./ 6 410095 x aBdtelle . Pacific !iorthwest Laboratories Battelle Boulevard Richland, Washington Telephone October 23, 1978 Telex (509) 99352 946-2421 32-6345 Hal Hollister Director Division of Operational and Environmental Safety Department of Energy Washington, D. C. 20545 Dear Hal: The Northern Marshall Islands Advisory Group met on October 3-4, 1978 to consider the issue of planting coconuts on Enewetak Atoll, recommend cleanup guidance for subsurface contamination, discuss the Enjebi experimental farm, review preliminary results of the plowing experiment and be briefed by TonunyMcCraw on the status of the Northern Marshall Islands Survey. The Advisory Group offers the enclosed comments. The discussion of these and other topics again identified the apparent lack of integration of the efforts at Enewetak and in the other Marshall Islands as the major concern of the Advisory Group. We are in complete agreement that all DOE activities at Enewetak as well as at Bikini and at all other northern Marshall Islands should be combined and integrated under a single DOE administrator with overall management responsibility and authority. We have no criticism of individuals who are involved in the Marshall Islands effort bec?use they obviously are dedicated to their projects. However, the importance and magnitude of the Marshall Islands program requires that these individual projects be part of an overall program plan administered by a well defined management structure. Examination of each project such as the Enewetak cleanup, the Northern M&rshalls Survey, the Bikini Health Studies, the experimental work at the Enjebi garden plot, the work at the Enewetak marine laboratory, the Univer~ity of Washington studies, and the work of the Nevada Operations Office probably would yield few criticisms. However, this would provide no assurance that adequate information will be available to support the technical and political decisions to be made. We are concerned that while inxnediate issues are being individually addressed, the broad andlong term aspects could be neglected. An example of our reason for concern is the singular attention to the transuranics at Enewetak with little effort expended on 9%r and 137CS and the lack of a plan to do a thorough dose assessment