Inadequate Safety Practices at Lucas Heights and Inadequate Regulation by ARPANSA, Friends of the Earth 10 Aug 12 Since 2007, a saga has been unfolding regarding contamination accidents at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation (ANSTO), ANSTO’s handling of those incidents, ANSTO’s treatment of whistleblowers, the handling of the matter by the Australian Radiation Protection and Nuclear Safety Agency (ARPANSA), and the 
independence or otherwise of ARPANSA.
The saga has exposed inadequate safety practices at ANSTO and an inadequate performance by the regulator ARPANSA. The problems would not have been exposed and partially rectified if not for a number of ANSTO whistleblowers.
A few snapshots of this saga are noted below and more details can be found on the Friends of the Earth website:
28 August 2008 − Incident at ANSTO involving a vial of molybdenum-99. An audit found that proper processes were not followed: evacuation of the area did not occur, timely communication and event reporting, thorough investigation and follow-up did not occur. The staff member in question had not completed occupational health and safety induction training or a radiation safety course.
June 2009 − David Reid, an ANSTO employee and staff-elected health and safety officer, was suspended in June 2009 and sacked in June 2011. He repeatedly raised concerns about contamination incidents and some of his concerns were later vindicated. ANSTO states that his suspension and dismissal were unrelated to his statements regarding safety problems at ANSTO.
5 May 2010 − The ABC report states: “ARPANSA is Australia’s nuclear industry watchdog and Lateline has obtained a copy of its report into the accident. It largely supports David Reid’s concerns and raises further questions about safety at Lucas Heights. … ARPANSA’s investigation found that radioactive vials are regularly dropped, something that’s been tolerated for years. There have been no apparent attempts to introduce improved handling systems. Supervision and training have not been effective in delivering the standard of safety required at the facility. And there’s been a lack of management awareness about difficulties and failures at the facility.”
1 June 2010 - ANSTO’s CEO Dr Paterson acknowledges that investigations into contamination incidents found that “management arrangements in place at the time were deficient in a number of respects.” Dr Paterson praises Mr Reid for his “valuable”, “very useful” and “very positive” role in raising safety concerns.
8 February 2011 − ABC TV Lateline reports that: “Australia’s workplace health and safety regulator, Comcare, has been called in to investigate the incidents. Lateline’s obtained a copy of its report. It goes even further, finding that ANSTO has breached health and safety laws. It says ANSTO did not take all reasonable steps to provide and maintain a safe working environment. It didn’t take all reasonable steps to inform, instruct, train and supervise ANSTO Health employees. It failed to comprehensively risk assess its radiopharmaceutical production process and it failed to notify Comcare of safety incidents.”
28 February 2011 − The Australian reports that at least six ANSTO employees claim they were bullied by management and, in some cases, suspended from work after expressing concern about the safety of the plant’s operations.
3 March 2011 − The Australian reports that: “Two employees of Australia’s only nuclear reactor facility who were suspended after raising safety concerns will return to work in what amounts to a tacit admission by the plant’s administrators that the accusations against them were overstated.”
30 March 2011 − the ABC reports: “Australia’s nuclear industry regulator, ARPANSA, is under review over its handling of safety breaches at the nation’s only nuclear reactor. … The Chief Auditor is investigating how ARPANSA handled the original allegations of safety breaches and bullying at the nuclear site. ARPANSA last year released two conflicting reports on the claims at the Lucas Heights facility.”
31 May 2011 − The Australian reports that a Government-appointed panel found that ANSTO’s facilities are ageing, staff were worried that maintenance occurred only for the most urgent matters, and a more open approach to reporting health and safety problems should be adopted.
7 July 2011 − Parliamentary Secretary for Health and Ageing Catherine King said in a media release that the Department of Health and Ageing will review the regulatory powers of ARPANSA. This review follows the receipt of an independent audit by the Audit and Fraud Control Branch of the Department of Health and Ageing into ARPANSA’s handing of two safety incidents at ANSTO in September 2007 and August 2008. The audit, requested by the CEO of ARPANSA, found that there was a lack of consistency in evidence and transparency in the handling of one of the incidents.
19 October 2011 − ANSTO’s Dr Paterson comments on the frequency of contamination incidents at ANSTO: “In a typical month we would be talking about between three and perhaps 10, if there had been a significant number in relation to particular production activities.”
16 March 2012 − The Australian reports that: “[ANSTO] used findings of an inaccurate, biased and partially fabricated in-house report as the pretext to suspend − and recommend the dismissal of − two employees who raised health and safety concerns over the mishandling of radioactive materials. The conclusion comes from an investigation by the national workplace regulator, Comcare, into events surrounding an incident in September 2010 in which a third employee was contaminated with radioactive yttrium-90 at the radioisotope production facility (ARI). … The Comcare investigation report, completed last December and obtained by The Australian, confirms long-running claims of bullying and cover-ups at the Australian Nuclear Science and Technology Organisation’s Lucas Heights facility in Sydney’s south. … Comcare found the ANSTO investigator’s report “was not impartial or reliable” [and] that the investigator included fabricated statements and “relied on hearsay and opinion from personnel … in the form of emails, conversations and handwritten notes”.”
19 June 2012 − A KPMG report commissioned by ARPANSA on September 2007 contamination incidents at ANSTO states that “we find that it is possible that the version of events in Mr Reid’s allegations did occur.” The KPMG report also finds that neither the interim report nor the final report by ARPANSA “sufficiently examined Mr Reid’s allegations that a contamination incident … occurred during the morning of 3 September 2007.”
More information on inadequate safety practices at ANSTO and inadequate regulation:
Friends of the Earth website
- Lucas Heights whistleblower sparks nuclear safety fears, ABC, 5 May 2010
- 1 June 2010 - Senate Estimates with Greens Senator Scott Ludlam and ANSTO’s Dr Paterson
- Report slams Australian nuclear reactor, ABC Lateline, 8 Feb 2011
Safety breaches at reactor The Australian, 8 Feb 2011 - Nuclear whistleblower treated unfairly The Australian, 8 Feb 2011
- Video: Report slams Australian nuclear reactor (ABC Lateline), 9 Feb 2011
- Report scathing of nuclear reactor safety ABC, 9 Feb 2011
- Nuclear reactor under investigation The Australian, 9 Feb 2011
- Nuclear safety breaches concern Opposition, ABC, 9 Feb 2011
- Reactor staff ‘bullied over safety concerns’, The Australian, 28 Feb 2011
- Backdown at Lucas Heights over safety claims, The Australian, 3 March 2011
- Nuclear agency safety ‘stuck in 70s’ The Australian, 24 May 2011
- 30 May 2011 − Senate Estimates − ANSTO
- 19 October 2011 − Senate Estimates − ANSTO
- 20 February 2012 − Senate Estimates − ANSTO
- February 2012 − Senate Estimates - ARPANSA
- Lucas Heights nuclear reactor bullying exposed, The Australian, 16 March 2012
- Third nuclear worker in bullying claim, The Australian, 22 March 2012
- KPMG report commissioned by ARPANSA
- 28 May 2012 − Budget Estimates - ANSTO
