304 RADIOLOGICAL CLEANUP OF ENEWETAK AToi, In April 1978, the first soil removal platoons completed their TDY , t and were replaced in the second ‘‘Operation Switch.’’ They had jus; beau, developing techniques andskills for contaminated soil removal by eXcising the Medren hot spots and by beginning the pilot soil removal Project. 3-4 MAY 1978 CONFERENCE On 3-4 May 1978, representatives from all involved Departments Services, and other agencies met at Headquarters, DNA, Washington, DC. The dri-Enewetak were represented by their counsel, Mr. Theodore Mitchell, of MLSC, and their interests also were represented by Mr. Osca, DeBrum, District Administrator of the Marshall District of the TTPI. Th, purpose of the conference was to review progress to date and to develop recommendations on a wide range of radiological cleanup decisions. The most important decisions concerned contaminated soil cleanup criteria ang island cleanup priorities. Decisions on these issues would allow Soil cleanup operations—now 6 months behind schedule—to commence. The conference wasgiven added urgency by repeated queries from the Services regarding the growing delay in undertaking the most difficult workof the project and how much more manpower, equipment, and/or time DNa expected them to provide to overcome the delay.85 A full day of prebriefings, critiques, and working group meetings on critical agenda items on 3 May provided extensive preparation for the decision meetings on 4 May. , VADM Monroe, who chaired the conference, opened it with a review of soil cleanup developments, including the following points: a. All previous planning documents, including the EIS and OPLAN, contained only general guidance on soil removal, based on the 1972 radiological survey. It was widely recognized that more specific data would be required for actual removal of contamination from the islands. It had been planned that soil surveys would be conducted by DOE during the mobilization phase and that sufficient data would be provided to begin soil cleanup operations on 1S November 1977. However, it took much longer than planned to obtain the detailed data on all of the northern islands and to characterize the total scope of soil cleanup work, as DNA had requested, for use in deciding the priority order in which the islands would be cleaned and the levels to which they would be cleaned. b. Prior planning, including that in the OPLAN, had assumedthatthese decisions would be made in the field, island by island, based on the people’s planned use and AEC/DOE guidelines. It had since become apparent that these were key decisions which would shape the pattern of future use and habitation and would determine radiological exposure levels at the atoll for years to come. Thus, the Director had i