APpos
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Drinking
oS
a)
Water
The primary source of drinking and cooking water for Bikini inhabitants
is unprocessed rain water obtained from cisterns attached to the newly
constructed buildings along lagoon road.
The cisterns collect water
drained from the windward roof of each building.
Ground water has also
| been used for drinking purposes in perjods of drought and will be used in
the future when ever cistern water is unavailable.
There is presently a
high demand for the ground water for agriculture on Bikini Island.
- Three of the cisterns were first sampled jin June 1975 and analyzed for
137
Cs,
90
Sr, and plutonium radionuclides.
- Shown in Table 1.
The results” are abstracted and
From an examination of the fallout in rainfall at other
Pacific Islands over the period of 1968 to 1974, it was concluded* that the
90 Sr
and by anaology,
137,Cs
and
239,240 Pu
concentrations in the cistern
water did not result solely from world wide fallout.
The cisterns contained
levels of radionuclides that were locally derived. In support of this
contention, two. water samples collected in October 1975 from
the drinking water tanks on the ERDA supported Marshall Island Research
vessel, the R.V. Liktanur, contained 0.6 + 0.2 pCi/2 of
0.09 + .04 pCi/e of
Wile.
239,240
Pu and
This water comes from the rain water supply
collected at Kwajalein Atoll.
Th e 239,240 Pu and 137 ‘”’Cs concentrations in
Marshall Island rainfall are then approximately 1/20 of the concentrations
in the Bikini cisterns.
We therefore conclude that the Bikini cistern
water contains small, butnevertheless significantly elevated, levels of
plutonium radionuclides above those expected from world wide fallout.
The
higher concentrations could originate*from leaching of the concrete cisterns
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