Plutonium - Health and Safety!

The Ministry of Defence has always claimed that the Health and Safety of the testing program was of the highest standard and that no one was ever put in danger, and that they always adhered to international standards when handling radioactive waste. When you read this blog, you will realise that when handling such radioactive waste, it was far from the truth.

We start with a document discussing a small quantity of recoverable plutonium buried at Maralinga during the tests in the 1950s. This document is nearly 30 years later in 1980.

The document states that "The material in question has been stored in a safe and secure manner which fully meets international requirements." Remember that sentence.

The plutonium was to be repatriated back to the UK.

An extract from the report produced on repatriating the material has been obtained.

As the operation needed to be carried out in secret, the operation to seal the barrels must be completed at night.

As the light-generating capacity was stretched, a generator was "borrowed" from the village.

"We were finding our generating capacity stretched and with

the assistance of the Commonwealth Police 'borrowed' an ancient

generator from the village to supply power to the flood lights.

The mechanical virtuosity of Corporals Bingham and

Mulherin surprisingly brought this ancient piece of

equipment back to life."

Then Airport steps, a drum and two wooden planks were used to allow a wheelbarrow of concrete to be used to fill the barrels. We have no details of the protective equipment the corporals were wearing at this time.

Remember the sentence "The material in question has been stored in a safe and secure manner which fully meets international requirements."

Now that they are sealed, obviously the drums would be taken to a secure storage area and guarded as their contents are radioactive and if this plutonium was to fall into the wrong hands, it could be used to devastating effect.

"The drums were marked with appropriate international colour markings

and placed on their side. An old tarpaulin was placed over the

top of these drums which were then left in the custody of the

Commonwealth Police who had a caravan nearby."

Remember the sentence "The material in question has been stored in a safe and secure manner which fully meets international requirements."

Changes to the official document were requested by the British High Commission, they were happy with the diagram, the two planks, the old generator, the old tarpaulin and storing under guard by a nearby caravan. But not the word "1804".

The British High Commission rejected the publication of the document and advised to keep it classified. This was due to "an unwelcome resuscitation of public interest in this affair." Another cover-up?

If the document was to be published, the UK Government then wanted all reference to the concrete filling removed and the marking of the barrels because "it would be indicated to the informed observer that the materials were being prepared for disposal as components of a UK sea dump operation"

Does this meet international standards? Dumping barrels of plutonium waste in a UK Sea Dump?

Also, the UK Government wanted any reference to the dates of the operation removed so that it could not be ascertained that the material was flown back to the UK which could give rise to possible questions from countries that might worry about an overflight.

Other amendments were discussed, including changing the wording "The Filling Operation" to "Preparation for Transport".

Replacing details with "Was likely to result in the release of some plutonium contamination and required careful planning to minimise this hazard."

So careful that they had to "borrow" a generator, used old tarpaulin to store the barrels and leave it near a caravan with the Commonwealth Police who would guard it!

Initially, the report stated that the drums were to come back to Aldermaston, but this was replaced with the UK.

Remember the sentence "The material in question has been stored in a safe and secure manner which fully meets international requirements."

The Press announcement was to discuss the repatriated plutonium and it was understood that this would be politically sensitive, so there should be no mention of the plans for disposal, which we know from earlier documents was a UK Sea Dump.

The press release was brief, but a list of answers was prepared just in case.

It states the consignment will be guarded at all times during transit. But no mention of them under an old tarpaulin, under the watchful eye of the Commonwealth Police in their nearby caravan.

We now know how much Plutonium is to be repatriated - half a kilogram!

The operation must be completed with maximum secrecy to protect the plutonium. The timing and modalities of the transport of the container containing half a kilogram of plutonium will be kept secret due to international complications of overflying and port entry. According to Orano, one gram of plutonium can produce as much energy as 100 g of uranium or 1 metric ton of oil.

The United Kingdom should also be involved in supervising the packaging at Maralinga to ensure it meets appropriate containment standards and will meet all costs for the repatriation.

Remember the sentence "The material in question has been stored in a safe and secure manner which fully meets international requirements." Do you believe it?

Conclusion

So the UK Government had a problem, half a kilogram of plutonium had to be repatriated from Australia. How to do it without alerting any terrorist organisation, and how to ensure that International standards for transportation and storage were met. This is how:

1. Borrow a generator from the local village to provide some light as they didn't have enough.

2. Ask two corporals to 'bring it back to life'.

3. Create a makeshift platform of airport steps, a barrel and two planks to fill the barrels with concrete.

4. Move them to another part of the site and throw some old tarpaulin over them.

5. Tell the Commonwealth Police that they are there, so they can monitor them from their nearby caravan.

6. Fly them from Australia to the UK without telling any of the countries that are in the flight path that they are transporting half a kilogram of plutonium.

7. Take them to Aldermaston, where they can be prepared for dumping off the UK in a sea dump.

8. Do not release any details, times, dates or how it was prepared as it may alert people to the fact that this material is in the UK.

The IAEA Safety Standards for protecting people and the environment - Storage of Radioactive Waste states:

2.2. The storage of radioactive waste must ensure that both human health and the environment will be protected, both now and in the future, without imposing undue burdens on future generations. The safety requirements established in Section 2 relating to the protection of human health and the environment are applicable to the storage of radioactive waste.

The IAEA revised these standards in the 1990s because of the need for further regulations about the disposal and storage of radioactive waste.

(https://www-pub.iaea.org/mtcd/publications/pdf/pub1254_web.pdf).

We do not know if the plutonium waste barrels ended up in the UK Sea dump, or where they are located now, we have asked the AWE at Aldermaston for full details of this operation and the location of the barrels following the publication of this blog, we will publish their response to our findings.

We do not have any details of the protective clothing given to the men, any monitoring details of radiation levels, but anyone will tell you that mixing concrete, pushing a wheelbarrow and tipping it into barrels in full hazmat suits, in the desert at night would be an impossible task. Only the people involved will be able to tell you, if any of them are reading this, please get in touch.

We will leave it to you to make up your minds if "The material in question has been stored in a safe and secure manner which fully meets international requirements."

UPDATE - After sending an FOI request to Aldermaston, they asked me for the reference number of the report I was referencing in this blog so that they could find it in their archives. I have obliged and sent them the details as I did not want to receive the standard 'It will take too long to find this information FOI response'.