island in 1957, they accumlated low levels of radionuclides (principally
652n, 137%¢5, Osr, and 9°Fe) from marine and plant foods -- primarily

pandanus, coconuts, breadfruit, coconut crabs, and fish.

(The crabs are a

food delicacy, which, because of unexpectedly high levels of absorbed
radiocesium and strontium, had to be banned from the diet until recently when

the levels became acceptable.) The people were also exposed to low levels of
residual gamma radiation over and above the natural background radiation.
Fig-

ures 1 and 2 of Appendix II show the changes in estimated body burdens of
137¢5, 65 Zn, and

Sr in the Rongelap people.

90s; reached its highest levels

of about 12 nCi in adults and 22 nvi in children between 1962 and 1965 and
thereafter stowed a downward trend.
137¢5 body burdens in adults reached a
peak in about 1965 ofreeee 0.7 yCi (23% of the permissible level for general populations).
Zn level reached a peak of 0.5 uCi during the first

year or so after the return, generally below che 137¢5 level, and became non-

detectable thereafter. From the data in Table 4, Appendix II, the total-body
dose for inhabitants living full-time on Rongelap from 1957 to 1979 was
estimated to be nearly 4 rads.

It should be noted that the actual dose was

probably lower because the people spent about half their time away visiting
other atolls.
Since 1957, the people who had returned to Live on Utirik Island have
been included in the personncl monitoring program. The estimates of initial
exposure for the Utirik peovle, particularly for the thyroid gland, were sub~
ject to greater uncertainties than those for the Rongelap people. Not the
least of these uncertainties was the degree of exposure to short-lived isotopes of iodine in the Utirik population.

Available data, however,

indicate

that exposure of the Utirik people was considerably below that of the Rongelap
people, perhaps 1/10 as much.
(Radioanalyses of animal, plant, and other sam-—
ples from Utirik shortly after the accident showed levels about 1/10 of those
for samples from Rongelap.) Following their return, the levels of accumula‘ ed
long-lived radionuclides in the Utirik people, measured at the same time in
the Rongelap people, were only about 1/3 as high. However, since these people
returned to live on Utirik in July 1954 (three years before the return of the
Rongelap people in 1957), during the first few years they were exposed to
somewhat higher levels of radionuclides, particularly 652n, than were the
Rongelap people on their return. This accounts for the higher body burdens
estimated in Appendix II for the Utirik inhabitants during the first few years
after their return. The total-body dose for inhabitants living on Utirik
full-time from 1954 to 1979 was estimated to be about 17 rads, due mostly f>
the early contribution of 652n. Again, the actual exposure was probably lower
because the people were away about half the time visiting other atolls.
Reexamination of dosimetry analyses for the Rongelap and Utirik people,
for both initial and residual exposures, is being carried out at this Labora-

tory. Personnel and environmental monitoring are being continued ot a regular
basis.
2.

Bikini

In 1946, before Operarion Crossroads, the residents of Bikini were
evacuated. After stays at Rongelap and Kwajalein which proved unsatisfactory,
they were relocated on Kili Island in the southern Marshalls, which also

= 83-

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