3CR
 Community Radio 855am

THE RADIO-ACTIVE SHOW

With Eric Miller and Linda Marks

Saturday at 10.00am

20th February 1999

Good morning, this is the Radioactive Show brought to you by the Sustainable Energy and Anti-Uranium Service. I'm Linda Marks and with me in the studio is Eric Miller. (Good Morning) The Radioactive Show is a weekly program bringing you news and information on Nuclear, Peace and Energy issues.

On today's show we speak to Dr Helen Caldicott on the medical implications of uranium mining and the nuclear industry. She is organising an anti-nuclear conference for the 19th and 20th of March in Canberra.

We also speak to Dave Sweeney from ACF on this week's leaked document stamped 'Highly Protected.' The document outlines the Federal Government's plan to try and keep Kakadu off the World Heritage Endangered list and to mine Jabiluka at the same time.

The paediatrician, Dr Helen Caldicott is one of the founders of Physicians for Social Responsibility. This group was one of the outstanding peace and anti-nuclear groups in the United States in the 1980s. Physicians for Social Responsibility is one of the groups that shared the 1985 Nobel Peace prize.

Helen is organising a conference to be held in March in the dining room of the Old Parliament House. The conference is titled 'Uranium, Low Level

Radiation, Nuclear Power, Nuclear Waste and Nuclear War.'

She was in Adelaide this week speaking to physicians and at a public meeting. Eric Miller contacted her there.

Eric Miller: What are the main medical problems with uranium mining?

Helen Caldicott: Uranium is radioactive. It lasts millions of years and decays radioactively to a series of daughter products. One of them is radon gas which when inhaled into the lungs is a potent cause of lung cancer such that in the past one third of uranium miners have died of lung cancer. It also decays to another daughter product which is radium which is very dangerous. Years ago women used to paint the dials of watches, the numbers on the watches, with radium enriched paints and they used to lick the paintbrushes to make them nice and pointy and the figures accurate. They swallowed a lot of radium. The body thinks that radium is calcium. It's very radioactive and it's laid down in bone where in those women it induced leukemia because the white blood cells are made in the bone marrow and leukemia is cancer of the white blood cells. And it also caused a lot of bone cancers and many of those women died of malignancies. Those are just two of the daughter products of uranium. And then you can only run the reactor for another 10-15 years before it must be shut down because it is too radioactive to operate any more. And when you put the uranium in a reactor you pack in 100 tonnes of uranium in close proximity in the fuel rods, it starts to fission. And when it fissions the atoms crack apart producing 200 new radioactive elements never known before until man fissioned uranium. The uranium itself becomes one million times more radioactive than the original uranium that we dig up. It's full of these materials, some only last seconds and some last millions of years and that's called nuclear waste or radioactive sewerage. That material is a huge problem and nobody in the world knows what to do with it because we are talking about geological time frames.

Eric Miller: They talk about reprocessing the fuel that comes out of a nuclear power stations. This a very dirty process that they do?

Helen Caldicott: Reprocessing is filthy. They did it during the weapons era when they made the bombs. They put the nuclear fuel rods in the reactor, they fissioned them and plutonium was made. That's an element that's heavier than uranium and it's made when uranium captures a neutron. Plutonium is the fuel for nuclear weapons. You only need 10 pounds to make yourself a bomb. The way they got it out of the fuel rods is that they took them to a reprocessing plant. They dissolved the rods in concentrated nitric acid. From that thermally, radioactively hot solution, they removed the plutonium for the bombs. They left in the solution all the other elements like strontium 90, caesium 137, radioactive iodine and a whole witch's brew of toxic elements, all of which cause cancer, most of which last for hundreds of thousands of years. That's radioactive waste. In the process of melting the rods down large amounts of radioactivity is released, like radioactive iodine that causes thyroid cancer, and krypton, xenon and argon that are very radioactive and carcinogenic. And they are talking about building a reprocessing plant in South Australia for the waste from Lucas Heights. There is no reason to melt down in nitric acid because we are not making bombs, we don't need the plutonium, but that is apparently on the drawing board. It's very dangerous. In essence they do now reprocess fuel at Lucas Heights. Large quantities of radioactive iodine are released into the air and thousands of children live within a few kilometres of that reactor at Lucas Heights.

Eric Miller: So the people around Lucas Heights have been irradiated and are being irradiated today?

