Maralinga, in the remote western areas of

South Australia South Australia (commonly abbreviated as SA) is a state in the southern central part of Australia. It covers some of the most arid parts of the country. With a total land area of , it is the fourth-largest of Australia's states and territories ...

, was the site, measuring about in area, of British nuclear tests in the mid-1950s. In January 1985

native title Aboriginal title is a common law doctrine that the land rights of indigenous peoples to customary tenure persist after the assumption of sovereignty under settler colonialism. The requirements of proof for the recognition of aboriginal title, ...

was granted to the

Maralinga Tjarutja The Maralinga Tjarutja, or Maralinga Tjarutja Council, is the corporation representing the traditional Anangu owners of the remote western areas of South Australia known as the Maralinga Tjarutja lands. The council was established by the ''Mara ...

, a southern

Pitjantjatjara The Pitjantjatjara (; or ) are an Aboriginal people of the Central Australian desert near Uluru. They are closely related to the Yankunytjatjara and Ngaanyatjarra and their languages are, to a large extent, mutually intelligible (all are va ...

Aboriginal Australian Aboriginal Australians are the various Indigenous peoples of the Australian mainland and many of its islands, such as Tasmania, Fraser Island, Hinchinbrook Island, the Tiwi Islands, and Groote Eylandt, but excluding the Torres Strait Isl ...

people, over some land, but around the same time, the

McClelland Royal Commission The McClelland Royal Commission or Royal Commission into British nuclear tests in Australia was an inquiry by the Australian government in 1984–1985 to investigate the conduct of the British in its use, with the then Australian government's p ...

identified significant residual

nuclear contamination Radioactive contamination, also called radiological pollution, is the deposition of, or presence of radioactive substances on surfaces or within solids, liquids, or gases (including the human body), where their presence is unintended or undesirab ...

at some sites. Under an agreement between the governments of the United Kingdom and Australia, efforts were made to clean up the site before the Maralinga people resettled on the land in 1995. The main community, which includes a school, is Oak Valley. There are still concerns that some of the ground is still contaminated, despite two attempts at cleanup.

History

Nuclear tests and cleanup

Maralinga was the scene of UK nuclear testing and was contaminated with

radioactive waste Radioactive waste is a type of hazardous waste that contains radioactive material. Radioactive waste is a result of many activities, including nuclear medicine, nuclear research, nuclear power generation, rare-earth mining, and nuclear weapons r ...

in the 1950s and early 1960s. Maralinga was surveyed by

Len Beadell Leonard Beadell OAM BEM FIEMS (21 April 1923 – 12 May 1995) was a surveyor, road builder, bushman, artist and author, responsible for constructing over of roads and opening up isolated desert areas – some – of central Australia fr ...

in the early 1950s. It followed the survey of

Emu Field Emu Field is located in the desert of South Australia, at (ground zero Totem I test). Variously known as Emu Field, Emu Junction or Emu, it was the site of the Operation Totem pair of nuclear tests conducted by the British government in Octob ...

, which was further north and where

Operation Totem Operation Totem was a pair of British atmospheric nuclear tests which took place at Emu Field in South Australia in October 1953. They followed the Operation Hurricane test of the first British atomic bomb, which had taken place at the Montebell ...

with two nuclear tests was conducted. On 27 September 1956,

Operation Buffalo Operation Buffalo may refer to: * Operation Buffalo, 1944 military operation, part of the Battle of Anzio in WW2 * Operation Buffalo (1956), four open-air nuclear tests at Maralinga, South Australia * Operation Buffalo (1967), a Vietnam War opera ...

commenced at Maralinga, as Emu Field was found to be too remote a site. The operation consisted of the testing of four

fission bomb A nuclear weapon is an explosive device that derives its destructive force from nuclear reactions, either fission (fission bomb) or a combination of fission and fusion reactions (thermonuclear bomb), producing a nuclear explosion. Both bomb ...

s. Two were set atop towers, one at ground level, and one released by a

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) an ...

Vickers Valiant bomber from a height of . This was the first launching of a British atomic weapon from an aircraft. Operation Antler followed in 1957. Antler was designed to test the triggering mechanisms of the weapons. Three tests began in September. The first two tests were conducted from towers; the last was suspended from balloons. Yields from the weapons were 1

kiloton TNT equivalent is a convention for expressing energy, typically used to describe the energy released in an explosion. The is a unit of energy defined by that convention to be , which is the approximate energy released in the detonation of a ...

, 6 kilotons and 25 kilotons respectively. Participants in the test programme were prohibited from disclosing details of its undertakings. Risking incarceration, nuclear veteran

Avon Hudson Avon Hudson (born 1937) is a South Australian RAAF ex-serviceman, nuclear weapons testing whistle-blower and co-author of the 2005 book '' Beyond Belief'' which he wrote with academic and historian, Roger Cross. He has appeared in several docume ...

became a whistle-blower and spoke out to the media in the 1970s. His disclosures helped pave the way towards a public inquiry into the tests and their legacy. The

of 1984–1985 identified significant residual contamination at some sites. British and Australian servicemen were purposely exposed to fallout from the blasts, to study radiological effects. The local Aboriginal people have claimed they were poisoned by the tests and, in 1994, the Australian Government reached a compensation settlement with

of $13.5 million in settlement of all claims in relation to the nuclear testing. Previously many of these facts were kept from the public.

