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contact with ERDA and Trust Territory
officials. The opportunity for misunderStandings can be held to a minimum.
Enewetak atoll now vibrates to the
sound of jet transports, Navy landing
craft and heavy construction equipment.
Nearly 1,000 civilian and military personnel swarm over the sand and shrubs scavenging and burying hot metal and soil.
But there are resettlement problems
at Eneweiak as well. They are just not as
obvious as those at Bikini. The exact
extent of the radiation at Enewetak will
not be known until the atoll has been
surveyed this fall. At least one large island,
Runit, where most of the tests were conducted, may have to be put off limits for
24,000 years, the half-life of plutonium.
Cultivation of food ‘may not be
possible on some islands, depending on
ah.
all over,” said Chief Johanes Peter, the
aging leader of the Enewetak people.
Several Japtan residents said they
were not convinced that their part of the
atoll was free of contamination. When a
tuna caught in the Japtan lagoon this
summer turned out to be toxic and gave
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This twisted steel ber on Runit Island registers “hot” os the Geiger counter
warning zone, The ber is port at Enewetok’s 7,300 cubic yards of cobalt-60 radioactive scrap that is to
be buried on Runit. Face musks ond rubber boots protect onlookers from contamination,
half a dozen men a stomach ache, the
pain was only half-jokingly blamed on
the radioactivity.
Since the contamination of the
Northern Marshalls is a problem without
precedent, neither are the remedies.
Monetary compensation for injury and
loss of land may be the most difficult
problemof all. Each atoll was affected in
its own way by the testing program and
it is still difficult to assess the cost.
“At this point, the people of Bikini
don’t know what they've lost,” said
connected with ERDA and a full understanding of how much,if any, of Bikini
can be resettled, Allen said.
Congress paid the people of Bikini
$325,000 in 1956 and $3 million in a
trust fund in 1975 to compensate them
for hardships. Before the issue is closed,
Allen, who left a flourishing insurance
law business in Denver to move to the
Marshalls, no doubt will seek a larger
settlement.
The people of Enewetak may find
themselves in the same position. As of
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When a tuna caught in the Japtan lagoon
“this summer turned out to be toxic and
.gave half a dozen men a stomach ache,
the pain was only half-jokingly blamed
the outcorne of a test garden. Food,
water and basic amenities are short on
Japtan, the initial “residence island” for
the Enewetak people. The resettlement
clearly will not be easy. “Life is.starting
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George M. Allen, a Majuro attorney who
represents the Bikini council. “They've —
lost the use of Bikini Atoll for 30 years.
They went through very arduous circumstances, from 1946 to 1950, and even
nowlife on Kili is very difficult.”
Compensation will have to await
the compietion of the radiological survey,
an analysis of the data by scientists not
5013195
now, they scemwilling to wait and see
what the massive cleanup effort will do
to their environment.
The people of Rongelap and Utirik
raise the issue of adequate compensation
for accidental injury and death caused by
the fallout from the “Bravo” blast. So
far, the exposed people of Rongelap have
‘received $10,500 each and the people of
gumpses