the freedom to inform and be informed continues to be restricted by the ‘nuclear village’ and government, which are trying to control coverage of their handling of the aftermath of this disaster. Its long-term consequences are only now beginning to emerge and coverage of the health risks and public health issues is more important than ever.”

Reporters Without Borders said in March 2014: “Both Japanese and foreign reporters have described to Reporters Without Borders the various methods used by the authorities to prevent independent coverage of the [Fukushima] disaster and its consequences. They have been prevented from covering anti-nuclear demonstrations and have been threatened with criminal proceedings for entering the ‘red zone’ declared around the plant. And they have even been interrogated and subjected to intimidation by the intelligence services.”

Lessons learned … and quickly forgotten

The corruption and collusion of Japan’s nuclear village led to numerous accidents before the Fukushima disaster.

And the corruption and collusion of Japan’s nuclear village was a root cause of the Fukushima disaster itself. On that point the Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission could not have been blunter: “The accident was the result of collusion between the government, the regulators and TEPCO, and the lack of governance by said parties.”

A big part of the post-Fukushima spin is that lessons were learned from the nuclear disaster and improvements made. But the real lesson from this saga is that the nuclear industry − in Japan at least − has learned nothing from its catastrophic mistakes.

As Yotaro Hatamura says, an accident will surely happen again.

Dr Jim Green is the national nuclear campaigner with Friends of the Earth Australia and editor of the Nuclear Monitor newsletter, where this article was originally published (March 19, 2015 | No. 800). Nuclear Monitor is published 20 times a year. It has been publishing deeply researched, often strongly critical articles on all aspects of the nuclear cycle since 1978. A must-read for all those who work on this issue!

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Spinning Fukushima’s Second Anniversary

Gavin Mudd and Jim Green, 30/1/13, New Matilda

http://newmatilda.com/2013/01/30/spinning-fukushimas-second-anniversary

With the second anniversary of the Fukushima disaster approaching, nuclear supporters around the world are promoting a set of disingenuous arguments. With a full-frontal assault on science and logic they contrive to blame the profound impacts of the disaster not on the nuclear industry but on nuclear critics and independent scientists.

The industry-funded Australian Uranium Association (AUA) sets out these arguments in its first media release for the year. The AUA objects to estimates of the long-term cancer death toll from the Fukushima disaster based on estimates of population-wide (collective) radiation exposure. These estimates include a “very preliminary order-of-magnitude guesstimate” of “around 1000″  fatal cancers, another scientific study suggesting “~100s cases” of fatal cancers, and a Stanford University study that estimates “an additional 130 (15-1100) cancer-related mortalities and 180 (24-1800) cancer-related morbidities incorporating uncertainties associated with the exposure-dose and dose-response models used in the study.”

So, what’s wrong with using collective radiation exposure figures to estimate long-term cancer deaths? Before talking about the real limitations of that approach, let’s pause and admire the AUA’s explanation: “This method is akin to saying that small rocks thrown at a lot of people will kill some of them because the combined weight of the small rocks is large enough to do so. … In other words, science confirms common sense: small additional radiation exposures for a lot of people will not kill some of them just because the combined radiation exposure is large.”

The rock analogy doesn’t square with the overwhelming weight of scientific opinion, which holds that there is no threshold below which ionising radiation is without risk. For example:

• The 2005 report of the Committee on the Biological Effects of Ionising Radiation of the US National Academy of Sciences states that: “The Committee judges that the balance of evidence from epidemiologic, animal and mechanistic studies tend to favor a simple proportionate relationship at low doses between radiation dose and cancer risk.”
• A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences in 2003 concluded that “the most reasonable assumption is that the cancer risks from low doses … decrease linearly with decreasing dose.”
• And to give one other example (there are many), a 2010 report by the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation (UNSCEAR) states that “the current balance of available evidence tends to favour a non-threshold response for the mutational component of radiation-associated cancer induction at low doses and low dose rates.”

So the AUA’s analogy with throwing rocks is silly — yet it is being trotted out ad nauseum by nuclear advocates. The US Health Physics Society uses the rock analogy and adds this gem of an explanation: “… if the most highly exposed person receives a trivial dose, then everyone’s dose will be trivial and we can’t expect anyone to get cancer.” Thus the problem of low-level radiation exposure risk is redefined as a non-problem of “trivial” doses which are, by definition, harmless. It would be too kind to describe that as circular logic — it is asinine (and a reminder that scientists themselves are sometimes guilty of great crimes against science and logic).

While the weight of scientific opinion holds that there is no threshold below which radiation exposure is harmless, there is less scientific confidence about how to quantify the risks. Risk estimates for low-level radiation exposure are typically based on a linear extrapolation of better-understood risks from higher levels of exposure.

