cement dome in an atomic bomb crater on Runt Island. The cleanup focused on removing the large quantities of plu- DANE tonium, 4 Cuncer-causing agent danger- ous for 240,000 years, on all parts of the atoll. Press visitors to Enewetak in early * SP A 19a NAGASAKI A945 JOHNSTON , ENEWETAK 1958-62 . 71948 88 ae IXINI 9 » 43 tests 04 _° 046-58 2% tests 12 tests @ CHRISTMAS 196 25 Aests MORUROA and Se 1966 -present 76 tests detected COR RNUIDSEM about 300. more than 10 percent comPiain of iime-size growths or tumors on wil pans of their bodies. Ot nearby bikiep. an article in the June 6, 1980. Varonesian independent said “Out of dun people who live on Likiep, there are dosumented reports that hist nine women who have given birth to babies with sexere mental retardation, one womun who had three ‘strange stillborn babies. “one completely unrecognizable as human.’ Also reported among women on Likiep were ten other babies that were not normal, a quite high perventare of the population.” Aside from the birth defects. which seem at almost epidemic proportions, thyroid tumors are plaguing dozens of people trom these and other islands. indicating that these problems are not Incddled events, people from even atoll inthe Marshalls assert that arrowroot, a mainstas inthe Marshallese dict before the testing, has simply stopped producing little attention has been paid to the twenty-five Christmas Island tests, and the twelve nuclear blasts at Johnston Island. many of which were hydrogen homb caperiments. Wind patterns during these large tests blew penerally from cast to west. which would have cartied bailout over the Marshalls. dr took National Academy of Sciences 1s pre- paring a study on the potential hazards FANGATAUFA /~—"\ 1980 reported inconsistencies in government safety standards. “Standing on any part of Runit Island.” said one reporter, “you must wear rubber boots and a face mask to prevent breathing plutonium particles. But standing on the concrete dome [a mere fifteen leet away] you are not requtred to wear anyprolective gear at all.” Moreover, according to sources in Washington, D.C., the approximately ten years after exposure in 1954 for the thyroid disease and cancers to begin showing up on Rongelap and Utirtk. Many people on other atolls say their health began to deteriorate during the 1970s, pointing to a possible relationship with exposure from the Chnstmas and Johnston Islands bomb tests. Unlike at Rongelup and Utirik. however, there is no medical program to monitor and treat these populations. Following a three-year, $100 million- of leaks that have developed inthe dome on Runit. A Department of Energyscientific team has been dispatched to reevajuate the hazards, say the sources. Amid the atmosphere of uncertainty, the 450 Enewetak people are returning home, alter living in exile for thirty years on tiny Lyelang Atoll. Runit wall be off limits to the Enewetakese, but islands within three miles of it have been designaied by the governmentassafe for “picnics and food gathering.” A Marshallese asked, “What will happen if birds, crabs. turtles, and other animals land on off-limits islands and are eaten by peopie?” US. scientists say that the Enewetak cleanup benefited from the many muistakes made at the expense of the Bikinians during the ill-conceived attempt to resettle Bikini during the 1970s. In £969 the Atomic Energy Commission had said: “The exposure to radiation of the Bikim people does not otfer a significant threat to their health and Safety.” As early as 1975, however. the “pres- plus nuclear cleanup of Enewetak, the enceot low levels of plutonium”wasdiscovered in the urine of the more than people to return to certain islands. The this was not considered “radiologically possible for people to return safely to the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory repon described Bikini as “possibly the best U.S. government sass it is safe for the government is trying to prove at Enewetak what itcouldn't at Bikini that itis site of forty-three nuclear weapons tests. But a great dealof controversyhas developed over whether or not anyof the islands are safe. Nevertheless. onthe basis of a scientific study (which has been questioned) and the overwhelming desire to go home, the Enewetak peo- ple recently voted to return to their islands. During the massive cleanup operation, thousands of cubic yards of plu- tonmium-contaminated soil were scraped off the islands and. with other radioactive debris. encased in a mussive 100 people who had moved hack, but significant” by the government. (A 1976 available source of data for evaluating the transfer of plutonium across the gut wall after being incorporated into biological systems.") An elevenfold increase in radioactive cesium was recorded in 1977, but still there were no plans to remove the people from a havardous environment. However, in 1978, the US. was in the embarrassing situation of having to relocate the peo- ple once again, as they had ingested the largest measurable dose of plutonium of any population. Of Enewetak, the U.S. government The New Pacific—- 17