johan viroux

France DESTROYS the Planet (1/100)
(1) The URL of this do***ent is
http://www.abc.net.au/quantum/info/mururoa.htm

Mururoa
How safe are the French tests?

Since 1945, the nuclear powers have exploded
more than 2,000 nuclear devices.
The French have exploded 175 in the Pacific

..

50 years into the nuclear age, it seems we're finally coming to our senses.
Next year the major nuclear powers look set to sign a treaty banning just
about all nuclear testing. But before it signs, France insists on slipping
in 8 more underground tests.

The outrage at the French government's decision is universal: it's been
decried as arrogant colonialism, jeopardising progress to a nuclear
weapons-free world.

But there's also the strong belief that French nuclear tests have
contaminated the Pacific and its people.

Given the litany of lies we've been told about nuclear tests - from the
Marshall Islands to Maralinga - people are understandably sceptical of
France's assurance that all is safe. Claims that France's testing has
poisoned the environment and caused cancers and birth defects are of great
concern, but must be viewed in the light of the available facts. Tonight, we
weigh up the scientific evidence. Is radioactivity the real danger?

Radioactivity is something we all have to live with, all the time. Cosmic
rays from space, traces of radioactive elements in soil and our food; they
make up what's called natural or background radioactivity. For Australia and
South Pacific nations that's measured as 2 MilliSieverts a year.

To put that in perspective: every time you have a medical procedure like a
CAT scan or barium meal, you're exposed to about 4 times that radioactivity,
up to 8mS.

Most experts agree the 2 mS background radiation does us little or no harm.
But when it comes to additional radioactivity: the less you're exposed to,
the better.

FALLOUT FROM ATMOSPHERIC TESTS

Fallout is the radioactive byproduct of nuclear explosions. The greatest
danger to humans are the radionuclides caesium 137, iodine 131, strontium 90
and plutonium 239.

In March 1954 the United States exploded a 15 megaton bomb on Bikini Atoll.
People on some nearby Marshall Islands received a tragically high dose of
radioactivity, with tragically clear results: thyroid disease and cancers,
for which the United States belatedly paid compensation.

We know from the survivors of the first nuclear weapons at Hiroshima and
Nagasaki that doses of radioactivity above around 500 mS do cause extra
cancers and birth defects in a population. The Marshall Islanders were
exposed to four times that level, nearly 2,000mS. The case is not so clear
cut in French Polynesia.

Between 1966 and 1974, France exploded 41 atmospheric tests in French
Polynesia. The total yield was 15 megatons equal to one US test on Bikini
atoll.

Dr Murray Matthews
National Radiation Lab New Zealand.
"Our estimate is that on average in the Pacific Islands from the entire
history of atmospheric weapons tests individuals in the islands would have
received around about one miliSievert over their entire life times from that
testing."

One mS spread over 50 years. How can we be sure the exposure was so low? The
figures come from the Australian Radiation Lab and the National Radiation
Lab in NZ. Both exist to monitor radiation hazards and protect the
populations. The labs have no vested interest in the nuclear industry - NZ
doesn't even have a nuclear reactor.

During the whole period of French atmospheric testing New Zealand monitored
the levels of fallout at their network of South Pacific stations.

The fallout was low, but uneven. There were rainouts, times when winds blew
a cloud of radioactivity over island populations. If it rained, fallout
rained down too.

Dr Murray Matthews
National Radiation Lab New Zealand.
"The most significant event occurred in 1966 when there was what we call a
blow back from Mururoa towards Samoa in particular where the from the test
went westward instead of eastward and it was caught in a heavy rain event at
Samoa and this resulted in quite a lot of local contamination even then
though the dose in that year from that event would have only been around
naught point two miliSieverts.

Q. So that's still a tenth of the background radiation?

A. 1/10 of the annual background."

There was another rainout in Tahiti in 1974, but again fallout was well
below background. We know of one other rainout, in the Gambier Islands, just
to the southeast of Mururoa. Fallout was higher, 4 mS, twice background
radiation, but many hundreds of times lower than Marshall islands. Now, some
of these figures do come from France's monitoring stations, but they closely
correspond to the levels and patterns of fallout monitored by New Zealand.

