27
the average concentration in solution in the water column can be
accounted for by using a simple equilibrium model in which remobilization involves the sediment in the top 2.5 cz (Woshkin 1980).
5.4

Comparisons with Other Locations
It is useful to compare the situation at Enewetak with other locations where plutonium has been released to the marine environment. One
of the most studied locations is at Windscale in the United Kingdom
where authorized radioactive discharges are made to the Irish Sea from
a nuclear fuel reprocessing plant. Since 1972 discharges of plutonium
isotopes to the coastal waters have averaged about 100 Ci per month

(ten times that in the dome).

Since the first operations of the plant

about 10,000 Ci of 73%+4°*py have been discharged, 9,000 of which

reside in the bed of the Irish Sea east of the Isle of Man (Hetherington et al. 1975, Penreath et al. 1979).
Measurements have shown that the discharged plutonium is rapidly
removed to the sediments and that only a few percent of the inventory

(as at Enewetak) remains in the water column.

Within 10 km of the

source, concentrations in the water column average about 0.7 pCi/L
and concentrations in the sediments average about 40 pCi/g (dry) with
values as high as 105 pci/g (dry) (Hetherington et al. 1975). These
average concentrations exceed those at Enewetak, which are about 0.017

pci/t for lagoon water and 5.2 pci/g for lagoon sediments (Noshkin

et al. 1980).
.
Low levels of plutonium are discharged into Bombay harbor from a
nuclear facility at Trombay.. Here plutonium concentrations in the
vicinity of the discharge point range from 0.004 to 0.02 pci/z in .
seawater and from 0.4 to 29 pci/g in the suspended silt (Pillai et al.
1975, Pillai and Mathew 1976). A reprocessing plant at Tokai, Japan,

discharges into the ocean where activity levels of ??°*#**pu as

high as 0.017 pci/: have been reported offshore (Kurabayashi’' et al.

1979).

.

Thus, authorized releases in different parts of the world have
produced concentrations of transuranics in the marine environment
comparable to or in excess of those found at Enewetak.
5.5 Transuranics in Marine Foods
Transuranics can be detected in marine organisms worldwide, in both

salt and fresh water, due to global fallout from bomb tests.

As would

be expected, relatively high concentrations in marine organisms are

found where there have been releases of transuranics (e.g., near
_Enewetak, Bikini, Windscale, Bombay, or Tokai).

Concentration factors in fish (1.e., the ratio of activity in a
gram of fish to that in a gram of seawater from the same environment)
vary considerably between-species and between samples of the same

species taken from different locations.

Among fish there is little

evidence of any strong or consistent relation to trophic level. These
issues, as well as the results of measurements taken on 4,200 fish from
14 atolls in the Marshalls, were summarized recently by Noshkin and
co-workers (Noshkin et al. 1980). They found concentration factors at

Bikini and Enewetak to be similar, ranging from 5 to 10 in the muscle
tissue of fish at all trophic levels (2nd to Sth}.

Mean concentrations

My.

Ty

ta)

fo

aC)

at Enewetak in the muscle tissue of mullet and surgeonfish (which are

Select target paragraph3