oe lh ay ings presented to TT?PI staff who inform the Bikini people. This advice has been reinforced through discussions with Bikini residents during survey visits to the Atoll. Summarized briefly, this additional advice has: 1, Recommended that a second group of houses not be built on Bikini Island, but on Enecu Island instead, 2. Recommended that if radiation standards are to be met for continued residence on Bikini Island, residents must not eat any local foods grown on that is- land or use ground water for drinking. 3. Recommended that Eneu Island should be the center of Bikini” Atoll rehabilitation. Iwo factors largely account for the current situation, wherein DOI is seeking to provide housing on Eneu Island. First, the resettlement of the Bikini people on Bikini Island, the island of their choice and at their insistence, has not been successful from a radiological viewpoint due to intake of Cesium-137 and Strontium-90 through use of foods grown on that island. For whatever reasons, and an important and understandable one is that Bikini Island residents greatly prefer a diet containing fresh foods grown on their own land rather than imported foods, recommended restrictions for limiting internal doses at Bikini Island have not been effective. Second, while radiation standards cited previously have not w. _Changed from 1967 to 1978, the degree of conservatism in their application has changed markedly. Current applications require not only that radiation standards -be met wherever possible, but that exposures be as low as practicable with in» ereased willingness to expend cffort and resources to achieve this. While 30. _ year exposures of an atoll population marginally above the 5 Rem standard, say 6 or.7 Rem in 30 years, are not that different from 5 Rem, exposures three or four times the standard would be very difficult to justify’ as a satisfactory measure of cxposure control. The existance of an alternative to acceptance of exposures above basic radiation protection standards, namely, for the Bikini people to live on Eneu Island instead of Bikini Island, mandates that DOE advise against continuation of a pattern of increasing radiation exposures of Bikini residents wherein recommendation on use of local foods are proving to be impractical and ineffective, and radiation standards are certainly to be excecded by "ae Significant amount. ¢ . The followup radiological monitoring program conducted by DOE has accon- plished what it was intended to do at Bikini Atoll. Each survey has tended to confirm earlicr findings, and has added substantially to thedata base for_fur-_— ther evaluation of the environment as an acceptable place of residence. Findings at other atolls such as Enewetak, have been applied at Bikini where this is posSible. It is planned that these followup surveys will continue as needed and the recommendation that no restrictions are needed on Encu Island will be followed closely and from time to time re-evaluated. et ny