Muniroa worst place for test?

Press, 10 February 1986, Page 1

Muniroa worst place for test?

PA Auckland A senior University of Auckland scientist yesterday described Mururoa Atoll as perhaps the worst place in the world to conduct nuclear tests. Dr Mike O’Sullivan, an associate professor of theoretical and applied mechanics, said computer models he had developed of the underground nuclear testing site showed the volcanic atoll was “leaky as a sieve.” He told the third national meeting of Engineers for Social Responsibility that radioactive material could leak into the atoll lagoon within 10 years. Official French reports say radioactive material released from the underground explosions is unlikely to reach the surface

for 500 to 1000 years. Dr O’Sullivan told the Auckland conference that seawater contaminated with radioactive fall-out was flowing up to 100 metres a year in permeable rock under Mururoa. The nuclear blasts created, in effect, an underground geothermal system, he said. Dr O’Sullivan, who did the research with the director of the university’s geothermal institute, Dr Manfred Hochstein, said the atoll was as leaky as a sieve and “probably the worst place in the world where you could conduct nuclear tests or contain nuclear wastes.” He had written to the Minister for the Environment, Mr Marshall, suggesting the Government reopen its Mururoa investigations.