Latest news with #MontebelloIslands
RNZ News
2 days ago
- Politics
- RNZ News
Australia: Iran bombing reax, YouTube exempt
Australia correspondent Chris Niesche looks at how Australia responded to the US strikes on Iran's nuclear facilities and questions over whether its Pine Gap communications facility was used in any way. The eSafety commissioner has called for YouTube to be included in the ban on under-16s accessing social media, due to come into effect in December. And a new study of marine sediment off WA's Montebello Islands has found plutonium levels up to 4,500 higher than the rest of the coast. The site was used in the 1950s by Britain for its nuclear tests. To embed this content on your own webpage, cut and paste the following: See terms of use.
The Guardian
4 days ago
- Science
- The Guardian
Plutonium levels at nuclear test site in WA up to 4,500 times higher than rest of coast, study finds
Samples of marine sediment taken from the location of three 1950s British government nuclear bomb tests off the coast of Western Australia have revealed plutonium levels up to 4,500 times higher than the rest of the coastline. Sixty six samples were taken from the shallow waters at the Montebello Islands, and scientists are now working to understand how marine life may be being affected by the sediment. The British government performed three nuclear tests on the uninhabited, remote islands – about 80 kilometres off the WA coastline – between October 1952 and June 1956. The first bomb, known as Operation Hurricane, was detonated in a ship moored 600 metres off Trimouille Island. Two further bombs were detonated from towers on Trimouille and neighbouring Alpha Island. The area is now a marine park known for its turquoise waters, corals, dolphins and threatened turtles. Madison Williams-Hoffman, a PhD student at Edith Cowan University and lead author of the research, said the plutonium would have been part of the 'fallout' from the nuclear tests that would have fallen from the blast cloud and into the surrounding waters and land. Radiation from plutonium cannot travel through skin and is most dangerous when ingested or inhaled. The 66 samples were collected in 2020 by divers who took the top 10cm of sediment, with analysis done at the university in Perth and also by the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation. Sign up for Guardian Australia's breaking news email Williams-Hoffman said little was known about the amounts of plutonium that remained in the marine environment and it was too early to speculate on any ongoing risks. Further research would look at those risks, she said. She said: 'This is a baseline that tells us what the levels are. Next we look at the risks to what's living there.' Williams-Hoffman said because plutonium was entirely human-made it could only be released by nuclear bombs, nuclear facilities or nuclear accidents. The contamination will persist for many thousands of years, she said. While the islands are not inhabited, they are visited by recreational fishing boats. The research, published in the journal Marine Pollution Bulletin, showed concentrations of plutonium at the islands were four to 4,500 times higher than those found in sediment samples taken at two distant coastal sites more than 1,000 kilometres away on the Western Australian coastline. Williams-Hoffman said it was curious that levels of contamination at the Montebello Islands were similar to those at the Marshall Islands in the Micronesia region of the Pacific in the northern hemisphere, even though nuclear testing there by the US government was 'orders of magnitude' greater. 'This is a really important question for us as a country,' she said. 'We have unique ecosystems and environments and we need to understand how these materials behave in the environment once they are released.' A previous study of animals in the Montebello area found low levels of plutonium in all tested species, but levels in fish muscles were so low that anyone eating them 'would receive an increase in dose from the [plutonium] many orders of magnitude lower than that from the natural radionuclides in the same fish', the research said. Visitors to the marine park are warned to limit any visits on Trimouille and Alpha Island to an hour a day, and not to disturb soils. Tim Hunt, the marine program coordinator for the Pilbara region of the WA government's parks and wildlife service, said while it was useful to know that plutonium persisted in the marine environment, advice from nuclear experts was that the risk to humans was much lower in a marine environment than on land. 'Because this radiation will persist for generations, we are looking to build on information and adjust our management if needed. But the information we have is that our measures are sufficient to mitigate the radiation risk that's there, and will continue to be there.'
