By Peter Wills and Eve Sinton
AUCKLAND — In response to the US announcement that it will remove all of its nuclear weapons from naval vessels except strategic submarines, the New Zealand government is reconsidering its ban on nuclear-powered ships. The ban has been in effect since 1987.
The National Party government has announced its intention of reviewing Section 11 of the Nuclear Free Zone, Disarmament and Arms Control Act. This is the section which prohibits the entry of any nuclear-powered ship within New Zealand's 12-mile limit. As a preliminary step, Prime Minister Jim Bolger has announced the formation of a Special Committee on Nuclear Propulsion comprising himself and the ministers of health, Simon Upton, and transport and environment, Rob Storey.
Revoking Section 11 would not make it immediately possible for nuclear-powered vessels of the US Pacific Fleet to visit New Zealand ports. Until it is clear that such vessels have been relieved of their nuclear weapons, they will still be banned under Section 9 of the act.
However, the government intends to signal rapprochement by amending the law to make it more palatable to US tastes. The passage of the law was viewed in Washington as a hostile act, not because of its practical consequences, but because of its symbolic political content. It implicitly challenged the "Neither Confirm Nor Deny" (NCND) policy which is an essential component of US naval nuclear doctrine.
Denmark's policy is similar to New Zealand's but has not been challenged by the US. The Danes maintain a de facto ban on visits by nuclear-powered ships, because their safety requirements are too stringent for the US and they demand more information about the reactors than the US is willing to provide.
It is believed that the US reaction to New Zealand's nuclear-free legislation arises from fears that other countries, like Japan, which has an ineffectual nuclear-free stance, might also challenge the NCND policy.
Since New Zealand's nuclear-free legislation was enacted, the US government has excluded New Zealand from participation in the ANZUS alliance and has cut off military cooperation. No top level political contact between New Zealand and US governments was permitted until September 1991, when President Bush had a brief private meeting with Bolger in New York.
New Zealanders show a consistently high level support for the nuclear-free stance. Any concession will reflect badly on the democratic process in New Zealand and its ability to follow an independent foreign policy.
Trade has been raised as one reason for accommodating US nuclear-powered ship visits. There is no evidence to show that New Zealand's international trade has suffered as a result of the nuclear-free law. In contrast, Australian farmers have suffered gravely from US trade policies although Australia has always welcomed nuclear-armed and nuclear-powered vessels in its ports. On the other hand, a nuclear-free image has enhanced the market position of New Zealand's agricultural products in Europe since Chernobyl contaminated European farmland with radioactive elements.
The Bolger government has chosen a bad time to hold a discussion about the safety of nuclear-powered ships, just as new assessments of how bad an accident could be are coming to light.
In the Soviet Union after Chernobyl, authorities at the northern port of Murmansk decided they had better prepare for the worst. They drew up a contingency plan based on the assumption that a ship's reactor blew itself to pieces while the vessel was in port. They had to reckon with 65,000 casualties among the half million inhabitants of Murmansk. Of these, 26,000 would be exposed to serious doses of radiation, and about 8000 would probably die from the effects within the short or medium term. Health hazards would extend to 1000 kilometres beyond the accident site.
New Zealand authorities have never addressed publicly the consequences of such a serious nuclear mishap. The whole issue is a political hot potato — so much so that the US Navy document dealing with a nuclear accident is labelled "FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY. SPECIAL HANDLING REQUIRED — NOT RELEASABLE TO FOREIGN NATIONALS". We have obtained a copy of this secret document from sources in the United States.
Scientists at Auckland University have calculated exposure levels which could arise from a serious nuclear reactor mishap in a New Zealand harbour. Several years ago Dr Robert Mann and colleagues in the Department of Planning conducted computer simulations of radioactive dispersion from such an event. Calculations like these cannot be exact, but they give a good idea of how serious the consequences of an accident could be.
Expected radiation exposure levels at different distances from the accident site depend on a large number of factors such as how the radioactive material is apportioned between air and water, the weather patterns at the time and the local terrain. However, the conclusions of the Mann study are in line with those of the Murmansk scenario.
Within half a kilometre or so of the accident scene, radiation levels are expected to be so high that a person could get a lethal dose (600 rem) in about four hours. Downwind for more than a kilometre, a four-hour dose of 300 rem is expected, enough to produce prompt radiation sickness. Out to five km downwind, the four-hour dose falls off to 50 rem. This exposure produces no prompt radiation sickness but increases the number of cancers, malformations and inherited defects. Fallout up to 20 km downwind is severe enough to deliver a 50 rem dose in seven days, meaning that regions in the shadow of the plume would be uninhabitable until the radioactive contamination had been diluted and dispersed. This could take years, especially in regions close to the original accident site.
