there were 3-4 references per person per week, equivalent to about one-third
of the Pritchard estimate of 7-10 coconuts per person per week.
Two senior Marshallese officials independently have made the following
estimates from their experience on the outer atolls where there are no major —
food distribution programs: less hag 939 coconut per day per person; from 0.5
to one coconut per day per person
.
The Bikini Council was asked to estimate coconut usage after resettlement
but has not been heard from.
In view of the foregoing, some judgement must be exercised in deciding on a
likely “resettlement diet" for dose calculations. Since the trend of coconut
consumption now is downward, and most estimates are no greater than the MLSC
diet, this committee arbitrarily has decided to include a safety factor and
use a "planning dose" that is 1.75 times the MLSC based dose used by the
Lawrence Livermore group.
3.2
and
Dose Estimates
The 5 major radionuclides of Bikini Atoll are !37cs, 90sr, 239+240p,,
Am.
The internal dose, which is about 10 times the external one, is
determined by the ingestion of these radionuclides via the diet or by
inhalation, the fraction of the radionuclide intake absorbed from the gut
and/or lungs, the location and duration of their stay in the body, the
fraction of atoms decaying per unit time (i.e. rat Te yogi a half-life), and
the energy of the emitted radiations (Table D.1
very low; the major exposure is via the food chaint
I
Inhalation doses are
Thus the amount of locally grown foods in the diet and the radionuclide
concentrations in these foods determines the quantities of radionuclides
ingested. The amount of locally grown foods in the diet depends on whether or
not imported foods are available (Tables D.3 and D.4). In current diet models
some 80% of the predicted dose is the result of coconut consumption.
For this report, the planning diet is considered as the case where local
foods are always available and imported foods are available for 9 months of
the year.
A review of the LLNL sample collection, analytical results and dose
assessment was conducted by an independent group of scientists. Their report
confirmed the validity of the LLNL FF" of radionuclide concentrations in soil
and foods and the estimated doses
As discussed in Section 3.1, the precise diet of the Bikinians after
resettlement, especially the coconut consumption, can only be approximated.
Therefore, to provide a significant measure of conservatism, we have
arbitrarily multiplied by 1.75 the radionuclide intakes est i ted from the
MLSC diets used by the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory group
» and.set out
in Tables D.3 and 0.4, to calculate the "planning doses" used in this report.
For Eneu, the 1987 daily intake of 137Cs would be 8700 pCi/d, for Bikini it
would be 64,800 pCi/d. The intake of strontium would be less than 1.5 per.
cent of these figures, and that of plutonium and americium less than 0.01%.
The Federal daily and annual limits on intake of the pertinent
radionuclides are given in Table 0.5.
permissible, but not that for Bikini.
The projected intake for Eneu is
Thirty-year-dose factors are given in Table D.6,
i.e., the constant by
which to multiply the initial daily radionuclide intake (pCi/d) to obtain the
30-year cumulative dose (rem) given in Table D.7. Eneu at 4 rem falls within
the 5-rem Federal standard, but Bikini at 30.8 rem does not.
In these
9000108
D-3