Dr Andrew McEwan
National Radiation Lab, New Zealand
"The radiation doses were so low that no effects from radiation would be
expected. If there is no radiation there can be no radiation effects."

So what are we to make of the worrying claims that birth defects and cancer
rates have increased in French Polynesia since the tests? As harsh as it may
seem, reports of an increase of birth defects are all anecdotal - there
simply isn't a register of birth defects in French Polynesia. And while
evidence is building that cancers are increasing, there are other
explanations.

Dr Andrew McEwan
National Radiation Lab, New Zealand
"Increasing cancers will rise if the people live longer, if the life
expectancy goes up then the cancer rates go up because cancer rates increase
with age. Another cause of increased cancer is changes and life style
factors such as increases in smoking and if the population is smoking
heavily then there will be a very considerable rise in lung cancers and
other cancers."

LEAKAGE FROM UNDERGROUND TESTS

The French still contend their atmospheric tests were safe, but they did
respond to international pressure on health concerns. In 1975, more than a
decade after Britain, the US and Russia moved their nuclear tests
underground, the French finally followed suit. But while other nuclear
powers moved out of the Pacific, the French stayed put. And on this question
the scientific consensus is the French were mistaken. An atoll is no place
to store nuclear waste.

Mururoa is a seamount- formed more than 7 million years ago when a volcano
erupted beneath the sea. When lava hits cold water it forms intertwining
tubes of rock, which build up a mountain.

The mountain erodes leaving a basalt base and a middle layer of soil. The
top layer of limestones and corals leaks like a sieve.

Prof Michael Michael O'Sullivan
University of Auckland
"There's a very permeable zone from the level where the arrow at about 400
hundred meters below sea level up to the surface and that consists of
limestones which are naturally very permeable and very leaky and the heavy
ocean water here drives the water through the atoll up into the lagoon."

Any nuclear waste would get through these middle and top layers very
quickly. But the shafts for the underground tests are up to 1,000 metres
deep in the basalt base, supposedly well clear of the leaky layers.

Megan James
"What happens when you add a nuclear explosion or two according to the
French?"

Prof Michael Michael O'Sullivan
University of Auckland
"Well we detonate a bomb//down in these deep basalts and then what the
French claim is this kind of scenario where we have a chamber here which
consists of glassified rock which is broken up in little lumps and
surrounding that they say the rock is not very badly effected. So the
natural flow of water is virtually unaffected by the bomb going off and
radioactivity is safe down in the volcanic rock."

But there's a problem. The French claim the chamber is sealed, yet cools
quickly. The only way it could cool quickly is if the chamber is really so
cracked it allows cooling water to get in and out.

Prof Michael Michael O'Sullivan,
University of Auckland
"Now we have a large fractured chamber// Then the water can get down into
the bomb site and up again."

Professor O'Sullivan concludes radioactivity must, in time, leak out. Is it
leaking now?

The latest evidence we can now reveal strongly supports France's claim
underground testing has not poisoned the marine environment.

These are samples of foodstuffs collected on Mururoa by the International
Atomic Energy Agency. Fish from the lagoon, spiny lobster, molluscs and
coconut milk.

The Australian Radiation Laboratory was one of 8 around the world given
samples of the same organisms collected at the same time. The ****ysis shows
there is radioactivity in the samples, but the levels are very low.

The results are credible because all 8 labs concur. Among them was New
Zealand's National Radiation Laboratory.

Dr Andrew McEwan
National Radiation Lab, New Zealand
"The levels in those fish did show traces of Caesium 137 and strontium 90
which one would expect and the levels were fairly consistent with what one
would expect from global fallout but there is certainly no evidence of
significant leakage of any type."

Mururoa may not be leaking now, yet even the French admit the radioactive
waste stored under their feet will eventually escape. But they say it won't
be for thousands, perhaps 10,000 years.

The French claim the basalt that forms the base of Mururoa is not very
porous; so any water in the blast chambers will take thousands of years to
move through the rock. But there's good evidence it will happen much more
quickly than that.

