island in 1957,

they accumulated low levels of radionuclides (principally

6527n, 137¢5, 905, and °Fe) from marine and plant foods -- primarily

pandanus, coconuts, breadfruit, coconut crabs, and fish.
(The crabs are a
food delicacy, which, because of unexpectedly high levels of absorbed
radiocesium and strontium, had to be banned from the diet until recently when
the levels became acceptable.)
The people were also exposed to low levels of

residual gamma radiation over and above the natural background radiation.

Fig-

ures 1 and 2 of Appendix II show the changes in estimated body burdens of
137¢5, 657n, and Bsr in the Rongelap people.
90sr reached its highest levels
of about 12 nCi in adults and 22 nCi in children between 1962 and 1965 and
thereafter showed a downward trend.
137¢s body burdens in adults reached a

peak in about 1965 of rough ly 0.7 uci (23% of the permissible level for gen-

eral populations).
The 65zn level reached a peak of 0.5 uCi during the first
year or so after the return, generally below the 137¢5 level, and became nondetectable thereafter.
From the data in Table 4, Appendix II, the total-body

dose for inhabitants living full-time on Rongelap from 1957 to 1979 was

estimated to be nearly 4 rads.
It should be noted that the actual dose was
probably lower because the people spent about half their time away visiting
other atolls.
Since 1957, the people who had returned to live on Utirik Island have
been included in the personnel monitoring program.
The estimates of initial

exposure for the Utirik people, particularly for the thyroid gland, were subject to greater uncertainties than those for the Rongelap people.

Not the

least of these uncertainties was the degree of exposure to short-lived iso-

topes of iodine in the Utirik population.
Available data, however, indicate
that exposure of the Utirik people was considerably below that of the Rongelap
people, perhaps 1/10 as much.
(Radioanalyses of animal, plant, and other samples

from Utirik shortly after the accident showed

for samples from Rongelap.)

levels about

1/10 of those

Following their return, the levels of accumulated

long-lived radionuclides in the Utirik people, measured at the same time as in
the Rongelap people, were only about 1/3 as high.
However, since these people

returned to live on Utirik in July 1954 (three years before the return of the

Rongelap people in 1957), during the first few years they were exposed to
somewhat higher levels of radionuclides, particularly 652n, than were the
Rongelap people on their return.
This accounts for the higher body burdens
estimated in Appendix II for the Utirik inhabitants during the first few years
after their return.
The total-body dose for inhabitants living on Utirik
full-time from 1954 to 1979 was estimated to be about 17 rads, due mostly to
the early contribution of ®52Zn.
Again, the actual exposure was probably lower
because the people were away about half the time visiting other atolls.

Reexamination of dosimetry analyses for the Rongelap and Utirik people,

for both initial and residual exposures, is being carried out at this Laboratory.
Personnel and environmental monitoring are being continued on a regular
basis.

2.

Bikini

In 1946, before Operation Crossroads, the residents of Bikini were

evacuated.
After stays at Rongelap and Kwajalein which proved unsatisfactory,
they were relocated on Kili Island in the southern Marshalls, which also

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