1.
PROBLEM AND SOLUTIONS
The Bikini Atoll
to
report
Bikini
independently on
Atoll
Office
Rehabilitation Committee was authorized by Congress
(1N)*.
of
the
feasibility
and
cost
of
rehabilitating
The Committee was initiated two years ago through the
Territorial
and
International
Affairs,
Department
of
the
Interior, working with the Bikini people.
Planning
for
rehabilitation
involves
two
separate tasks.
The
first
one deals with how the contamination of the Atoll
by radioactive. fallout
can
the
be
reduced
protection
otherwise
standards,
biological
civilian
or
and
while
at
environmental
needs
of
controlled
the
to
same
integrity.
resettlement
meet
per
se
time
|The
--
the opportunity to
participate
in
respecting
second
task
revegetation
water supply, housing, community buildings, etc.
given
Federal
radiation
the
deals
and
atoll's
with
the
agriculture,
The Bikinians should be
such
planning
and
in
the
actual
Committee
defines
and
evaluates
work that follows.
In
this
report
approaches
and
approaches
are
(No.
1),
techniques
based
on
the
for
(1)
contamination. control.
the
spontaneous
The
decay of
two
the
major
radioactivity or
(2) the removal of contaminated soil.
1.1
Background
In
Bikini
1946
Atoll
weapons.
the
U.
S.
Government
so that the atoll
could
removed
be used
the
167
inhabitants
of
for the testing of nuclear
That program ended in 1958 after 23 tests which had rendered the
atoll unsafe for human habitation (2).
The
(Figure 1),
Bikini
then
people
briefly on
were
settled
Kwajalein,
and
first
finally
on
in
Rongerik
Atoll
September 1948 on
Kili Island, some 425 miles south of Bikini Atoll (3).
*References
SOo0oIG
with
an
N
(e.g.,
1N)
contain
i
a
note as well
as
a
citation.