THE American military failed to properly clean up contamination from one of
the world鈥檚 worst nuclear weapons accidents, a declassified US government report
reveals.
In 1962, a coral island in the Pacific was contaminated with plutonium after
a missile test went disastrously wrong. But only a cursory attempt was made to
decontaminate the site because of the urgent need to test more nuclear warheads,
says the report.
Johnston Island, a military base 1130 kilometres southwest of Honolulu, was
used by the US to test 14 atomic bombs over six months. The tests, part of
鈥淥peration Dominic鈥�, were conducted during the build-up to the Cuban missile
crisis, when the US and the former Soviet Union came perilously close to
war.
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A report on radiological safety prepared by military scientists at the time
reveals how a test codenamed 鈥淏luegill Prime鈥� went wrong on 25 July. The missile
burst into flames on the launch pad and its nuclear warhead had to be
destroyed.
This resulted in 鈥渁 contamination problem of major proportions鈥�, the report
says, but the need to test more warheads meant there was no time to
decontaminate the site adequately. 鈥淚n view of the nature of this event, lack of
particle distribution data, and an urgent necessity to rehabilitate the pad for
subsequent shots, no effort was made in analysing the magnitude and extent of
the radiological hazard.鈥�
Instead, 5 centimetres of topsoil were bulldozed into the sea and the pad was
scrubbed and painted. Testing resumed within 10 weeks. The decontamination was
鈥渉asty and primitive鈥�, says Sue Roff, the radiation researcher at Dundee
University who discovered the report, and the long-term effects on the health of
the servicemen involved were not monitored.
Nearly 40 years on, the island鈥攚hich is a wildlife reserve and base for
more than a thousand military and civilian personnel鈥攊s still
contaminated. 鈥淭hey are in the process of cleaning it up,鈥� says a spokesman for
the US Department of Energy. 鈥淲e should not judge events in the 1960s by today鈥檚
蝉迟补苍诲补谤诲蝉.鈥