This “Linear No Threshold” model has some heavy-hitting scientific support. The above-mentioned study reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences states: “Given that it is supported by experimentally grounded, quantifiable, biophysical arguments, a linear extrapolation of cancer risks from intermediate to very low doses currently appears to be the most appropriate methodology.” Likewise, the above-mentioned US National Academy of Sciences report states that “the risk of cancer proceeds in a linear fashion at lower doses without a threshold and … the smallest dose has the potential to cause a small increase in risk to humans.”

Nonetheless, there is certainly uncertainty with the LNT model — the true risks could be higher or lower. And, as the AUA trumpets, UNSCEAR and the International Commission on Radiological Protection (ICRP) recommend against using collective dose figures and LNT risk estimates to estimate total deaths (even though UNSCEAR itself uses that approach to estimate up to 4000 long-term cancer deaths among the people who received the highest radiation doses from Chernobyl).

The problem with the recommendation from UNSCEAR and the ICRP is that there is simply no other way to arrive at an estimate of the death toll from Fukushima (or from Chernobyl, routine emissions across the nuclear fuel cycle, or anything else). Public health (epidemiological) studies of varying quality will be carried out in Japan, but all face great obstacles. Cancers are common diseases and isolating the contribution of one factor becomes a futile exercise, like trying to find a needle in a hay-stack. Another difficulty is that most cancers are multi-causal. The upshot is that cancer incidence and mortality statistics are being pushed up and down by a myriad of factors at any point in time and it becomes impossible or near-impossible to isolate any one factor.

Given the severe limitations of public health studies, we’d best return to collective dose estimates and the LNT model. By all means we should acknowledge the uncertainties. As the report from the US National Academy of Sciences states, “combined analyses are compatible with a range of possibilities, from a reduction of risk at low doses to risks twice those upon which current radiation protection recommendations are based.”

The National Academy of Sciences makes the important point that the true risks may be lower or higher than predicted by LNT — a point that needs emphasis and constant repetition because nuclear apologists routinely conflate uncertainty with zero risk.

The AUA states: “We need to know if people die as a result of the releases.” But the AUA rejects the only method of arriving at an estimate of the death toll from Fukushima and fails to suggest any alternatives.

The AUA goes further with this attack: “Those who use collective dose estimates of a Fukushima death toll should bear in mind the negative emotional effect of their advocacy, especially now that the world’s premier radiation protection organisations have made clear the absence of a scientific basis for the estimates of the alarmists.”

Uranium industry consultant (and self-described “pro-nuclear environmentalist”) Ben Heard ratchets up the rhetoric: “Building outrage through tried and true techniques is a known, understood and practiced part of activism. It needs to be called out, named and denounced loudly, clearly and often. They are doing harm. It is, in a word, outrageous.”

Rather than untangling that tortured logic, let’s finish with a few simple truths about Fukushima. The most authoritative and detailed report to date was carried out by the Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission (NAIIC), which was established by an Act of the Japanese Parliament.

The NAIIC report lifts the lid on the widespread corruption and collusion that led to the Fukushima disaster, stating that the accident was “a profoundly man-made disaster that could and should have been foreseen and prevented” if not for “a multitude of errors and wilful negligence that left the Fukushima plant unprepared for the events of March 11”. The accident was the result of “collusion between the government, the regulators and [plant operator] TEPCO”.

The report is equally scathing about the response to the disaster. It notes that most of the 150,000 evacuees from the nuclear disaster are still dislocated and they “continue to face grave concerns, including the health effects of radiation exposure, displacement, the dissolution of families, disruption of their lives and lifestyles and the contamination of vast areas of the environment.”

Regardless of the long-term death toll, the Fukushima disaster has caused immense suffering and it will be decades before we’ve heard the last of it. For uranium industry spivs to blame that suffering on “alarmists” using collective dose figures and LNT risk estimates is disingenuous. They ought instead to be asking themselves some hard questions about why they turned a blind eye to the endemic corruption and collusion in Japan’s “nuclear village” — corruption and collusion that was responsible for the Fukushima disaster and countless other accidents and “incidents”. There was a mountain of evidence  on the public record long before the Fukushima disaster.

Gavin Mudd is a Senior Lecturer in Environmental Engineering at Monash University. Jim Green is the national nuclear campaigner with Friends of the Earth.

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The fallout from Fukushima

ABC Opinion, 2 August 2012, Jim Green, www.abc.net.au/unleashed/4171344.html

Two important reports have been released in recent weeks – one analysing the March 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster and another on the impact of the disaster on the nuclear ‘renaissance’.

The report of the 10-member Nuclear Accident Independent Investigation Commission (NAAIC) – established by Japan’s national parliament – states that the Fukushima disaster was “a profoundly man-made disaster that could and should have been foreseen and prevented”.

The report “catalogues a multitude of errors and wilful negligence that left the Fukushima plant unprepared for the events of March 11.” The accident was the result of “collusion between the government, the regulators and [Fukushima plant operator] TEPCO”, the report states, and these parties “betrayed the nation’s right to be safe from nuclear accidents.”

