By 1972 several Bikini families had moved to the atoll and along with

workmen moved over to Bikini Island to live.

They first lived in temporary

housing left over from the testing program, but moved into the concrete houses
several years later when they were completed. Since that time several other
families moved to the atoll and the number of people increased from 60-70 to

143 (many new children) at the time of the survey in 1978.

they were removed from the island down to Kili again.

4.

In August 1978

Environmental Monitoring

During the cleanup operation on Bikini another radiological survey
was conducted.
The results of this survey showed that radiation levels were
not very different from those reported in the 1967 survey.
Following this a

number of surveys were made at Bikini, plotting external radiation levels
and radiological analyses of air, soil, water, plants and marine life.

will not attempt to summarize the results in this report.

I

These surveys were carried out by various groups including teams of
scientists from the University of Washington, Lawrence Livermore Laboratory

and a comprehensive group from Brookhaven National Laboratory.

Plans to

build homes in the interior of the island in 1975 resulted in more extensive

surveys on Bikini which showed levels in the interior of the island to be
prohibitive as home sites.
It was also found that higher levels of activity
than had been estimated were present in pandanus and breadfruit and resulted
in restriction of consumption of these homegrown products.
These findings
were discussed with the people of Kili by U.S. officials and caused considerable unrest and unhappiness among these people, resulting in unfortunate
accusations against us in the light of our earlier statements about the
radiological safety of the island.
This also resulted in a threatened suit
against the U.S. with plans to have another medical team examine the people,
etc.
The threat of this suit soon abated when the lawyers were assured that
there would be an aerial survey of all the northern Marshalls, including
Bikini Atoll, which is now in progress.

5.

Personnel Monitoring

Uxrinalyses:
Collections have been made annually on people living on
Bikini for radiochemical urine analyses.
These analyses were done by the

Health and Safety Laboratory of DOE until 1977 and in DOE-sponsored labora-

tories at Hanford, Los Alamos, and more recently at BNL.
The principal
radiological isotopes measured were 137¢s and 9°sr and, more recently,
measurements of 239,240pu.
These analyses were formally coordinated by our
Medical Department here at BNL but recently responsibility has been trans-

ferred to a group in our Safety & Environmental Protection Div. under Dr.J. Naidu.
Gamma Spectrographic Analyses:

Whole-body gamma counting (body

measurement for 13/’cs) has been carried out using a "shadow shield" type

of facility using radiation~-free lead bricks, which we had constructed for
our surveys at Rongelap and Utirik.
This facility has been set up in an
airconditioned trailer aboard ship.
Counts on the Bikini people were
carried svt in 1974 and 1977 under the direction of Dr. S. Cohn (Medical
Department} and in 1978 by Messers R. Miltenberger and N. Greenhouse
(Safety and Environmental Protection Division) at BNL.

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