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three main sites (Grand Junction, Monticello and Durango) and extend over
a year to include seasonal variations.
Participation of state and local

public health officials will be invited, and periodic reports will be
issued to them and to the cooperating milling companies.

Radiation Hazards in the Uranium Mines.
The long known association between
uranium mining and luny disease was reviewed by Dr. Leonard Sagan, of the
Medical Branch.
More recent data from the Colorado Plateau relating lung
cancer of the oat cell variety to air concentrations of radon and daughter

products was also discussed.

Recent attempts to utilize these data to

establish standards of radon and radon daughter concentrations in mines
by both the Federal Radiation Council and by the Department of Labor were
mentioned.
It was coneluded that although the relationship between uranium
mining and lung cancer is firmly established, quantitation of this relationship is not sufficiently understood to provide clearly safe levels.
The Palomares Incident.
Dr. Bruner amplified certain details of his visit
to the Spanish JEN (Junta Energia Nuclear) in connection with the Division
of Biology and Medicine assuming its responsibility under the Hall-Otera
Agreement.
A detailed description was given of the contaminated site at
Palomares on the Costa Blanca indicating the areas under surveillance and
the total pattern of the research program,
As of that time no persons
had been found to be contaminated with Pu-238.
The contaminated material
is not re-suspended but spotty particulate contamination of both the soil
and certain plants was reported.
The problem is complicated by the
presence of natural uranium-radium-thorium alpha emitters; the presence
of these necessitates specific identification of Pu-238 by means of alpha
spectrometry.

The 1967 Resurvey of Bikini Atoll.
Messrs. Arnold Joseph, DBM; Tommy
McCraw, Division of Operational Safety; and Harold Beck, Health and
Safety Lab, New York Operations Office, described a survey of the Bikini
Atoll in April-May 1967.
The survey was undertaken in response to a
request from the High Commissioner of the U.S. Trust Territories to
determine whether or not it is feasible and safe to repatriate the Bikini j
natives.
The primary effort of the survey was to measure radiation levels
on each of the istands in the Atoll.
Mr. Joseph exhibited slides depicting
the varieties and amounts of vegetation and animals now existing; Mr. Beck
described the HASL instruments used (ion chamber, gamma spectrometer) and
some of the preliminary results achieved with them.
Mr. McCraw talked
about radiation levels and their variation over the Atoll.
The answer
to the question of feasibility of repatriation awaits further work of
calibrating the several different instruments used both to each other
and to measured amounts and distributions

of nuclides

in soil and

vegetation.

In response to a question from Dr. Green, this presentation was made
for the purpose of informing the ACBM of this development and to make the

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