1985 native title handback

In January 1985, the land was handed over to the

traditional owner Native title is the designation given to the common law doctrine of Aboriginal title in Australia, which is the recognition by Australian law that Indigenous Australians (both Aboriginal Australian and Torres Strait Islander people) have rights ...

s, the Aboriginal people of the area (

Aṉangu Aṉangu is the name used by members of several Aboriginal Australian groups, roughly approximate to the Western Desert cultural bloc, to describe themselves. The term, which embraces several distinct "tribes" or peoples, in particular the Ng ...

) who are a southern branch of the

people, under the ''

Maralinga Tjarutja Land Rights Act 1984 The Maralinga Tjarutja, or Maralinga Tjarutja Council, is the corporation representing the traditional Anangu owners of the remote western areas of South Australia known as the Maralinga Tjarutja lands. The council was established by the ''Mara ...

''. They were granted

freehold title In English law, a fee simple or fee simple absolute is an estate in land, a form of freehold ownership. A "fee" is a vested, inheritable, present possessory interest in land. A "fee simple" is real property held without limit of time (i.e., per ...

, and the right to developmental funds from the State and Federal governments. They completed a move back into Oak Valley in March 1985, a new community approximately NNW of the original township of Maralinga. Under an agreement between the governments of the United Kingdom and Australia in 1995, efforts were made to clean up the site, being completed in 1995. Tonnes of soil and debris contaminated with

plutonium Plutonium is a radioactive chemical element with the symbol Pu and atomic number 94. It is an actinide metal of silvery-gray appearance that tarnishes when exposed to air, and forms a dull coating when oxidized. The element normally exhibi ...

and

uranium Uranium is a chemical element with the symbol U and atomic number 92. It is a silvery-grey metal in the actinide series of the periodic table. A uranium atom has 92 protons and 92 electrons, of which 6 are valence electrons. Uranium is weak ...

were buried in two trenches about deep. The effectiveness of the cleanup has been disputed on a number of occasions. In 2003 South Australian Premier

Mike Rann Michael David Rann, , (born 5 January 1953) is an Australian former politician who was the 44th premier of South Australia from 2002 to 2011. He was later Australian High Commissioner to the United Kingdom from 2013 to 2014, and Australian am ...

and Education Minister

Trish White Patricia Lynne White (born 7 September 1964) is a company director and former Australian politician, who represented Taylor in the South Australian House of Assembly for the Labor Party. She first won the seat at a state by-election held on ...

opened a new school at Oak Valley, replacing what had been described as the "worst school in Australia".

Contamination fears

Despite the governments of Australia and the UK paying for two decontamination programmes, concerns have been expressed that some areas of the Maralinga test sites are still contaminated 10 years after being declared "clean", as late as 2011. It was found in 2021 that radioactive ("hot") particles persist in the soil, after international multidisciplinary team of scientists studied the results produced by a machine at

Monash University Monash University () is a public research university based in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. Named for prominent World War I general Sir John Monash, it was founded in 1958 and is the second oldest university in the state. The university h ...

that is capable of slicing open tiny samples using a beam of high-energy ions only a nanometre wide. The analysis of the results suggested that natural processes in the desert environment could bring about the slow release of

over a long period. This plutonium is likely to be absorbed by wildlife at Maralinga.

Climate

*Temperature from in winter to in summer; overnight minimum of in winter. *Rainfall average

Documentary film

'', a May 2020 television documentary film directed by Larissa Behrendt and made by

Blackfella Films Blackfella Films is a Sydney-based documentary and narrative production company, founded in 1992 by Rachel Perkins. The company produces distinctive Australian short and feature-length content for film and television with a particular focus on ...

for ABC Television, tells the story of the people of Maralinga. It was deliberately broadcast around the same time that the drama series ''

'' was on, to give voice to the Indigenous people of the area and show how it disrupted their lives. Screenhub gave it 4.5 stars, calling it an "excellent documentary". The film shows the resilience of the

people, in which the elders "reveal a perspective of deep time and an understanding of place that generates respect for the sacredness of both", their ancestors having lived in the area for millennia. Despite the callous disregard for their occupation of the land shown by the British and Australians involved in the testing, the people have continued to fight for their rights to look after the contaminated land.

References

External links

*Agreements, Treaties and Negotiated Settlements (ATNS) project at the Indigenous Studies Program, The

University of Melbourne The University of Melbourne is a public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in Victoria. Its main campus is located in Parkville, an inner suburb no ...

Maralinga Tjarutja Council

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History Detective Podcast Nuclear Testing at Maralinga
{{Authority control Aboriginal communities in South Australia Nuclear test sites in Australia