A Nuclear Nightmare in Sydney's Backyard

The deportation of accused al Qaeda bomber Willie Brigitte, suspected of plotting an attack on Sydney's Lucas Heights nuclear reactor or other military sites, coincides with warnings of a major public health catastrophe resulting from a terrorist attack. Why residents have not been told and how emergency services may be hamstrung by all the secrecy are just two of the serious questions raised by a former ANSTO employee turned whistleblower.

Australia is about to confront the reality of the war on terrorism. The head of the nuclear watchdog, the Australian Radiation Protection and Safety Agency (ARPANSA), has warned of the danger of an aerial terrorist attack on the Lucas Heights nuclear research reactor, 40km to the south-west of the Sydney CBD.

Reports that suspected al Qaeda bomber Willie Brigitte, who was deported to France last month, may have been plotting attacks against Lucas Heights or other military sites followed a briefing to local government by the NSW government last week on plans to evacuate people within 3km of the nuclear reactor in the event of such an attack.

ASIO reportedly reaffirmed suspicions that Brigitte was a skilled bomb-maker sent to Australia to commit a serious terrorist act.

The NSW Health Department has told both council and emergency services that other households ­ possibly within an 80km radius of the reactor ­ would be advised to stock up on iodine tablets at their own expense as a protective measure against radioactive contamination.

But fire brigade, ambulance and some other emergency services personnel, concerned about a lack of preparedness for a possible strike and the state government's refusal to distribute iodine tablets, have indicated their personnel might refuse to respond to any attack on Lucas Heights on the grounds of personal safety.

Speculation is growing that a secret "radiation consequences analysis" commissioned by ARPANSA confirms that an estimated 4 million residents living within 80km of the reactor ­ virtually Sydney's entire population ­ risk radioactive contamination in the event of a successful strike on the reactor.

The September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks in the United States show that the most wildly imaginative incident is possible, ARPANSA CEO Dr John Loy told a Senate inquiry. "And of course it is incumbent on me, as a safety regulator, to think about that [and] to think about the implications of it. We certainly looked at what might be the consequences of crashing an aircraft into the facility."

Loy argued that if a terrorist attack penetrated the reactor's shielding, exposing its nuclear core, "there would be a buoyancy because of the fire and the radiation distribution would go higher into the atmosphere than in an accident, and that you might expect some radioactive contamination at a distance further from the reactor than in the case of an accident".

Loy detailed government sensitivity about the threat, plus the possible misuse by terrorists of any official radiation data, to a Senate community affairs estimates hearing in June. ARPANSA, ASIO and bureaucrats involved in the "children overboard affair" have joined forces to prevent the public release of the radiation consequences analysis.

"At one end, you can characterise a report like that as a description of how to go about the sabotage of an installation and a suggestion on how to produce maximum consequences," Loy said. "If you go to the extreme of assuming everything away ­ nothing works and the whole inventory is released and you get an absolute extreme case ­ the value of advising the public of that seems to me to be pretty limited."

Bureaucrat Jane Halton, who had a key role in the children overboard affair, told the Senate inquiry: "I do not think that [the radiation consequences analysis] has a value in public discussion ... My view is that, in the present security environment, releasing that information would not be of assistance to the public."

The local government custodian in and around Lucas Heights, Sutherland Shire Council, has confirmed that the principal player in the children overboard affair, then-cabinet secretary Max Moore-Wilton, has also played a key role in frustrating the community's "right to know" charter concerning the reactor's operations.

"Our extensive freedom of information applications concerning Lucas Heights were blocked by Moore-Wilton with what are known as conclusive certificates, generally on the grounds that the material we sought was ultimately contained in cabinet documents," said Dr Gary Smith, the council's principal science officer and a member of the federal government's Nuclear Safety Committee.

Loy has confirmed that, in a revised security plan developed by federal security agencies in conjunction with ARPANSA and the operator of the reactor, the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation, about $18m is being spent over four years on increased security at the Lucas Heights site.

But in the face of a terrorist threat, ANSTO continues to operate with what was described in a Senate report as "a culture of secrecy so embedded that it has lost sight of its responsibility to be accountable to parliament". Loy confirms that it is whistleblower John Mulcair, a former ANSTO employee, who has been alerting ARPANSA and the federal government over the operator's continuing secretive modus operandi, continuing accidents involving Lucas Heights staff, and serious shortcomings in the construction of a replacement nuclear reactor on the site.

THE WHISTLEBLOWER

John Mulcair was ANSTO's communications manager for 51Z2 years. From 1994 to 1999, he trudged daily through ANSTO's security gates and along avenues named after prominent research scientists. One was named for Marie Curie, who discovered radium and provided the key to a basic understanding of matter and energy, thus ushering in a new era in medical research and treatment to which the Lucas Heights reactor is dedicated.

During his time there, Mulcair doggedly but unsuccessfully championed the rights of the broader Sutherland Shire community to know more about Lucas Heights' operations. In particular, he was a strong advocate of the community's right to information on the likely local impact of any serious major nuclear accident or incident.

The existing research reactor, which first achieved fission power in 1958 and began routine operation in 1960, was to be shut down and decommissioned by 2005. In June 2000, the government announced the Argentine company INVAP S.E. was the successful tenderer for the construction of a replacement research reactor.

