PACIFIC TESTS Risk Of Fall-out Held To Be Slight

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30447, 22 May 1964, Page 16

PACIFIC TESTS Risk Of Fall-out Held To Be Slight

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, May 20. The French nuclear bomb testing in the Pacific, about 3000 miles north-east of New Zealand, next year should not result in any significant contamination of this country by fall-out, the council of the Royal Society was told today.

Last year, when the French plans to test at Gambier Island were known, the Royal Society asked three scientists to prepare a report on the possible effect on New Zealand, and the island territories.

The three scientists, Dr. M. A. F. Barnet, Sir Ernest Marsden, and Dr. A. M. O. Veale, presented their report today. They said that, given care, good meteorological advice, and. patience, any agency conducting tests at Gambier Island should be able to avoid any contamination of inhabited islands by early fall-out from a surface explosion. They said the test fall-out radiation effects were likely to be small compared with the effects of naturally occurring radiation. Possible contamination of rainfall in the Cook Islands from tropospheric fall-out could be the greatest during the months of January to March.

There appeared to be little likelihood of any significant contamination from this source during the period June to December. “No significant contamination can be expected in the Cook Islands from stratospheric fall-out from high level or high yield nuclear

explosions at Gambier Island,” said the scientists. “New Zealand need not expect any significant contamination from tropospheric fall-out from the testing.”