TEPCO “manipulated its cosy relationship with regulators to take the teeth out of regulations.” The independence of the regulators “was a mockery”.

Those conclusions, based on 900 hours of hearings and 1,167 interviews, contrast sharply with the spin from nuclear apologists that the disaster was caused by the ‘unforeseeable’ scale of the earthquake and tsunami.

The NAIIC report is equally scathing about the response to the disaster: “Insufficient evacuation planning led to many residents receiving unnecessary radiation exposure. Others were forced to move multiple times, resulting in increased stress and health risks – including deaths among seriously ill patients.”

In some cases people were moved to areas with higher radiation levels than the place they started from. Iitate village, north-west of Fukushima, was not evacuated for over a month despite earlier evidence of radiation levels in excess of the evacuation criteria.

A bungled evacuation of 340 patients from a hospital near the nuclear plant was one of many problems that arose because of seriously inadequate emergency planning (which, in turn, was due to hubris, cost-cutting and collusion). Eight patients died after spending almost 12 hours on a bus while about 35 were mistakenly left at the hospital for two additional days. Nearly 600 deaths were caused by fatigue or by medical conditions worsened by evacuation from areas affected by the tsunami and/or the nuclear disaster.

TEPCO failed to give most workers dosimeters to measure radiation exposure in the days after the crisis. A construction company forced workers at the Fukushima plant to cover their dosimeters with lead plates in a bid to stay under the exposure threshold and to prolong their work at the stricken plant. An executive explained: “We judged mistakenly that we could bring peace of mind to the workers if we could somehow delay their dosimeters’ alarms going off.”

Most of the 150,000 evacuees from the nuclear disaster are still dislocated and the NAIIC report notes that they “continue to face grave concerns, including the health effects of radiation exposure, displacement, the dissolution of families, disruption of their lives and lifestyles and the contamination of vast areas of the environment.”

The report states that “the government and the regulators are not fully committed to protecting public health and safety; that they have not acted to protect the health of the residents and to restore their welfare.” Add that to the “wilful negligence” that caused the disaster in the first place and it is no wonder that there are regular, large anti-nuclear protests in Japan. A July 16 protest in Tokyo, for example, was attended by 100,000 to 170,000 citizens. Most Japanese opposed the construction of new reactors even before Fukushima.

What a shame that Prime Minister Gillard pronounced last year that Fukushima “doesn’t have any impact on my thinking about uranium exports”. The disaster and its aftermath provide plenty of food for thought about the wisdom of turning a blind eye for many years to the gross mismanagement of nuclear power in one of Australia’s uranium customer countries. Apart from anything else, that blinkered approach isn’t good for business. Japan’s previous plan to increase nuclear to 50 per cent of electricity generation is in tatters; a cold peace may be achieved at a figure of around 15 per cent.

The 2012 World Nuclear Industry Status Report details the impact of the Fukushima disaster on the global nuclear ‘renaissance’. Global nuclear power capacity has been stagnant for the past 20 years – the renaissance has been more rhetoric than reality.

In 2011, seven new reactors started up while 19 were shut down. Four countries have announced that they will phase out nuclear power within a given timeframe: Belgium, Germany, Switzerland and Taiwan. At least five countries have decided not to engage or re-engage in nuclear power programs – Egypt, Italy, Jordan, Kuwait, and Thailand. Some countries – such as China and India – will continue with nuclear expansion plans but at a slower pace.

Of the 59 power reactors under construction around the world, at least 18 are experiencing multi-year delays and the others are in the early phase of construction with no certainty of reaching completion. Construction costs are rapidly rising. Most of the world’s power reactors are edging towards old-age so even if modest short-term growth is achieved, significant new build will be required in coming decades just to replace permanent reactor shut downs.

Last year Iran became the first country to start commercial operation of a new nuclear power plant since Romania in 1996. However Iran’s alleged pursuit of nuclear weapons points to the long history of ‘peaceful’ nuclear programs providing political cover and technical support for WMD programs. More food for thought for our Prime Minister.

Jim Green is the national nuclear campaigner with Friends of the Earth and author of a detailed briefing paper on the events leading up to the Fukushima disaster.

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More articles …

One year on, Fukushima is still spinning, 15 Feb 2012

Experts protect a nuclear interest, 16 March 2011

Why Fukushima Was A Man-Made Disaster, 8 March 2012

Jim Green

Chain Reaction #115, August 2012, www.foe.org.au/chain-reaction

Interesting times in the uranium sector. The mining companies have had a few wins since the March 2011 Fukushima disaster, but they’ve had more to commiserate.

Bill Repard, organiser of the Paydirt Uranium Conference held in Adelaide in February, put on a brave face with his claim that: “The sector’s hiccups in the wake of Fukushima are now over with, the global development of new nuclear power stations continues unabated and the Australian sector has literally commenced a U-turn in every sense,” Mr Repard said.

