The political and media trip to the site is largely symbolic, designed to distance the two Labor governments – the new Hawke government in Canberra and the Bannon state government – from the Maralinga fallout that dogged the previous Fraser government. As Lloyd-Roberts writes, ‘The representatives of the Federal and South Australian Governments were there jointly to express their regret that the atomic test series had ever been allowed to take place in Australia and to pledge their support for all investigations into the possible harm done to servicemen, Aborigines and the environment’.
The Australian newspaper has sent reporter John Stanton, who quotes Walsh and Bannon, and ARL director Lokan, as they survey the contaminated areas. Lokan wields handheld Geiger counters. The radiation chief, while pointing to the dangers of plutonium as a cause of lung cancer, also wishes to allay any fears of the visiting party, or longer term visitors, about the immediate dangers of the area. Stanton quotes him saying, ‘There was no evidence the ploughed plutonium was being further spread by wind erosion. But the pollutant could be present in dust, although this would generally have to be breathed for long periods before it would pose a health risk’.
When the politicians and journalists depart, the scientists get back to work. According to a prearranged strategy, they start their survey on the outer limits of the enormous range and work their way in. Part of their work involves field observations using their Geiger counters, and the rest involves measurements of soil samples back at their laboratory in Melbourne. The samples are taken in a standard way using a cylindrical corer device. Three samples are taken from each small area, the soil combined and sieved through a 1-millimetre mesh to remove larger stones and then stored in bags. Later they will be scanned for gamma ray emissions, an excellent diagnostic test for americium-241, which indicates the presence of alpha-emitting plutonium. Because radiation abounds in nature, the scientists also pick up soil samples from outside the weapons test areas to check for naturally occurring uranium, unrelated to the nuclear tests, that may contribute to their readings.
The scientists take in their surroundings. They see lots of small pieces of rusty metal lying around the concrete firing pads, some old pieces of metal tubing or boxes and other scraps. The large infrastructure on the range, though, is long gone – either blown up during the experiments, buried in pits during the 1967 clean-up known as Operation Brumby or removed from the site. The scientists see some electrical components such as cables and connectors, but they find no radioactivity on them. In 1979, several new concrete plinths were erected at Taranaki, and at Emu Field further north, adorned with messages advising visitors to the sites that nuclear tests had taken place there. Before that, back to 1967, visitors would have had little idea of this, since the test era fences and signs were removed in Operation Brumby.
The laborious field measurements and sample collection proceed smoothly. To obtain data on the state of contamination at the site, the Australian team divides the Maralinga range into a grid and walks from end to end taking and recording measurements as they go, as the British Radiation Survey (RADSUR) team did in 1966. They cut the site up into 600 metre by 1 kilometre rectangles and walk up and down, taking a measurement every 20 metres. To preserve the battery power of the field monitors, the instruments are turned off after each measurement and the clicking sound is not activated. This means that the area between each measurement stop is not monitored, a gap that is later recognised as significant.
They slog through this routine for six days without incident and all seems well. The Pearce Report seems more or less to reflect the reality on the ground, with only a few anomalies or hotspots. But on Sunday things start to get strange. If ever the biblical commandment for a day of rest made sense, it is after spending a long, hot, dusty week routinely walking backwards and forwards slowly covering a large swathe of the vast testing site. Most of the field staff take the opportunity to drive north for a day’s visit to the Emu Field test site. Burns, Cooper and Williams stay behind to ‘have a play around’ at Taranaki.
Suddenly, the readings begin revealing multiple radiation hot-spots that are definitely unexpected. The Pearce Report suggests the levels of contamination will remain fairly stable, and smoothly continuous – with no big changes over a 100-metre stretch, for example. Yet Burns, Cooper and Williams start to get wildly fluctuating readings over relatively short distances. This is not supposed to be happening. The scientists start to think about putting on face masks and other protective gear. At the Taranaki firing pads they are intrigued to find themselves kicking plutonium-soaked lumps of metal, rock and soil with their boots. Their Geiger counters go berserk near the hotspots. They find radioactive material in many places, particularly around the firing pads. The last of the big ‘mushroom cloud’ bomb detonations was conducted here. Between 1960 and 1963 it was also the site for the totally secret Vixen B radiological experiments. On 12 occasions during those years, simulated nuclear warheads containing plutonium were blown up using TNT.
No-one can remember now why part of the Maralinga range is named after a region in the North Island of New Zealand. Perhaps it is related to the fact that New Zealand military personnel were part of the uniformed force stationed at Maralinga. Maybe it is an echo of the brilliant New Zealand scientist and Nobel Laureate Ernest Rutherford, whose basic nuclear physics research at Cambridge University made nuclear weaponry possible (although Rutherford was born on the South Island). Some people have speculated that the name was intended to be Tarakan, site of a battle during World War II in Borneo, but it was written down wrongly and the typo stuck. Certainly some of the other Maralinga test sites, such as Wewak and Biak, reference names familiar to Australian troops who served in Papua New Guinea during the war. Whatever the reason for the name, Taranaki will soon become infamous for its extensive radioactive contamination, the greatest amount on the Maralinga range. In fact, Taranaki will soon be revealed as one of the most contaminated places on the planet. The scientists, like all Australian officials, believed the plutonium was safely buried there, not spread around the landscape. When they report their findings, pressure will grow on the Hawke government, and soon a Royal Commission will be called that will systematically review what happened during the atomic tests. Amazingly, up to that time, the sovereign government of Australia actually has no idea.
The scientists are perplexed by the wildly jumping radiation detectors and review their measurements. ‘I had a monitor in my hand, switched the speaker on and monitored the ground’, Peter Burns will say later, during an interview with the New Scientist journalist Ian Anderson.