Merritlis Trip Report KI 111533 Christmas Island, August 1975 M. L. Merritt, 1150, recently spent a week on Christmas Island (Lat 2° N, Long 157° 30' W) together with Dr. John Malik, LASL, and Dr. Allyn Seymour, University of Washington. Our purpose was to see how the island had changed since the DOMINIC tests of 1962, since Christmas Island is at one of the corners of the area of the Pacific Ocean contemplated for the Readiness Program, and also to make a radiological survey to compare with similar measurements being made at Bikini and Enewetak. So far as the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Colony government was concerned, they wanted a current radiological survey to be able to assure the Japanese that the island is clean (more on this below). When we were on Christmas Island in 1962, there was a group of 400 Gilbertese people (contract laborers for the copra plantation) at the village of London, a recently abandoned village at a place called Poland, contingents of British and American troops, and of course we who were carrying on the tests. We test people left the island before the end of the year. The British and American troops finally left in 1964 (with a dozen U.S.A.F. people returning about 1970 for a purpose that my informant did not know). The British Ministry of Defense had a "maintenance contract" with the plantation after that to care for the buildings and supplies, but this contract was discontinued in 1971. There are at present about 700 Gilbertese and two Europeans on Christmas Island, in three villages, London, Banana (near the airport), and Poland. The trip to the island was sponsored and paid for by the Gilbert and Ellice Islands Development Authority (GEIDA); development is all the emphasis now, in preparationfor scheduled internal self-government of the Gilbert and Ellice Islands by the end of 1976, and full independence by the end of 1977. (At that time also, guano deposits in the Gilberts will be exhausted, and it is hoped the coincidence will help in getting some continued subsidy from the British government.) Thus the party that flew down to Christmas Istand from Honolulu included ten Europeans in addition to us, and three Gilbertese, to look at various aspects of the proposed development. The development furthest along is raising brine shrimp (Artemia sp.). These tiny shrimp (about 3 mm long, max) are used dried by fish hobbyists, and their eggs are vacuum packed for use in fish farms in Europe and elsewhere. The saline lakes in the middie of the island were seeded with brine shrimp in 19/1. To make raising them commercially profitable, lake salinity must be controlled in the face of tidal changes and great variations in rainfall. This project is being carried on by a group called Environmental Consultants, Inc., of Kaneohe, Oahu, Hawaii. REPOSITORY LCE thotery Deviseon COLLECTION 41337, ¢ chrad ~ Cs le BOX No. FOLDER # itt est