Yet for all the hype, uranium accounts for a lousy 0.03 percent of Australian export revenue and a negligible 0.02 percent of Australian jobs. The industry’s future depends on the nuclear power ‘renaissance’, but global nuclear power capacity has been stagnant for the past 20 years and if there is any growth at all in the next 20 years, it will be modest.

The uranium price tanked after the Fukushima disaster and so far there is no sign of a bounce. Current prices are too low to allow the smaller uranium wannabes to proceed with any confidence.

In South Australia, BHP Billiton’s plan for a massive expansion of the Olympic Dam copper/uranium mine has yet to be approved by the company board, with recent rumblings that the project may be put on the slow-track. Japanese company Mitsui recently pulled out the Honeymoon uranium mine as it “could not foresee sufficient economic return from the project”. Marathon Resources’ plan to mine uranium has been terminated by a state government decision to protect the Arkaroola Wilderness Sanctuary − a decision made all the easier by the company’s licence breaches during exploration.

The industry also has problems in the Northern Territory. A Traditional Owner veto has put an end to plans to mine Koongarra, and plans are in train to incorporate the mining lease into Kakadu National Park. Energy Resources of Australia has abandoned plans to use heap leach mining at the Ranger mine, though an exploratory drilling program has recently commenced. Water management problems continue to plague the mining and milling of uranium at Ranger. At various times in recent years, both the NT Country Liberal Party and the Labor Party have opposed plans to build a mine at Angela Pamela, a short distance from Alice Springs and an even shorter distance from the town’s water supply.

In Queensland, the new Liberal National Party government has so far stuck to its pre-election promise to prohibit uranium mining. That may change, but in any case Queensland is home to no more than around three percent of Australia’s uranium reserves. The NSW Liberal Party government has recently passed legislation to permit uranium exploration − but exploration in earlier decades yielded little of interest.

Western Australia

Western Australia is now the key uranium battleground. The Liberal Party state government supports uranium mining. State Labor policy is to oppose uranium mining but party leader Mark McGowan says that any mines that have received state government approvals would not be stopped by an incoming Labor government.

As elsewhere, it has been a miserable year for the uranium mining wannabes in WA. At least two projects have been put on hold. The only company with any chance of receiving government approvals before the 2013 state election is Toro Energy, which is pursuing plans to mine about 12,000 tonnes of uranium at Wiluna in the Goldfields.

You’d think that Toro Energy might keep a low profile given the political sensitivities. Not so. The company has been loudly defending TEPCO, the notorious operator of the crippled Fukushima plant − even in the face of overwhelming evidence of TEPCO’s record of safety breaches and cover-ups.

Still more controversially, Toro Energy has paid for a number of speaking tours by fringe scientists who claim that exposure to low-level radiation is harmless or even beneficial to human health. Fourty-five Australian medical doctors recently signed a statement calling on Toro Energy to stop promoting junk science and noting that recent scientific research has heightened concern about exposure to radon, the main source of radiation exposure to uranium miners.

The WA Conservation Council is leading the battle to stop Toro Energy opening up the state’s first uranium mining, and has established a website to challenge the company’s claims. The Conservation Council has also produced a detailed ‘Alternative Annual Report’ raising a host of concerns about Toro Energy and its plan to mine at Wiluna. A ‘Toro Watch’ website has been established to hold the company to account for its jiggery pokery and shenanigans (www.toro.org.au).

The history of uranium exploration in the Goldfields is one of the obstacles facing Toro Energy. Uranium exploration in the 1980s left a legacy of pollution and contamination. Radiation levels more than 100 times normal background readings have been recorded despite the area being ‘cleaned’ a decade ago. Even after the ‘clean up’, the Wiluna exploration site was left with rusting drums containing uranium ore, and a sign reading ‘Danger − low level radiation ore exposed’ was found lying face down in bushes.

In August 2000, Steve Syred, coordinator of the Wiluna-based Marruwayura Aboriginal Corporation, said that until about 1993, 100−150 people were living at an old mission three kilometres from the spot where high radiation levels were recorded. Mr. Syred told the Kalgoorlie Miner that the Aboriginal community had unsuccessfully resisted uranium exploration in the area in the early 1980s. Since then many people had lived in the area while the Ngangganawili Aboriginal Corporation was based near the site. Elders still hunted in the area.

More than 5,000 tonnes of radioactive tailings from the Yeelirrie uranium deposit, near Wiluna, were buried just north of Kalgoorlie after BHP stopped processing ore there in the 1980s. Earlier this year, damage to a security gate allowed children to enter the site on dirt bikes. BHP Billiton said it would improve security.

There is also concern in Kalgoorlie about plans to establish a uranium transport hob in the suburb of Parkeston, a few hundred metres from the Ninga Mia Aboriginal Community. That concern may be premature − it remains to be seen  if there will be any uranium to transport.

Jim Green is the national nuclear campaigner with Friends of the Earth, Australia.

