Curbs may cancel Mururoa visit

Press, 19 August 1983, Page 11

Curbs may cancel Mururoa visit

New Zealand scientists would reconsider the Mururoa mission if the conditions imposed by the French Government were too restrictive, the leader of the team, Mr H. L. Atkinson, has said.

Mr Atkinson, who is director of the Christchurchbased National Radiation Laboratory, was commenting on claims that the mission would be allowed to stay only one day and one night on Mururoa, that the French would collect their samples, and that no geologist would be permitted in the team.

He was reluctant to commit himself to a position before the alleged terms had been officially confirmed and said that “in any case all the details were still under negotiation.”

However, he hinted that if the restrictions were found to apply, the New Zealand Government might have to reappraise the viability of the whole mission.

“If you take the most pessimistic view, there is a bottom line below which we cannot go and still maintain credibility,” he. said. Mr Atkinson was unsure yesterday whether the restrictions described fell below that “bottom line.” He said that he would have to wait and see what they added up to and if there was room for manoeuvre. He said that the case was unusual because the laboratory was in another country’s defence area but that he had experienced before a level of co-operation from the French far above what might have been expected. The team hoped to have access to pass monitoring data and to investigate a range of issues that had been raised concerning the effect of nuclear-testing on the environment, Mr Atkinson said.

The inquiry would cover radiation levels in Mururoa, Papeete and the French

Polynesian islands and procedures to prevent the escape of radio-active materials into the atmosphere, with emphasis on the dumping of waste, he said.

Health statistics would be collected, particularly for radiation-induced diseases, in Mururoa and the surrounding islands.

Mr Atkinson said that the mission had also intended to study the structural effects of the bomb blasts on the atoll — both geological and geophysical. He would not comment, however, on whether the alleged embargo on geological scientists would render this aspect of the investigation impossible. Greenpeace, the environmental group, said yesterday that the Government will be cutting its own throat if it accepted French restrictions on the visit.

According to Ms Jane Cooper, a Greenpeace official, the scientists should not visit the atoll as she believes the trip would be “meaningless.” Social Credit said that the investigation should be broadened to include the effects of the tests on the weather.

“There is ample evidence that the small temperature rise in the central Pacific Ocean last year triggered a vast air movement responsible for disastrous floods in South America and a ‘backlash’ drought in Africa and Australasia,” said the party’s defence spokesman, Mr Dick Ryan. “What should now be investigated is whether that small surface air temperature rise has any connection with the undersea nuclear tests carried out in the same area,” he said.