Radioactive leakage a long-kept secret

Press, 13 April 1988, Page 31

Radioactive leakage a long-kept secret

PA Auckland i New Zealand’s worst radioactive contamination crisis exposed university staff to doses 300 times higher than safe levels, but it was kept from the public for more than 20 years.

|ln February, 1963, a Victoria University physics j lecturer, Mr Ron Humphrey, aged 37, died of leukaemia. His widow sued for damages. I Eventually the case was settled out of court. ; But legal records appear to have been lost or destroyed. | The university lawyers, Chapman, Tripp, Sheffield and Young, the Radiation Laboratory, the Health Department, and National Archives can throw no light on the case. i Even now, files described as having been “voluminous” and describing the seriousness of this incident and its sequels cannot be found.

Radioactive materials and solutions’ [ [were; dumped on rubbish tips or I sealed in [ drums and' dumped at sea. j ! i The public were not told. Records show that the extent of contamination | and subsequent decontam- j ination efforts were never revealed. [ ■ I !i ■ '! i At one stage ; furniture and fittings were removed from the Victoria Univer-j sity physics I laboratories. Tests showed contamina-. .tion on walls, the worst being a patch 300 times above British safety standards. i ■; For two years the! contaminated i laboratory equipment was stored in a shed in a Wellington; residential street. ! !

The Director-General of; Health at /the [time, Dr Harold Turbott, said: “The fittings were ! removed from the physics department because their continued use could involve

I repeated contact by the same person oyer a long period, and the level of radioactive contamination of these fittings exceeds that permissible for such use.”: : The storage [shed was demolished in 1966 after as many as six truckloads of Contaminated laboratory ! fittings were buried in Wellington's Wilton Road tip. j Workmen involved and the truck used were monitored for radioactivity after each trip.! The incident brought to light; other highly questionable disposal methods. For j instance, radioactive solutions from Victoria University and other users were regularly set in concrete in oil drums arid dumped in Cook Strait] Until the late 1 1960 s hazardous radioactive materials from universities I and hospitals were regularly flushed through sewers, buried in local

tips and dumped at sea.’ The last option was prohi-, bited only last year. In Wellington, Professor/ 1 lan Campbell, Acting Vice-Chancellor at /Victoria University at<,the time of the discovery, of radiation contamination, believes he made the right decision tp/keep the matter quiet, ft i “Having looked at it all again after/20 years I haven’t changed my mind,” he/said. Professor;Campbell said he was riot. aware of any other .staff or students whose/-health had been affected by-the radiation. [ “It was-a slight leakage and jt was never proved that-Mr'Humphrey’s death was connected with it,” he said. .

(/Professor Campbell said that:/ university officials had not wanted to alarm Kelburn residents or university students unnecessarily by releasing news of the leak.