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EPA approval of Wiluna mine appealed

In June, nine appeals were lodged against the WA EPA’s approval of the Wiluna uranium mine proposal the previous month. The appeals will be heard by an appeals committee and considered by WA environment minister Bill Marmion.

Notwithstanding the EPA decision, further state government approvals are required before mining can proceed as well as Commonwealth approvals.

The Environmental Defenders Office lodged a detailed appeal on behalf of the Conservation Council of WA. CCWA director Piers Verstegen said: “We do not believe that the EPA assessment adequately deals with critical environmental risks including the management of radioactive mine tailings, contamination of groundwater and the transport of radioactive material through WA communities.”

Aboriginal elder and Wiluna resident Glen Cooke lodged a separate challenge. Mr Cooke’s video appeal is posted at wanfa.org.au and at youtube.com/user/BUMPcollective. Mr Cooke said: “Toro Energy they only talk to a few people, always the same people. It’s not right, the people from Bondini sometimes they don’t know about meetings, or their not invited to meetings or they can’t get to meetings. This is not right.” (Bondini is the community closest to the proposed mine.)

“Marmion and [federal environment minister] Burke they will be making a big decision that will affect our community our dreaming and our health. Before they make a decision on what happens in our community, before signing away our country from many thousands of kilometres away they should come and look us in the eyes.”

You can help Mr Cooke and his community stand up and say no to uranium mining by signing the online petition at ccwa.org.au/saynototoro

Jessie Boylan

Chain Reaction #115, August 2012, www.foe.org.au/chain-reaction/

Travelling to Maralinga for the first time after hearing so much about the effects the British nuclear blasts had on Indigenous people and Australian and British personnel, I didn’t know what to expect. I think I expected some sort of overwhelming physical evidence of the blasts, but what appeared was a space full of much remnant history and memory.

I travelled with Australian nuclear veteran, Avon Hudson and Dr. Mick Broderick from Murdoch University. Avon’s name is synonymous with Maralinga − he worked there during the bomb tests and, from the 1970s onwards, has done more than anyone to lift the lid on the scandals that took place. His reward has been 40 years of abuse. Mick is an academic whose research interests include ‘nuclearism and apocalypse as a cultural phenomenon’.

We’d waited for six months to get permission to enter Maralinga-Tjarutja lands, in particular the Maralinga village and testing sites. The village and surrounding sites were handed back to the Maralinga-Tjarutja people in 2009, though many areas remain radioactive. The ‘clean up’ in the late 1990s − the fourth but probably not the last − was sharply criticised by scientists-turned-whistleblowers.

Upon arrival we were let in by one of the two caretakers, Robin Matthews, who with his partner Della manages the Maralinga Village and surrounding areas, looks after tour groups and visitors.

The next day we set about exploring the village area and Avon took us to the airfield, next to which is one of the many waste pits where plutonium and cobalt-60 are still buried. We had to wait another day to visit the Forward Area where the nuclear blasts took place.

Veterans were organising a reunion for Remembrance Day 11/11/11 in the village and they had invited Avon, who then invited me.  The veterans came from all over the country to catch up and share stories. Most veterans have long since died. How many died as a result of their work on the nuclear blasts is the subject of endless controversy. A scientific study found clear evidence of increased cancer rates among veterans; but for governments and nuclear apologists, science is overrated.

I chatted with some vets who told me they weren’t impacted physically or psychologically from their time at Maralinga, and that they had a simple job of going to Watson (the closest rail-stop) and collecting supplies to bring back to the village.  These veterans remember the benefits of living out at Maralinga, the cricket pitch, the football field, the swimming pool, cinema, bar and mess hall.

Later we were privileged to sit down with some of the old ladies from Oak Valley Community, Margaret May and Aida Hart, and also Leena Taylor from Ceduna. They talk about their memories of being removed from Ooldea soak during the nuclear blasts and taken to Yalata Mission.

“We heard the sounds: one, two, three …” they say, referring to the first bombs at Emu Field, including the blast that blinded Yami Lester at the age of 10 at Walatinna Station, where he still lives today. “People could feel it as far away as Yalata.”

They say they knew that something bad was happening because of all the whitefellas and trucks around.

Leena questions whether it’s really that safe for communities to live around here and go hunting; she prompts the government to explain. All around the forward area sites, as we see later, there are signs up that say “kuka palya, ngura wiya” –”the food is ok [to hunt/eat], no camping”.

Even after the hand-back of land to the Maralinga Tjarutja people, the area still isn’t being used − people think the land is poisoned and don’t want to be there. The land is still poisoned − that much we know from the scientists-turned-whistleblowers, and from Avon’s first-hand knowledge of the place. The Howard government claimed the latest ‘clean up’ was ‘world’s best practice’. The Menzies government claimed the bomb tests posed no risk to man nor beast. Governments lie. Then and now, paid hack scientists and so-called regulators parrot government lies; it’s just easier that way.

Avon reminisces: “The countdown was on … and then it went bang, and they had to have the wind blowing the right way, blowin’ it away from where we were working, they didn’t want to contaminate all the area, they’d have to abandon it otherwise.

