Fed: What to do with plutonium buried in SA outback
By Max Blenkin01 Jan 2009 12:01 AM
EDS: EMBARGOED TO 0001 (AEDT) JANUARY 1, 2009
CANBERRA, Jan 1 AAP - Buried deep in the South Australian red dirt outback was the nuclear age equivalent of a pot of gold - a quantity of bomb-grade plutonium, left over from British nuclear tests in the 1960s.
For the government of Malcolm Fraser, this represented a series of problems.
It wasn't very well guarded, it wasn't especially secret and it wasn't clear the British government would want to take it back.
Cabinet papers for 1978 - released by the National Archives of Australia under the 30-year rule - show the government did manage to persuade the British government to take back their leftovers, provided the entire operation was kept top secret.
In the now well-known nuclear testing program, Britain exploded seven atomic bombs at the Maralinga, South Australia, test site between September 1956 and October 1957.
However, most nuclear waste on the site stemmed from so-called minor tests conducted between June 1955 and May 1963.
This included testing of nuclear bomb initiators and a series of experiments termed Vixen B, conducted in 1960-63, to determine what might happen to a nuclear bomb in an intense fire, such as might occur in an aircraft crash.
A history of the site prepared by the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA) said the trials involved negligible fission yield.
But they did produce jets of molten, burning plutonium extending hundreds of metres into the air. After each trial the plutonium was carried by the wind in long plumes and deposited large distances from the site.
That left some 20 kilograms of plutonium and the same amount of uranium scattered over one particular area, Taranaki.
Depending on design sophistication, as little as four kilograms of plutonium could be used to construct an atomic bomb.
However, most of what was left at Taranaki was in tiny pieces mixed in with some 800 tonnes of rubble buried in pits following a cleanup of the site conducted by the Uk Ministry of Defence prior to the British departure in 1967.
But about half a kilogram was deemed potentially recoverable. The existence of this presented yet another problem as it could be deemed reportable and safeguardable under terms of the nuclear non-proliferation treaty.
Defence Minster Jim Killen, in a submission to the cabinet in September 1978, said the documentation of the British burial of radioactive material wasn't highly classified and was widely distributed.
Killen acknowledged there wouldn't be enough plutonium for an atomic bomb but there could be enough for a terrorists to produce what is today termed a radiological bomb.
"It would not appear to be too difficult for a small party of determined men who had received information to recover the substance in a single quick operation if they were willing to take large risks," he said.
"They could then threaten, say, to exploit the extremely toxic property of plutonium against the population of a major city."
Since December 1976, the Maralinga airfield and burial sites had been watched by a contingent of commonwealth police.
Recovery of the plutonium would not be especially difficult or hazardous if undertaken with due care, Killen said.
Clearly, the best solution would be for the British to take back their plutonium, although a 1968 memorandum which terminated the joint testing agreement released the UK government from any further liability.
The British agreed. In November 1978, the UK agreed to repatriation, subject to being absolved of any further responsibility.
They also stipulated that this all be accorded maximum secrecy. That appears to have been achieved because ARPANSA history makes no mention of this recovery operation.
But it wasn't the end of the matter. The Royal Commission conducted by former Labor MP Jim McClelland in 1984-85 concluded the site remained an appalling mess and the British should contribute to the costs of a proper cleanup.
After extensive negotiation, the UK agreed to pay $45 million of the total $104 million cleanup cost. That proceeded in the mid-1990s.