Helen Caldicott: Yes. We don't know how much radiation they are taking into their bodies, it depends on the wind direction, the meteorological conditions, but we do know that children are 10-20 times more sensitive to the cancer causing effects of radiation that adults. And when these materials actually get into the body and lodge into organs, they irradiate surrounding cells with a very high dose and they are very carcinogenic.

Eric Miller: It takes a number of years before these health effects show up, doesn't it?

Helen Caldicott: Yes. Once you have been irradiated, the incubation period for cancer is any time from 5 to 50 or 60 years. And that's how the nuclear industry gets away with what they do because of the long incubation time. Whereas, if I had a cold and I cough on you, you are coughing and sneezing within two days. Cancer when it is produced doesn't wear a little flag saying, 'I was made from strontium 90 when you were eating a piece of Herseys chocolate 20 years ago.' Why Hersey's chocolate? Because the factory is 13 miles from 3 Mile Island and there was a big release of radiation from 3 Mile Island when it melted down.

Eric Miller: And cancers aren't the only health problem you get from radiation are they?

Helen Caldicott: No. The other serious problem is that radiation mutates genes. Well, that's how it causes cancer in normal body cells. If you have genes changed in the sperm or the eggs, the genes are the very building blocks and essence of life, then you could have genetic diseases that manifest themselves generations hence. There are about 3,000 genetic diseases that are now described. My speciality was cystic fibrosis, the most common lethal genetic disease of childhood. One in 20 people carry that gene in the Caucasian population. So what we are doing is degrading the process of evolution and producing disease, not just in humans, but in animals and plants because they all have genes too. By increasing the level of radiation in the environment with man made radiation.

Eric Miller: The substances like plutonium that are produced by the nuclear industry, you only need very small quantities to cause these health effects.

Helen Calditcott: Well plutonium is incredibly carcinogenic. It's appropriately and named after Pluto, the god of hell. Such that, when they injected minute quantities into beagle dogs there wasn't a dose low enough that didn't give all the dogs cancer. So by extrapolation, hypothetically, you can't do this, but if you could take a pound of plutonium and put that pound, or parts of it in every person on earth, that's 6 billion people, hypothetically it could give everyone on earth lung cancer. They are talking about the most incredibly dangerous material ever produced on earth. Each nuclear reactor makes 500 pounds of plutonium a year and it happens to have a half life of 24,400 years meaning that it remains radioactive for half a million years.

Eric Miller: Now, putting this waste through the processes we do, like reprocessing, we just haven't got the technology to keep those very small particles out of the environment.

Helen Caldicott: You know, there are 34 million gallons of this high level, extremely acidic, corrosive nuclear waste at Savanna River in Sth Carolina just near the Savanna River in big vats. There are 74 million gallons of it at Hanford Washington just near the Columbia River which has been the most radioactive river in the world. This liquid waste is incredibly dangerous. Apparently if we export out solid nuclear waste from Lucas Heights, we then have to import a similar amount in liquid form and what do we do? We put it on top of the Great Artesian Basin in South Australia. What is happening in this country, I have never known anything so wicked as what this present Coalition Government is doing. On those very grounds, this Government should never have been elected. But on the other hand, I have to say, I don't trust the Labor Party either. And as I speak to my medical colleagues, they are absolutely aghast and appalled at what is happening. Absolutely appalled.

Eric Miller: We are told that we need Lucas Heights and we need to deal with this waste. They are making medical isotopes. What do you say about that?

Helen Caldicott: All medical isotopes used in medicine can by made in cyclotrons so we don't need nuclear plants at all to make medical isotopes. And even if we did we shouldn't have them because they make massive quantities of radioactive waste, which over time will produce huge numbers of cancers, while we are attempting to cure just a few. And medical isotopes do not cure most cancers anyway.

Eric Miller: You are helping to organise a conference on the nuclear industry in Australia?

Helen Caldicott: Correct! I have organised a conference to be held in Old Parliament House in Canberra in the Dining Room on March 19th and 20th. The conference is called, 'Uranium, Low Level Radiation, Nuclear Power, Nuclear Waste and Nuclear War.' It is $50 for 2 days. Anyone can attend and I invite anyone who wants to, to come. I am flying out 2 excellent people from the United States. One who is an expert on nuclear power there and the dreadful problems with radioactive waste in America. One who is an expert on the Millennium Bug affecting the Pentagon and the Russian nuclear weapons system and how the Millennium Bug could induce a nuclear war. It's going to be a fascinating conference and I invite everyone to attend. To register you need to call 02 9361 3039.