“The area became highly toxic as well as highly radioactive, but no-one ever told us, the scientists knew, but no-one told us Australians, and some of the English personnel that worked along side us.”

Ground Zero

On day three we visit the Forward Area, to see ground zero of some of the seven Maralinga nuclear explosions − named One Tree, Marcoo, Kite, Breakaway, Tadje, Biak, and Taranaki.

Avon speaks alot about Taranaki; he was ordered to work here not long after a blast had taken place. Some military personnel were ordered to roll around in ground zero dust shortly after nuclear blasts; the British later claimed they were testing the effects of radiation on clothing. This place was also used for so-called ‘minor trials’ or ‘safety tests ‘ which left a greater legacy of local contamination than the atomic tests which spread their pollution across Australia and beyond.

A plinth sits in every space where a bomb was exploded:

WARNING

RADIATION HAZARD

RADIATION LEVELS FOR A FEW HUNDRED METRES AROUND THIS POINT MAY BE ABOVE THOSE CONSIDERED SAFE FOR PERMANENT OCCUPATION

And on the other side (depending on the bomb):

TEST SITE

TARANAKI

A BRITISH ATOMIC WEAPON WAS TEST EXPLODED HERE ON 9 OCT 1957

Lunch is prepared for the veterans in the shelter of a large shed. The shed was the site for trucks to get washed down after the latest clean up attempt at Maralinga. It isn’t the place to be preparing and eating food.

Avon talks as we walk down and around the plinth. I can’t imagine what he’s thinking, to look back 50 years and see yourself as a young man, participating in a dark episode of Empire history. He feels betrayed. He was betrayed. Talking is cathartic for Avon; it releases a little anger and frustration, if only momentarily. His anger is infectious.

The last day at Maralinga. The evening is purple and pink after a big rain that helps wash away the dust. I wander around the empty concrete slabs where buildings used to be. I listen to birds chirping madly. Radioactive birds, perhaps; just this week, swallow droppings around the Sellafield nuclear site in northern England have been found to be radioactive − apparently their mistake is to eat radioactive mosquitoes. Closer to home, birds drop dead after drinking from tailings ponds at the Olympic Dam uranium mine − oases in the desert.

It gets dark and I head back. Avon is there chatting away to Mick. I make a cup of tea on our camp stove and toast to getting the hell out of here.

www.jessieboylan.wordpress.com, www.jessieboylan.com

TORO ENERGY PROMOTES RADIATION JUNK SCIENCE

Toro Energy is an Australian company involved in uranium exploration in Western Australia, the Northern Territory, South Australia and in Namibia, Africa. The company’s most advanced project is the proposed Wiluna uranium mine in the WA Goldfields.

Toro Energy has consistently promoted the fringe scientific view that exposure to low-level radiation is harmless. Toro Energy has sponsored at least three speaking visits to Australia by Canadian scientist Dr Doug Boreham, who argues that low-level radiation is actually beneficial to human health.

Those views are at odds with mainstream scientific evidence and expert assessment. For example:

• A 2010 report by the United Nations Scientific Committee on the Effects of Atomic Radiation states that “the current balance of available evidence tends to favour a non-threshold response for the mutational component of radiation-associated cancer induction at low doses and low dose rates.”
• The 2006 report of the Committee on the Biological Effects of Ionising Radiation (BEIR) of the US National Academy of Sciences states that “the risk of cancer proceeds in a linear fashion at lower doses without a threshold and … the smallest dose has the potential to cause a small increase in risk to humans.” The report also concludes that claims that low-level radiation exposure may be beneficial to human health are “unwarrranted”.
• A study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (US) in 2003 concluded that: “Given that it is supported by experimentally grounded, quantifiable, biophysical arguments, a linear extrapolation of cancer risks from intermediate to very low doses currently appears to be the most appropriate methodology.”

It is irresponsible for Toro Energy to consistently promote fringe scientific views and to ignore mainstream scientific evidence and expert assessment.

Even more alarming is that Toro Energy has sponsored “employee radiation training” by Dr Boreham. Recent scientific research has heightened concern about exposure to radon, the main source of radiation doses to uranium industry workers. In 2009, the International Commission on Radiological Protection concluded that radon gas delivers almost twice the radiation dose to humans as originally thought and the Commission is in the process of reassessing permissible levels. Previous dose estimates to miners need to be approximately doubled to accurately reflect the lung cancer hazard.

We call on Toro Energy to stop promoting fringe scientific views to uranium industry workers and to the public at large.

