Australia's nuclear graveyard

Journal Article · Wed Apr 01 04:00:00 EST 1987 · Bull. At. Sci.; (United States)

DOI:https://doi.org/10.1080/00963402.1987.11459507· OSTI ID:6488161

Milliken, R

Britain and Australia have become locked in a battle of wills and wits over a nuclear legacy that is now more than 30 years old. At stake is the issue of who will pay to clean up a stretch of the central Australian outback where at least 23 kilograms of plutonium are buried in nuclear graveyards or scattered in fine particles on the ground. The plutonium was left there after a series of British nuclear weapons tests in the 1950s and 1960s. The cost of cleaning it up today, and rendering the ground safe the the Aborigines who claim it as their tribal homeland, has been estimated at up to $158 million. Australia's minister for resources, Senator Gareth Evans, went to London in October 1986 to try to involve the British in the cleanup. But Britain is still taking the stand that it had discharged any obligations on this score long ago. This question is at the heart of controversy that began mounting in the late 1970s over the British nuclear tests. It was then that Aborigines and test veterans from Britain and Australia started alleging that they had been exposed to unduly high doses of radiation. Clearly, the nuclear tests, which began as a political exercise between Britain and Australia more than 30 years ago, seem destined to remain the source of much legal, diplomatic, and financial fallout between the two countries for a long time to come.

• OSTI ID: 6488161
• Journal Information: Bull. At. Sci.; (United States), Journal Name: Bull. At. Sci.; (United States) Vol. 43:3; ISSN BASIA
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY
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54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
AUSTRALASIA
AUSTRALIA
CLEANING
CONTAMINATION
DECONTAMINATION
EUROPE
INSTITUTIONAL FACTORS
LEGAL ASPECTS
NUCLEAR WEAPONS
POLITICAL ASPECTS
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UNITED KINGDOM
WEAPONS
WESTERN EUROPE