Emergency plan for AUKUS nuclear submarine accident released
Residents in Perth could be issued iodine tablets or warned to shelter under an emergency plan that would be triggered if radiation escaped from an AUKUS nuclear submarine.
They are some of the potential responses outlined by West Australian authorities to tackle any leak of radioactive iodine or gamma radiation from a nuclear-powered warship of submarine.
A Virginia-class attack submarine before its christening in 2021. The ones Australia is buying as part of the AUKUS deal will be secondhand. AP
The state hazard plan, published in August, comes ahead of the first US and British submarine deployments through the naval base, HMAS Stirling, south of Perth, in 2027.
Any emergency response to a nuclear accident would include a raft of national and state civilian and military agencies, but the coordinating body would be the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA).
The document warns leaking radiation could potentially contaminate vegetables grown at gardens or the milk from cows grazing in areas several kilometres downwind.
While it mainly examines potential impacts of radioactive material leaking from a reactor core, it also considers the far more serious scenario of a disastrous reactor meltdown, which has a risk of one-in-ten million per vessel, every year.
The naval base at HMAS Stirling in WA will be a base for nuclear submarines. Trevor Collens
Despite the extremely low likelihood, health department officials have drawn up plans to supply iodine tablets to hospitals in Perth and surrounding areas to treat affected residents, if required.
In an emergency guide, ARPANSA says consuming potassium iodide – or KI pills – is a “short-term” measure that blocks radioactive iodine from being absorbed by the thyroid.
The hazard plan also included details of the precautions taken in the design of all nuclear reactors fitted to warships and submarines to prevent leakage of radioactive material.
“The reactor core in (nuclear-powered warships) is so designed that it is physically impossible for it to explode,” it said.
Safety concerns about nuclear-powered submarines deployed at West Australian bases were raised by the crowd-funded AUKUS public inquiry in June when it held hearings in the state.
Colin Hughes, the former head of Public Health in Perth, told the inquiry that governments had failed to adequately prepare for the possibility of a nuclear accident involving visiting or serviced submarines.
“There is actually no nuclear safety plan for Rockingham, Kwinana, or the people of Fremantle and Perth in the case of a major nuclear catastrophe,” he said.
This week WA Energy Minister Amber-Jade Sanderson, speaking with the ABC, played down the risk of a major accident.
“It is extremely unlikely that any adverse event will occur. No adverse event has ever occurred,” she said.
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