seedlings.

Eight Bikini men returned to the Atoll to assist in the initial

stages of the resettlement program and in December of 1969 an additional crew
of 23 workers arrived from Kili.

Families followed shortly thereafter.

Construction of 40 houses along the lagoon road was started.

The

resettlement program as planned called for an additional 38 houses,,school
church, store, and dispensary before the 1977 target completion date.
Also during this period, (1969), the Enewetak people petitioned the United

- States for assistance to return to Enewetak Atoll.

Discussions and meetings

were held with government officals during the next three years and in April

1972 the Marshall Island District Administrator was informed by High
Commissioner Edward E. Johnston and Ambassador F. Haydn Williams that Enewetak
Atoll would be returned to its former inhabitants.

As a result, in Sept. 1972

it was decided to conduct a comorehensive radiological survey of Enewetak
Atoll to gain a sufficient understanding of the total radiological environment
and assess whether all or any part of tne Atoll could be safely reinnabited
and if so, under what constraints.
The radiological survey and description of Enewetak and the dose
assessment were published in 1973,

Data from the report was useful to

describe the radiological conditions at the atoll for one point in time.

One

of the principal findings was the identification for the first time of the
significance of the terrestrial food chain in contributing a potential dose to
a returning population.

The terrestrial pathway was predicted to contribute

the major share of the potential dose for most living patterns but the survey
results also showed that, although small, the dose from transuranic
radionuclides was highest in the marine food pathway.
AS a result of the assessment work at Enewetak, it was apparent that more
data were required on radionuclide concentrations in subsistence crops,

residence time of radionuclides in the atoll ecosystem and the controlling

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