ABC News
5 days ago
- Science
- ABC News
Radiation at Montebello Islands still 4,500 times higher than WA coast after nuclear blasts
Cam McGurk's stories of one of Australia's most heavily irradiated areas come drenched in warm Pilbara sunshine. "I actually spent my honeymoon at the Montebello Islands," Mr McGurk, a longtime member of the Ashburton Anglers fishing club, said. "It was the middle of COVID, so all the travel restrictions were in place … that was the one island holiday where I could take my beautiful wife. The fondness locals like Mr McGurk feel for the islands, about 1,300 kilometres north of Perth, could soon be given fresh pause. According to a landmark study published today, the archipelago's atomic contamination runs astonishingly deep. The Montebello Islands were the site of three British atmospheric nuclear weapons tests between 1952 and 1956. Two of the around 174 spits of sandy earth are still subject to hour-long visitation limits. Since 2019, a team of researchers from Edith Cowan University has sought to measure precisely how much plutonium remains in the islands' marine sediment. Their findings have now revealed levels reaching up to 4,500 times higher than the rest of the WA coast. Scientists spent eight days on the Montebello Islands, diving to gather surface sediment from the ocean floor. Samples were sent to the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency, the chief regulator for historic nuclear testing sites. "We're able to essentially create a map with the over 66 locations that we took samples of sediment from," lead researcher and PhD candidate Madison Williams-Hoffman said. Ms Williams-Hoffman said two "mechanisms" were spreading radiation through the islands over the past 70 years. "The first one is the plume trajectories … like the mushroom clouds that you conjure in your mind when you think of nuclear detonations," she said. "Those travelled with the wind direction at the time of the detonations." Second, decades of tides and severe weather dispersed residual plutonium in unexpected ways. "There are two cyclones a year that directly impact that part of WA, and so sediment is being tossed up and around, and things [are] moving," Ms Williams-Hoffman said. She said concentrations in the islands' north were "comparable" to other places touched by nuclear testing, including French Polynesia and the Marshall Islands. Any degree of similarity was remarkable because the Marshall Islands suffered a cumulative nuclear impact 700 times greater than the Montebello Islands. "It makes us question what's different between the two sites," Ms Williams-Hoffman said. The legacy of British nuclear testing in Australia is fraught with displacement and disease. Following three major tests conducted on the Montebello Islands, two more nuclear devices were detonated at Emu Fields and another seven at Maralinga in South Australia. Ray Kaye, former president of the Australian Ex-Services Atomic Survivors Association, said it was crucial the impacts of radiation were recorded. The 85-year-old, who later contracted leukaemia, was awarded a medal by the British government for his involvement in the SA nuclear tests. Mr Kaye reminisced on a 2016 trip with his fellow veterans to the Montebello Islands, marking the 60th anniversary of the blasts. WA Parks and Wildlife marine program coordinator Tim Hunt said managing radiation on the Montebello Islands was an "interesting" part of the job. "When I came into this role almost nine years ago, I never thought I'd have to get my physics hat on and learn about radiation," Mr Hunt said. He noted that exposure to marine sediment was far less concerning to authorities. "I'm not an expert, but people aren't going down and putting their head in the sand at 10 or 16 metres," he said. "Our current understanding is that the measures we have in place are sufficient to mitigate that risk." Visitors to Trimouille and Alpha Islands, where the three tests took place, are advised to restrict their time to no more than one hour per day, and not to disturb the soil or handle any relics. Ms Williams-Hoffman said the results were an important step in understanding the repercussions of radionuclides in Australia. Next, researchers will evaluate the effects of such high radiation on the environment. "It's kind of like walking before you can run," she said. "Now that we have these numbers or values in hand, then we can later do those assessments in terms of … how much radiation a person, or perhaps most important with sediment considering it's under water … the animals, the fish, and the plants are exposed to." For Cam McGurk, his appreciation for the "boating and fishermen's playground" reels back to 1998, when a special permit was needed to travel there. He mused that the legend of atomic testing had likely shielded the islands from over-tourism, but supported further monitoring.