Signatories (all medical doctors working in Australia, or retired from working in Australia):

1. Margaret Beavis MBBS FRACGP
2. Peter Karamoskos MBBS, FRANZCR
3. Hilary Tyler MBChB, FACEM
4. Tilman Ruff MBBS (Hons), FRACP
5. Jenny Grounds MBBS, DRANZCOG, Grad Dip Med Acup.
6. Bill Williams MBBS
7. Rosalie Schultz MBBS, FAFPHM
8. James Rossiter AM, DU Deakin Honoris Causa, FRACP, FRCP Ed, MRCS, LRCP, MMSA, DCH, DObstRCOG
9. Rachel Darken MBBS, DPM
10. Michael Fonda MBBS, B.Med.Sci, FRACGP
11. Sue Wareham OAM, MBBS
12. Peter Shannon, MBBS, DPM, FRANZCP
13. Jason Garrood MBBS, FACRRM
14. Simon Leslie MBBS
15. Ben Bartlett MBBS, MPH, FAFOEM, FAFPHM, MRACGP
16. Fiona Russell BMBS, FRACP, MPHTM, Grad Dip(Clin Epi), PhD
17. Megan Passey B.Med (Hons), MPH, MSc, DipFP
18. Ken Harvey MBBS, FRCPA
19. Sandra Thompson BSc(Med), MBBS, MPH, PhD, Grad Dipl Management
20. Marion Carey MBBS (Hons.), MPH, FAFPHM, FRSPH
21. George Crisp MBBS, MRCGP
22. Harry Cohen AM, MBBS, FRACOG
23. Heath Kelly MBBS, Bsc, MPH, FAFPHM
24. Catherine Silsbury MBBS, MHSc, FAChAM
25. Colin D. Butler BMedSci(Hons), BMed, DTM&H, MSc(epi), PhD
26. Peter Tait MBBS, DipRACOG, FRACGP, MClimChng, MPHAA
27. Stephen Connor MBBS, MPH, BPharm (Hons), MRPharmS, Dip.Clin. Pharm
28. Chris Wright MBBS, FRACP, FCICM
29. Bobby Sundaralingam MBBS, FRANZCR, ANZSPNM, BSc
30. Frederick Mendelsohn AO, MD, PhD, FRACP, FAA,
31. Sally Attrill MBBS, B.Med.Sci., FRACGP, DRANZCOG
32. Elizabeth Moore MBBS
33. Ruth A. Mitchell BMBS, BA, BSc
34. Janet Bodycomb BSc, MBBS, FRACGP
35. Adam Badenoch BSc BMBS
36. Kristen Pearson MBBS, FRACP
37. Jane Ralls MBBS MRCGP (UK)
38. Tom Keaney MBBS
39. Peter Markey BMBS, DA, DRCOG, DTM&H, MPH, FAFPHM
40. Alison Creagh MBBS, DRANZCOG
41. Linda Selvey MBBS(Hon), PhD
42. Lucy Owen MBBS
43. Kate Jackson MBBS, DTM+H, FRCA, FAChPM (RACP), FFPMANZCA
44. Lisa Bohlscheid MBBS, FRACGP
45. Miriam Brooks MBBS, FRACGP
46. Chris Say MBBS FACRRM
47. Raymun Ghumman MBBS, BSc, BA
48. Ray Mylius MBBS, DPH, FRACMA, FAFPHM

On March 11, 2012, the anniversary of the earthquake, tsunami and Fukushima nuclear disaster in Japan, Greens Senator Scott Ludlam released the fourth edition of Let the Facts Speak: An Indictment of the Industry.

The publication − online at https://nuclear.foe.org.au/wp-content/uploads/LTFS-full-report-published-2012.pdf − includes a 150-page catalogue of nuclear accidents and incidents since the 1940s.

The publication also includes − in a separate paper online at https://nuclear.foe.org.au/wp-content/uploads/LTFS-DD-published.pdf − an analysis of nuclear risks covering issues such as reactor ageing, the uncomfortable intersection between economics and nuclear safety, regulation, ‘Generation IV’ reactors, and the debate over the risks of exposure to low-level ionising radiation.

The publication also includes a ‘Dirty Dozen’ list of some of the most dangerous and infamous moments in the history of the nuclear industry. It includes some major reactor accidents − Chernobyl, Fukushima, Three Mile Island, and Windscale. Three entries address non-reactor accidents − the Chelyabinsk liquid nuclear waste explosion in the Soviet Union, the theft of a radiotherapy source in Brazil and subsequent fatalities, and the fatal accident at a fuel fabrication plant at Tokaimura, Japan.

One entry concerns the failure to account for 160 kgs of plutonium for a period of at least eight months at the Sellafield plant in the UK. That was just one of many incidents at the same site, including a 1957 reactor fire, a data falsification scandal and a serious sabotage incident in the late 1990s, and international controversy over the routine emissions from nuclear fuel reprocessing operations.

The Superphenix fast breeder reactor in France is included in the Dirty Dozen list as an example of a nuclear ‘white elephant’ − a plant that failed spectacularly to meet its promised performance levels with billions of dollars wasted in the process (other such examples include reprocessing and fuel fabrication plants at Sellafield). Superphenix also provides a reminder that some of the ‘next generation’ nuclear power technologies that are now being promoted as ‘new’ and ‘safe’ are in fact old and unsafe.

