208 RADIOLOGICAL CLEANUP OF ENEWETAK ATOLL BG Tate was most concerned about defining the scope of work ang assuring that resources would be available to complete the items specifically required in the EIS, i.e., removal of plutonium from the Aomon burial crypts and removal of plutonium-contaminated soil over 400 pCi/g from Boken, Lujor, and Runit. He identified these aspriority requirements while other soil cleanup, such as Enjebi, would be contingent on availability of resources consistent with completion of these priority requirements. He shared the concern of others that the cleanup program defined in the EIS might not be completedfor lack of resources,5? BG Tate believed that he needed more detailed information about the radiological condition of the islands specified in the EIS in order to confirm and refine the soil volume estimates developed from the 1973 AEC Survey, and hefelt that those islands must be surveyed as soon as ERSp personnel could finish validating their in situ system methodology. BG Tate was especially concerned about the extent of effort that might be required to clean Runit, and he asked that action be expedited to characterize the nature and scope of work required there. BG Tate and the ERSP Manager agreedthat: a. ERSP would expedite the development and testing of the in situ system. b. As soon as possible, ERSP would conductin situ surveys of Lujor and Boken so that these priority requirements could be defined early and cleanup could begin on schedule. This was to be followed by surveys of Enjebi and the other northern islands to provide data for case-by- case decisions regarding their cleanup should resources still be available after cleanup of the Aomon crypts, Lujor, Boken, and Runit (the islands discussed in the EIS) was complete. c. The ERSP manager would recommend experts to assist in formulating a program to characterize the nature and scope of work to clean up Runit to the levels addressed in planning documents, including the EIS.58 These actions were initiated to allay some of BG Tate’s concern about the JTG’s ability to complete all of the work defined in the EIS. They were intended to provide better estimates of all of the priority radiological cleanup requirements so that soil cleanup would focus on the priority islands, rather than on Enjebi, which was not a priority requirement and which could consumeprecious time andlimited resources. Instead, as will be seen in Chapter 6, these actions were links in a chain of events and challenges which servedto delay the start of soil cleanup for many months.