Megan James
"So these are actually samples from Mururoa itself?"

Prof Peter Davies
University of Sydney
"That's correct."

Professor Peter Davies visited Mururoa in the early 80s. He studied just how
porous the atoll's base is. Some parts are far leakier than others.

Prof Peter Davies
"If you look at this sample for example there are nicks and cracks through
the sample indicating that there are fisures which run through the sample
and that is very important in terms of the conactivity of the pores in other
words how water will transport through the rock."

Megan James
"And from the variety of porosities that you're looking at here how did you
redo the sums on the how long it would take for leakage to occur from these
basalt chambers?"

Prof Peter Davies
"From that I calculated best case scenarios of greater than 500 years for
leakage fluids from the middle of the atoll."

Megan James
"And a worst case scenario?"

Prof Peter Davies
"Well the worst case scenario is related to something happening associated
with the test and that's almost instantaneous."

And accidents have happened. In July 1979, a 120 kiloton bomb got stuck
halfway down the shaft, at 400 metres. They exploded it anyway, and because
tests were then on the rim of the atoll, part of the southern side collapsed
in an underwater landslide.

Prof Peter Davies
University of Sydney
"The French have admitted to some million cubic meters of rock having come
away from the side of the atoll. Well a million cubic meters is substantial
however think of what it means: it's a hundred meters by a hundred meters by
a hundred meters// that is actually a small portion of the atoll but
nevertheless// they've also moved their tests back into the lagoon. And I
don't think that they have reported or anybody has reported land slides
since."

Because the tests are now in the centre of the atoll, and the bombs are now
smaller, the risk of a major collapes is very low. Long term leakage remains
by far the most realistic scenario.

Prof Peter Davies
University of Sydney
"In 500 years or whatever it is and I don't know what the exact time is but
at whatever time, there will be the potential for Mururoa to leak
radionuclides into the biosphere."

But such leakage may not be as dangerous as we've been lead to believe.

THE DANGER FROM LEAKAGE

Dr Murray Matthews
National Radiation Lab New Zealand.
"Well a key factor which seems to be overlooked in most people's arguments
is just what the source term is, how much radioactivity is locked up in
Mururoa after all of these tests, it seems that in many circles some people
think a very large amount of radioactivity is there and it should be called
into perspective how much is there. "

The total fallout from all atmospheric tests ever conducted is 300 megatons.
The total of France's underground tests to date is just under 3 megatons. We
know that from New Zealand's seismic monitoring stations.

Most of that 3 megatons is locked in the glassy lining of the cavity created
by the explosion. Only around 5% is loose in the blast chamber.Let's imagine
for a moment that somehow it all leaked out tomorrow. Incredible as it may
seem, the sums done by NZ's radiation scientists suggest there'd be no great
danger to environment or health.

Dr Murray Matthews
National Radiation Lab New Zealand
"Well most of our reasoning in this area is based on recommendations of the
International Commission on radiological protection and that body produces
recommendations for limits of intake - they call annual limits of intake and
if all of the material presently in Mururoa were to dissolve in a lagoon
that size if it were fresh water, one could drink around about 300 litres of
that before one would reach the annual limit of intake".

Megan James
"What about in a couple of hundred years, which is the best estimate, what
would be the danger then?"

Dr Andrew McEwan
National Radiation Lab, New Zealand
"Well if one goes to hundreds of years to the future, then the fission
products of more particular concern like caesium 137, strontium, they have
halflives of 30yrs, so going 90 years is going through three half lives that
the total amount is down to 1/8th - go another 90 yrs it is down to a 64th
so it is actually decaying away and if you go hundreds of years into the
future then you probably haven't got a lot of radioactivity to worry about."

None of these scientists is saying that Mururoa is contamination-free. It's
known that in 1981 a typhoon washed between 10-20 kgms of plutonium, the
legacy of earlier weapons safety tests, into the lagoon. Plutonium, when
it's in the air and can be inhaled, is one of the deadliest substances we
know. But in a marine environment like the lagoon, plutonium gets very
strongly bound up in sediments, very little gets into the food chain. (as
confirmed by the latest IAEA study.)