Several entries − including Three Mile Island, Fukushima and Tokaimura − demonstrate the industry’s failure to learn from past accidents.

The Dirty Dozen list includes an example of strikes on a nuclear plant directed by a national government (Israel’s destruction of the Osiraq research reactor in Iraq) and strikes against a nuclear power plant by a sub-national group (Basque ETA terrorists). Those two entries are reproduced here.

Bombing and destruction of reactor in Iraq

On 7 June 1981, Israeli fighter planes destroyed the French-supplied ‘Osiraq’ (or ‘Osirak’ or ‘Tammuz 1’) 40 MW research reactor located at the Al Tuwaitha Nuclear Centre, 17 kms from Baghdad.

Ten Iraqi soldiers and one French civilian were killed in the attack, and three Israeli army personnel died during training for the mission. Other than those deaths, the attack was of little public health or environmental consequence as the reactor had not begun operating and had not been loaded with nuclear fuel.

The significance of the attack (and surrounding events) was that it so starkly demonstrated the realpolitik of nuclear weapons proliferation − Iraq’s pursuit of weapons under cover of a ‘peaceful’ nuclear program and Israel’s willingness to respond with a ‘pre-emptive’ military strike.

The safeguards system of the International Atomic Energy Agency was put to the test and was found wanting. IAEA inspections failed to uncover Iraq’s weapons program and other research reactors were later found to have been used in various ways to advance Iraq’s weapons program. Israel clearly had no faith in the IAEA safeguards system as demonstrated by its attack on Osiraq (and more recently with its attack on a suspected reactor site in Syria in 2007).

In April 1979, Israeli agents in France allegedly planted a bomb that damaged the partially-built Osiraq reactor while it was awaiting shipment to Iraq. Israel is also alleged to have murdered a scientist working on Iraq’s nuclear program in June 1980 and to have bombed several of the French and Italian companies it suspected of working on the project.

The Iranian military also attacked and damaged the Al Tuwaitha Nuclear Centre with air strikes on September 30, 1980, shortly after the outbreak of the Iran-Iraq War, and both Iran and Iraq attempted military strikes on nuclear plants on other occasions during the 1980-88 war. Al Tuwaitha was bombed during the 1991 Gulf war and yet again during the 2003 Gulf war. More recently, Israel destroyed a suspected reactor site in Syria in 2007.

The above examples have been motivated by attempts to prevent nuclear weapons proliferation. Nuclear plants might also be targeted with the aim of widely dispersing radioactive material or, in the case of power reactors, disrupting electricity supply.

Reprocessing plants and stores for spent nuclear fuel and high-level nuclear waste typically contain enormous quantities of highly radioactive materials in readily dispersible forms, and are more vulnerable to attacks than reactors as they are generally less well protected.

Terrorist attacks on Spanish power reactor

On 18 December 1977, Basque ETA separatists set off bombs damaging the reactor vessel and a steam generator at the Lemoniz nuclear power plant under construction in Spain. Two workers died and one of the terrorists sustained fatal injuries.

On 17 March 1978, ETA planted another bomb in the plant, again causing the death of two workers and inflicting substantial damage to the plant. The explosives were smuggled into the plant by site workers.

On 3 June 1979, an anti-nuclear activist was killed by police during a peaceful protest (the peaceful public movement against Lemoniz attracted as many as 150,000 people to protest rallies).

On 13 June 1979, ETA planted another bomb inside the plant and the explosion caused the death of one worker.

On 11 November 1979, ETA kidnapped guards and exploded bombs at another nuclear plant, causing extensive damage.

On 29 January 1981, ETA kidnapped the chief engineer of the Lemoniz nuclear plant and later killed him.

ETA also destroyed hundreds of electricity pylons connected to the site.

In 1983, the Spanish nuclear power expansion program was cancelled following a change of government and construction of the Lemoniz plant was never completed.

Dozens of incidents of nuclear terrorism have taken place around the world, with a bewildering variety of perpetrators and motives. To date there has not been an incident resulting in mass casualties. However then UN Secretary General Kofi Annan warned in 2005:

“Nuclear terrorism is still often treated as science fiction. I wish it were. But, unfortunately, we live in a world of excess hazardous materials and abundant technological know-how, in which some terrorists clearly state their intention to inflict catastrophic casualties. Were such an attack to occur, it would not only cause widespread death and destruction, but would stagger the world economy and thrust tens of millions of people into dire poverty.”

There are frequent reports of inadequate security at nuclear plants. In November 2005, for example, a reporter and photographer were able to park a one-tonne van for more than 30 minutes outside the back gate of the Lucas Heights nuclear site without being challenged. The gate, 800 metres from the research reactor, was protected by a simple padlock. The Australian reported: “The back door to one of the nation’s prime terrorist targets is protected by a cheap padlock and a stern warning against trespassing or blocking the driveway.”