AOL BOs
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Pacitic Northwest Laboratories
Battelle Boulevard
Hal Hollister
Director
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Telex 32-6345
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Bivision of Operational and
Envtronnental Safety
Department of Energy
Washington, D. C. 20545
Dear Hal:
The Northern Marshall Islands Advisory Group met on October 3-4, 1978
to consider the issue of planting coconuts on Enewetak Atoll, recommend
Cleanup guidance for subsurface contamination, discuss the Enjebi experi-.
mental farm, review preliminary results of the plowing experiment and be
briefed by Tommy McCraw on the status of the Northern Marshall. Islands
Survey.
The Advisory Group offers the enclosed comments.
Thediscussion of these and other topics again identified the apparent
lack of integration of the efforts at Enewetak and in the other- Marshall
Islands as the major concern of the Advisory Group. We are in complete
agreement that all DOE activities at Enewetak as well as at Bikini and
at all other northern Marshall] Islands should be combined and integrated
een te pee
October 23, 1978
Richlund, Washington 99352
Telephone (509) 946-242]
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under a single DOE administrator with overali management responsibility
and authority.
We have no criticism of individuals wno are involved in
the Marshall Islands effort because they obviously are dedicated to their
projects.
However,
the importance and magnitude of the Marshall
Islands
program requires that these individual projects be part of an overall
Program plan administered by a well defined management structure.
Examination of each project such as the Enewetak cleanup, the Northern
Marshalls Survey, the Bikini Health Studies, the experimental work at
the Enjebi garden plot, the work at the Enewetak marine laboratory, the
University of Washington studies, and the work of the Nevada Operations
Office probably would yield few criticisms. However, this would provideno
ee ree ee
assurance that adequate information will be available to support the technical
and political decisions to be made. We are concerned that while immediate
issues are being individually addressed, the broad and long term aspects
could be neglected. An example of our reason for concern is the singular
attention to the transuranics at Enewetak with little effort expended on
90sr and 13/Cs and the lack of a plan to do a thorough dose assessment