This study was unofficial. Official contingency planning has been restricted to the case of a "reference accident" in which only a very a small amount of radiation is released into the atmosphere. Even so, planning to cope with the consequences of such a "reference accident" involves at least 10 government and local body authorities. Evacuation within 0.6 km is envisaged in this old contingency plan, but no scientific basis for this limit has been revealed. The Mann calculations indicate the need to consider evacuation for distances up to 20 km downwind. This would be very difficult, if not impossible, to accomplish in the time available.
In the past, conditions for nuclear-powered ships visiting New Zealand ports were laid down in an official document known as AEC 500. Much of this document was concerned with visits by hypothetical nuclear-powered merchant ships. The real visits of nuclear-powered warships circumvented most of the code's requirements under a clause which allowed the government to authorise naval visits at will.
The document assures readers that nuclear-powered vessels from the US and Royal navies are subject to detailed safety assessments by highly qualified independent safety review authorities, but no substantiation of the adequacy of these assessments is offered because the New Zealand government is not privy to any certification information.
When a nuclear-powered vessel of the US or Royal Navy visits a foreign port, the US or UK government issues what is known as the "Standard Statement" certifying safety aspects of the design, crew training and operating procedures of its nuclear propulsion plants. The US government refuses to make its Standard Statement public; however, we have obtained a copy and found that it is virtually identical to the British statement. The Standard Statement states categorically that no technical information on the design or operation of nuclear reactors will be made available to the government hosting the visit.
An Australian investigation into nuclear ship visits concluded that the secrecy surrounding US contingency plans could cause problems in coordination, should an accident occur. Parliament was informed by the Department of Defence that there was no detailed information available as to what the US Navy would do if it had a nuclear accident in an Australian port. Such details are spelt out in Instruction 3040.5B from the Chief of Naval Operations, Washington, the secret document we alluded to. It acknowledges the possibility of a serious accident occurring while a vessel is in port, contaminating the environment and requiring evacuation of the public.
The US Navy is concerned that "Because of public reaction, even a minor accident could have a serious impact on the Navy and on the operation of its nuclear-powered warships throughout the world". The commander in chief of the US Pacific Fleet has issued special instructions on how to handle the media when an accident occurs. Situations aboard ship are divided into seven categories, one of which is "Media embarked. Media not aware of circumstances as yet, will acknowledge basic facts as appropriate." Priority is given to establishing security in order to protect classified information.
When the detectable level of radioactivity is relatively low, local authorities are eventually informed through the chief of naval information in Washington. The ship's captain has no instruction to inform the harbour master or anyone else outside his chain of command. No specific protective action is recommended for the public, but personnel are dispatched to monitor radioactivity levels around the ship. In more serious situations civil authorities would be notified immediately, but the captain of a ship would consult with his superiors in Hawaii on the best course of action. Local port authorities would simply have to cope with the decision that US authorities made.
A special emergency PINNACLE / FADED GIANT message would be sent to Washington with FLASH precedence indicating that there had been a nuclear reactor accident. Aboard ship efforts would be made to protect the reactor core, stop the release of radioactivity, survey and assess the radiation hazard, minimise exposure to personnel and request assistance from special teams in Guam, the Philippines or Hawaii. Some of these actions could be impossible until the situation was brought under control, and there is no knowing how long that might take. Smoke bombs obtained from shore facilities are supposed to be released to track the path of airborne radioactivity. The plan would be to tow the vessel out of port within an hour. Inquiries from the media would be fobbed off to the "area commander", who might be in Australia or at some other US base.
Local inhabitants would simply have to rely on the captain's good sense to determine the best course of action, in consultation with his superiors. Warnings would be given to other ships in the area, but local authorities would not be asked what they wanted done with the vessel.
Whether or not New Zealanders start planning to deal with this contingency will depend on the outcome of the inquiry recently announced by the government, and in the end the decision will be purely political. There are no nuclear-powered surface ships in the Royal Navy, nor are there any nuclear-powered merchant ships operating in the Pacific, or elsewhere. The only nuclear-powered vessels ever likely to visit New Zealand are those of the US Pacific Fleet. n
Dr Peter Wills is a senior lecturer in the Department of Physics and Centre for Peace Studies, University of Auckland. Eve Sinton is an Auckland-based freelance journalist who specialises in science, technology and business computing.