primary market).
San Francisco Bay, Great Salt Lake and
a few salt water lakes in the mid-east and Africa are the
main competitors.
The large number of ponds and cheap labor
are expected to make Christmas a viable competitor.
The
fishery is expected to be commercial in 1976; the industry
will be managed by a European and use natives for all other
positions.
The product is expected to be vacuum frozen eggs
which keep for years.
For their operations ECI has a laboratoryyliving building plus work shed at the junction of
Carver Way and the Al road at the southern end of the Bay
of Wrecks.
They have been maintaining one person at the site.
They now have communication, including teletype, to Hawaii.
They expect to transfer their efforts in 1976 to the new
manager retaining a consulting role.
During the period 1962-1964, the UK maintained a
regiment of engineers to upgrade facilities on the island.
This included installation of the petroleum storage plant
noted above, tropicalizing vehicles and other equipment for
storage in warehouses, rebuilding their Port Camp area,
sealing buildings in Main Camp and JOC, that is, generally

putting the testing facilities in a standby situation.
From
1964 to 1968 the maintenance contract with the Atoll Plantations,
Ltd. kept the material in good condition; after termination of
the contract things were left alone and remained in fair condition until 1971 when the District Commissioner, a European
at that time,

made

the decision to let the natives use what

material they wished of the stores.
As a result, buildings
were scavenged for building material, mostly roofing; vehicles
were filled with aviation gas and driven up and down the island burning up the engines after which they were pushed over
the reef; wrappings on the materiel were removed to ascertain
the contents and mostly discarded; reefers were opened and
food dumped in the ocean, g+,,
The general result was to
destroy everything which was stored and to turn the Main Camp
and the JOC into rubble.
Buildings in these areas are nearly
unrecognizable as to their original purpose.
Of the testrelated facilities of the island, all that remains of use are
the two airstrips, both in good condition, and the road system;
scaevola is encroaching upon the roads, however, and unless
a maintenance program is established soon it will be breaking
through the paving.
The UK built fuel system too. is in nearly
usable condition;

some short sections of the lige ‘to the air-

strip will require replacement as well as at thépier.
The
entrance channel to the pier will require dredging before
unloading of ships may be accomplished readily.

For the future it is expected there will be several
thousand Gilbertese living on the island, the coconut plantation
operation will spread over most of the island,

a brine shrimp

industry will be in operation, there will be a satellite tracking station for the Japanese on the north end of the island,

Select target paragraph3