Mulcair oversaw the community processes associated with the environmental impact statement for the new reactor. "It was a case of 'do I really need this shit anymore?'," he said. "Basically, I got to the end of my time for doing the job. It is part of the make-up in being a journalist. So I paid off my mortgage and resigned. It was one step removed from winning the lottery and pouring the inkwell over the boss' head. I contacted Fairfax Community Newspapers and while I left ANSTO on very good terms I took a job Fairfax created for me on the St George Leader." His role as a reporter on the Lucas Heights hometown newspaper has effectively lifted the veil of secrecy that had surrounded the research facility.

It was to Mulcair that many ANSTO staff living with their families in the immediate environs ­ in suburbs such as Engadine, Heathcote, Lucas Heights (now called Baden Ridge) and Menai ­ turned when they felt the need to discreetly raise their concerns about aspects of ANSTO's operations. Mulcair alerted the Sutherland Shire community, John Loy and ARPANSA to serious problems with standards and communications between the parties building the replacement reactor. Mulcair also disclosed that ANSTO had intentionally withheld some of that information from ARPANSA for more than three months. "Indeed, and he [Mulcair] appears to have some good sources," Loy told the Senate inquiry.

Says Mulcair: "All the motivations of my sources have been of the very best order. These people have only one interest, and that is to get the job done properly. I have a great deal of faith in the people I worked with at ANSTO to make good decisions. They are driven by principle. They don't want something dodgy to affect them and their families. From a public relations perspective, the replacement reactor should have been built somewhere else."

A BOTCHED JOB

The worst fears of the community ­ and Mulcair ­ about the construction of the replacement reactor were quickly confirmed: the inquiring senators calling it "a comedy of errors".

ANSTO was meant to seek ARPANSA approval for the construction of individual structures and components. Through the press, Mulcair progressively advised ARPANSA, the government and the community of repeated licence breaches by ANSTO and the contractor. As far as Loy was concerned, these mistakes raised the question of whether other mistakes had been made, and whether the system that allowed for the mistakes to be made needed further examination. Fresh licensing conditions were progressively imposed.

But Mulcair eventually blew the whistle on a communications gap between ARPANSA, ANSTO and INVAP, and the Argentine company's Australian construction partners, John Holland, Evans Deakin and their subcontractors. He confirmed that ANSTO had, in effect, defied ARPANSA's licence conditions preventing penetrations for the heavy water system in the bottom of the reactor's pool tank. Mulcair's alert, Loy says, resulted in "a significant investigation as to how that happened". Such a communications gap was "a concern, yes".

From then on, Loy required that INVAP's procedures be amended to ensure ARPANSA's directions were "explicitly included in all ... written chains of command".

ANSTO's subsequent three-month delay in informing ARPANSA of the discovery of faulty welds in the pipework was, according to Loy, "a matter of concern" requiring "further investigation". A full-time ARPANSA officer was to begin "intelligence gathering" and conduct full-time inspections at the new reactor site and manufacturing points.

Loy told the Senate inquiry: "There will be complexities of instrumentation and control and there will be issues connected with the fuel, the fuel type and the core complex systems ... I would expect issues to arise in many of those, just from a priori experience."

Loy has also confirmed that before he even considers issuing an operating licence for the replacement reactor, he will need to be satisfied there will be storage for Lucas Heights' spent fuel waste when it is brought back from conditioning overseas. "ANSTO has talked about 2005 for the operation of the reactor, but whether that comes to pass or not, I do not know."

HELL ON EARTH

Sydney residents will be relieved to know that in the event of a worst-case scenario, there is an evacuation contingency plan for those living within 3km of Lucas Heights.

But officers of the Ambulance Service of NSW have refused to join any post-incident distribution of iodine "due to the lack of appropriate Personal Protective Equipment". Similar arguments exist for the NSW Police Force, the Rural Fire Service, the State Emergency Service and crews under the umbrella of the Volunteer Rescue Association. The NSW Fire Brigade Employees Union is also among those highly critical of the contingency plans.

Only this month, the NSW government reluctantly agreed to accept the World Health Organisation's safe level of radioactive exposure of 10milligray (mGy) ­ a third of the level advocated by ANSTO and ARPANSA, according to FBEU president Darryl Snow. "ANSTO and ARPANSA are concerned that their advocacy of the WHO contamination threshold would amount to their tacit admission that a nuclear incident is a possibility," he says. "A comprehensive and effective emergency response to the affected area is beyond the scope of agencies tasked with dealing with such an incident. Our critical concern is whether an evacuation might take place smoothly, effectively and in a timely manner."

The NSW Fire Brigade is the designated combat agency for radioactive incidents. "There is no guarantee that contaminated water will be contained and that local water supply and catchment areas will not be affected," Snow says, warning that crews may cease to respond "to unsafe levels of radioactivity".

There were also concerns that "any actions taken by firefighters may be ultimately ineffective in containing the incident. Consideration must also be given to the possibility that a terrorist attack on a nuclear facility will be but one part of a co-ordinated attack." In short, Snow says, procedures in place in the event of a terrorist attack "are breathtakingly inept in their inability to comprehend how an incident might be fought effectively".

The Bulletin

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