Debris Cleanup
239
ELLE (NANCY) ISLAND CLEANUP
Elle consists of Il acres and was not used during nuclear testing.
Vegetation included a dense stand of shrubs 8 to |2 feet tall and a dozen
coconut palms. The only hazardous debris was one Master Index item, a
piece of pipe projecting from the beach. The planned use for Elle was food
gathering. 26
Debris cleanup began on 6 March 1978 and was completed on 19 March
1978. The piece of pipe was removed by explosive demolition, after which
there was a police up of small debris. Less than 1 cubic yard of
noncontaminated debris, including the one Master Index item, was
removed.2?7
BOKEN (IRENE) AND BOKAIDRIKDRIK (HELEN)
ISLANDS DEBRIS CLEANUP
Boken, and Bokaidrikdrik which adjoins it on the southwest, are
comprised of 45 acres and constitute the northernmost landmass of the
atoll. They were used for the ground zero of the Seminole shot during
Operation Redwing. This event created a crescent shaped shoreline along
the western edge of Boken and a large, water-filled crater, 650 feet in
diameter, where the event occurred. All that was left of Bokaidrikdrik was
a 5-acre sandspit bordering the water-filled Seminole Crater. For practical
purposes, there is only one island remaining. Boken also was affected by
the Mike and Koa thermonuclearevents but no burial sites for radioactive
scrap were known to exist. However, large amounts of contaminated soil
were suspected to be buried, impacting on the soil cleanup operations
described in Chapter 7. Vegetation varied from medium to dense.
Hazardous debris included three corrugated metal arch structures, five
concrete bunkers, and miscellaneous metal scrap. There were an estimated
1,312 cubic yards of noncontaminated debris, including 24 Master Index
items on Boken and 2 on Bokaidrikdrik. The planned use for Boken was
food gathering.28.29
Debris cleanup began on 4 January 1978 and was completed on 12 July
1978. There were 1,905 cubic yards of noncontaminated debris
removed.3° Two Master Index items, bunkers from the Ivy shot, located
at stations 200 and 600, were discovered to bearrelatively low-level beta
contamination which could not be removed without major destruction of
the concrete. Based on the well-fixed mature of the contamination,
requests for disposition authority other than destruction were submitted,
and several attempts were made to remove the beta contamination,