Eric Miller: Thanks very much Helen.

Helen Caldicott: It's my pleasure and look forward to seeing everyone at the conference.

Linda Marks: That was the paediatrician, Sr Helen Caldicott, one of the founders of Physicians for Social Responsibility and a tireless peace and anti-nuclear campaigner.

And the phone number to ring for the conference is 02 9361 3039. The conference is titled 'Uranium, Low Level Radiation, Nuclear Power, Nuclear Waste and Nuclear War.' It will take pace in the dining room of Old Parliament House in Canberra on the 19th and 20th of March. Or you can ring the Anti-Uranium Collective at FoE on 9419 8700.

This week a document stamped 'Highly Protective' was leaked to the environment movement. The document is from Environment Australia, Senator Robert Hill's Department. It revealed a $1 million strategy the Government has embarked upon to try and stop Kakadu being put on the endangered list.

Eric Miller spoke to Dave Sweeney from ACF and asked him, 'What happened this week?'

Dave Sweeney: Yes, it's been a very interesting week with regard to Jabiluka this week Eric. Basically, what happened is there was a leaked copy of a memo that was drafted by a fellow called Roger Beal who is head of Environment Australia, the Federal Environment Department. That memo was to Robert Hill as the Environment Minister. So you have the senior environment bureaucrat writing a briefing note to the Commonwealth Environment Minister that looked at how they could work to ensure that Kakadu isn't listed as a World Heritage property in danger because of Jabiluka. It's 20 pages and a very clear concise really cynical document of what strategies the Government can undertake to undermine the initiative to get Kakadu listed as in danger. Who should be involved, how they should go about it, and what resources they would need to do it.

Eric Miller: There was quite a bit on money involved in this and the tactics they were using weren't really ethical.

Dave Sweeney: From the tactics they were using it is very clear that they are concerned that Australia will lose International prestige. It is very clear that they are very concerned that there is a real threat to the viability to the Jabiluka project and that the project won't go ahead. It's clear that they are very committed to getting the project up. The tactics are the sort of things like absolute media saturation and what spins and lines that can be put on things. Highlighting key countries in the World Heritage Committee. Ensuring that every favour that is owed to Australia Internationally is called in on this. Ensuring that Australian trade missions, embassies, consulates, friends of Australia groups all actively turn into campaigners against Kakadu being listed in danger in Paris in the middle of this year. And it really is a very broad ranging strategy. It's got legal elements, elements of how to deal with and how to negate the Aboriginal concerns. It's got how to deal with and how to negate environmental concerns. It's got International lobbying aspects. It's got a wish list of places to go and people to lobby. It's really a disturbing document in the depth of detail. It's disturbing in the extent to which they are prepared to go and not just prepared to go but are actually going. Because a lot of this refers to the way that they would check their performance in this whole process and they've already had 2 or 3 interdepartmental meetings on this. So you would have, Prime Minister and Cabinet, Foreign Minister and Trade, Primary Industry and Energy, Aboriginal Affairs, Supervising Scientists, Department of the Environment. Senior, very high level bureaucrats in all of them continually and actively working on getting the Jabiluka project up. It's not news in the sense of obviously those who are campaigning against the mine have always known that there is pretty strong Government forces against you. But it is a different thing to see it written in a memo form, in a dot point form of how they intend to go about pushing through what is without doubt the most unpopular industrial project on Australia.

Eric Miller: It was said in parliament that they are trying to support 1,000 jobs and $12 billion worth of assets for Australia. What do you say about that?

