Pacific 'paradise’ not for sale as nuclear dump

Press, 22 August 1979, Page 9

Pacific 'paradise’ not for sale as nuclear dump

NZPA Sydney An island in the midPacific that the United States Government is reported to be considering as an international nuclear waste dump is not for sale. The “Sydney Morning Herald” said yesterday that the owners of Palmyra Island, 6500 km north of New Zealand, have no intention of selling it for use as a dump.

The island is owned by the three sons of an Australianborn adventurer, Leslie Fullard-Leo, who bought it in 1922.

The “Herald” report says that in a call to the home of Mr Dudley Fullard-Leo, in Oahu, Hawaii, it became clear that an offer of S2OM — the figure estimated by United States Administration officials — would not change their minds.

According to the plan, if it proceeded, the United States Government would try to persuade Pacific nations to store up to 10,000 tonnes of their highly radioactive spent fuel on the island.

Mr Dudley Fullard-Leo told the “Herald”: “Palmyra is totally unsuited to the disposal or storage of nuclear material.

“We are opposed to the proposal because of the environmental risks it would pose to the Pacific area. “It is an extremely high rainfall area with heat, humidity, and corrosive saltladen winds —we have trouble storing anything there.”

Mr Fullard-Leo added, however, that Palmyra was everybody’s idea of a South Seas paradise and there was no intention of selling it. He said the island had 25 inhabitants who were restoring a copra plantation and developing commercial fishing. Mr Fullard-Leo, who is 50, and his brothers Leslie, aged 69, and Ainslie, 47, all live in Hawaii and have diversified business interests including construction, copra growing, and commercial fishing, the “Herald” report says. P.M.’s opposition. — Page 21