Megan James:
A lot of people might interpret this information as scientists saying that
the testing is ok. That it can go ahead?

Dr Murray Matthews
National Radiation Lab New Zealand
"Well there are two distinct sets of issues related to Mururoa as the public
see it. There are the what I would call political philosophical issues of
whether we want weapons to be developed, whether we want nuclear
proliferation, whether we want more people with nuclear weapons on the
planet, there are those political and philosophical issues and then there
are the environmental ones which I have been talking about. All I'm saying
is that the environmental issues are not as great as people will appear to
think they are".

Prof Peter Davies
University of Sydney
"The French are their own worst enemy. I think they have a huge data base
which if shared properly with the scientific community would help to dispell
many many of the problems that people currently relate to what is happening
at Mururoa because on the basis of easily verifiable experiments it would be
possible to show that much of the French data is correct. But they label
everything confidential and therefore it never sees the light of day- it
does them no good at all I said this to them in 1984."

THE REAL DANGER OF TESTS

The weight of scientific evidence is that the test pose no great danger to
human health or the environment of the region. The real danger is that
France's and China's resumption of testing may derail progress to a world
free of nuclear weapons.

Dr Karin von Strokirch
Australian National University
"Well President Chirac gave the most detailed statement about the purpose of
the nuclear tests one month after his announcement of test resumption. He
explained to the French senate in Paris that of the eight tests four would
be used to perfect computer simulation of nuclear tests two would be used to
test the reliability and effectiveness of ageing detonators and fuses and
the remainder, that is to say two, would be used to test what he called a
new war head."

That new warhead may be TN75, the TN100 or a new generation variable yield
warhead: potential first strike weapons.

Many of the new generation nuclear warheads are small enough for their
testing to be hidden.

Dr Peter Wills
Greenpeace Spokesperson
"The thing that really makes me suspicious is that the military the French
military wanted to to conduct 20 tests they said before France signed the
comprehensive test ban now that makes me wonder if the eight tests which
have announced involve something of the order of 20 devices rather than just
eight as you would have thought."

Dr Karin von Strokirch
Australian National University
"Well I believe that in the past the United States has conducted two nuclear
weapons test explosion simultaneously, there's no reason to believe that
France can't do that."

If the French do test 2 devices simultaneously, we won't know. The
Seimological Centre in Canberra will be the first place in Australia to
detect any explosion. But from this distance, they can't identify an
explosion under 1 kt, if masked by a larger one.

Dr Peter Wills
Greenpeace Spokesperson
"In the broader picture in the long run the reason to have a comprehensive
test ban and to stop testing is to inhibit the development of nuclear
weapons and the great offence which France is causing at the moment is that
they say they will sign the comprehensive test ban when they have developed
the means for cir***venting it."

Those means are computers. France needs the field data from the Mururoa
tests to perfect its computer simulation programs. But even if we stopped
the French tests, other nuclear nations could continue the electronic
version of the arms race. Because even under the proposed treaty banning all
field tests, nuclear weapons are allwed to be developed and refined, via
computers.

We've directed all our protest efforts at trying to stop this series of
French tests, as though stopping them would somehow stop the arms race.
Perhaps our protests would be better directed at ensuring next year's treaty
is comprehensive in its truest sense.

Dr Karin von Strokirch
Australian National University
"No nuclear tests full stop no simulation full stop don't allow it nothing
nothing is going to be allowed that will help a nation to develop nuclear
weapons. "

"The opportunity we have now for achieving a comprehensive test ban is
greater than it's been at any time since nuclear weapons have been
invented//

And the danger is if we don't achieve a ban within the coming year the
political situation could change in any one of the main players' countries.
For example the United States is having presidential elections Russia is
looking towards presidential elections the Chinese paramount leader may die
in the not too distant future and if the political context changes in one of
the nuclear weapons states it may change the whole of the nature of the
negotiations for a comprehensive test ban".

Megan James
"We would have lost that opportunity?"

Dr Karin von Strokirch
Australian National University
"Mmm this is a window of opportunity now and we need to take it while its
there."

END

This program was produced by Quantum and 1st screened on August 23 1995