Dave Sweeney: I say that the only possible justification you can make for Jabiluka to go ahead, is the economics, is the employment, is the dollars. You can't make it on Aboriginal grounds. You can't make it on environmental grounds. You can't make it on ethical grounds. You can't make it on nature conservation grounds, tourism grounds or any other criteria. They only reason you would build a bloody great tunnel, hole, mill, tailings dam, roads in Kakadu, another one, is bucks. The long and short of this is that the company has consistently overestimated its income potential, it's consistently underestimated its costs. And this is one more case. We have a company here that it is going to generate 1,000 jobs and says it's going to generate $12 billion. This same company has dropped its share price 65% since it started this project. This same company has announced that its sales, its turnover and its profits for this financial year will be significantly reduced because of a weaker market condition. And this same company has, in January 1999, shut down part of its existing near by Ranger uranium mine because the market isn't there. This is not a healthy industry in any way. It's a disgraceful idea, even if the dollars were good. The dollars are not good. The Uranium Institute, the industry's peak body, based in London, has said that the market will be over supplied with uranium, the global market will be in glut for at least the next two decades. This is an unhealthy industry, including economic. Now, it wouldn't be a good enough justification to run roughshod over people's lives and over country and culture even if the dollars added up, but if the dollars don't add up there is no reason whatsoever. What we have is short-term greed, highly specific, sector-based looking, ideological imperatives driving Government. To have half-truths and half lives mixed together is a very dangerous cocktail and this Government is literally treating people who raise real concerns about things as if they are so how 'unAustralian' or 'counter to the national interest'. This Government has no perception of what the national interest is. It is not in this nation's interest to dig up Kakadu.

Eric Miller: OK, Dave, thanks very much.

Dave Sweeney: Thanks for you time, Eric.

Linda Marks: That was Dave Sweeney from ACF talking about the document leaked from the Federal Government this week.

Eric, you have some news items for us.

Eric Miller: Yes. A range of news items this week. First, higher levels of uranium have been detected in the Magela Creek and into Retention Pond No. 1 outfall. This is the pond that collects sediments from around the outside of the mine, not from the Restricted Release Zone, but from the roads leading into the mine and where they dump the overburdens from the pits above the ore. And this has recorded higher levels of uranium from the end of January to the beginning of February. And usually from Retention Pond No. 1 the outlay into the Magela Creek usually has readings from about 1-3 parts per billion of uranium. But at the end of January it went up to 7 parts per billion. For a number of weeks after that it was still higher that the 3 level. Although now they say that it has gone back to the below 3 parts per billion. So the company had a public meeting in Jabiru to explain this and said that they don't really know where it's coming from but everything is under control. We know that these abnormal levels most likely came from the mine.

Also this week, there is the Australian International Air Show '99 at Laverton and we have a B 52 there. Now this B 52 is still on alert. It can get orders to fly off anywhere around the world if there's a hot spot and drop its load. What kind of load has it got on? Is this load a nuclear load? The Industry Minister Mark Birrel said that there is $4 billion of Australian defence contracts at this trade fair, so really this trade fair is a trade in death, that's all you can call it.

And on a lighter note this week, Professor Mark Green and Professor Stuart Wilman received the Australian prize for science. That comes with a $350,000 prize. These two scientists, over the last 20 years, have been in the forefront of solar technology. They have always had the most efficient solar cells in the world. From the 1980s when the solar efficiency of these cells was about 15%, they increased that and now they have it up to 24.5%. This is a remarkable achievement from these scientists. But still we haven't a huge solar photovoltaic cell industry in Australia.

Last week I mentioned that Yvonne Margarula was going to court for trespass on her land at Jabiluka in May last year. She had appealed that. The Supreme Court did sit on Monday but they have adjourned the case until next Monday. Jaqui and Christina who were arrested with her haven't appealed and they expect to be arrested and taken to gaol any time soon.

And also in Queensland, the Joint Venture Summit Resources and Resource Ltd have wanted to develop the Walhalla uranium deposit north of Mt Isa. They have been visiting the Minister for Mines, Tony McGrady in Queensland, Labor Party politician, and he has said he will not allow a uranium mine to proceed in Queensland. So that's a really good statement from him. This company has also been speaking to the Deputy Prime Minister, the Liberal Leader, the ACTU and the Australian Workers Party, so they are lobbying to get that uranium mine in Queensland going but of course this has all been stopped by the Labor Government.

Linda Marks: Just to remind people of a few 'What's Ons': The Palm Sunday Rally, on March 28th, leaving from the State Library Steps at 1.30pm and after that the Blockade of North Ltd at 476 St Kilda Road from Monday 29th March to the Thursday the 1st April.

Community Aid Abroad's 'Walk Against Want' on the 21st March.

Eric Miller: That's all the time we have for the Radioactive Show this week, so it's goodbye from Eric.

Linda Marks: And it's goodbye from Linda.

Transcript produced by Linda Marks - with much thanks!!!
Page last updated March 11, 1999.
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