*

247

grass on it,
tw

WARREN:

uw

We'tve purposely omitted one of the prime

areas of interest in the over-all environrent and Bob has some
data on the whole-body burden of the Rongelap people that we
might bring in now, with your permission,

wow
ca ee ere

DONALDSON:

onrn

WwW

_

Very interesting.

CONARD:

Well, yesterday I mentioned that after

about Six months, a year or two, the badyburdens of the
Rongelap people dropped down to barely detectabie levels and

10

by the time they were moving back to Ronge lap he couldn't tell

12

the difference between the comparison “af unexposed people and

12

the exposed people, the level of body burden.

13

got bacic to Rongelap, however, there was a rather sudden and

14

marked increase in their body burden because of the residual

15 2

contamination on the Island,

+
17
18

a

As soon as they

This came about prinarily through

eating pandanus, which had sone strontium-90 and cesium-137

and, strangely enough, from eating fish, the zinc-65 in the
fish, as Lauren pointed out, got in the people since fish is

19
20
21

to get a whole-body counter out to Rongelap.

22

real endeavor to get that thing out on Rongelap Island, but

23
2h
25
26
27
28

one of their mainstays in their diet and we then were able

was a big monster that weighed about 21 tons and that was a

we did.

33

So we wound up by using 2 shatter shield type,

more portable type of whole-body counter consisting of lead
prick,

The first slide will give you an idea of what that

looks like.
UPTON:

|
Were the fish levels higher in the Rongelap

area than in the area to which the natives had been evacuated?

31

32

We finally gave that to the Navy and had to get

another one.

29
30

The first one

DONALDSON:

Yes,

There was no fallout down at

Ma juros,

CONARD:

They were in a relatively clean@hord Warren

DOEBJUCLA Zy

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