Interviews with test personnel produced some answers.

Due to time

versus memory, these also indicated some contradictory recollections of
activities and fate of contamination.

These interviews did confirm that

burial and relocation of high-level radioactive contamination was attempted,

many times and many places.

Verification of several of these activities

by documentation has been very difficult and unsuccessful.

With this in-

formation, the magnitude of the problem of locating buried contamination
seemed to grow; however, everything indicated radioactive debris/contami-

nation would probably be buried only on islands that had surface ground
zeros.

A list was then made of suspected or known burial sites (Table 3).

These locations are shown in Figures 1, 2, 3, and 4.

Two cursory radiological surveys, conducted in July 1971 and May
1972, confirmed suspected conditions on most of the islands and provided
initial reliable data on soil concentrations.

These provided crude values

for the soil concentration variability estimates used to develop the
statistical plan for soil sampling.
Although the July 1971 survey was limited (six days, two monitors),

‘the following information was obtained:
l.

Many of the islands were still radioactively contaminated.

2.

Much of the Atoll was heavily revegetated and difficult to
traverse.

3.

There were no obvious indicators (signs, posts, fences, etc.)
of buried radioactivity in clear sight.

4.

There was significant activated/contaminated radioactive

debris on YVONNE (Runit Island) at the CACTUS erster lip and
also a seam of plutonium-contaminated soil vutcropping on the
oceanside beach, mid-island.

Select target paragraph3