—:
A10
Tuesday, Mey 23,1978
TIE WASTINGTON Post
Bikinians Must Quit Island for at Least 30 Years, Hill Told
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Statt Writer
‘The 139 Marshallese jiving on Bikink Isjand will have to leave their
home atoll withio three months and
not return for at lesst 30 years because of radiation remaining from a
1954 U §. hydrogen bomb test, o
House Appropriations subcommittes
was told yesterday,
An earlier plan to move them from
Bikini Island to Eneu, another island
in the atoll, was dropped, the subcommiltee was told, because Enecu's coco
guts were showing radioactivity read:
in: five to six times higher than gov.
erument scientists had previously expected,
As a result, Interfor Department of.
ficiais said yesterday, they could not
eay where the Bikini residents would
eventually end up,
The people now living on Bikini
were the fist ones to return aftcr a
1969 determination by the Atomic Enerey Commission (that the otell was
safe from radiatién contamination.
From 1946 through 1968 it bad been
the site of 23 U.S. nuclear weapons
tests.
Subcommittee Chairman
Sidney
Yates (1) LIL) asked witnesses from the
Depatiments of Interior and Energy,
“Why were these people allowed to go
back?”
“There was no hint in 1969 that
there would be ea problem with cocoBuls, vevetables and water,” he was
told by Ruth G. Van Cleve, directoe
of Interior's Office of Tergitorial Activitles.
Joe Deal, of Enerry's safety branch
aald, “There were no coronuts to test
and to foodstulf growing ... We
used the best instruments evailable at
that time.”
Deal outlined to the subcomnilttes
how last month's medical examination
showed the Bikini :esidents had taken
radioactive cesium into their bodies at
levels up to twice the accepled U.S.
standard for the general population.
Dr. Waller Wy zen, alsn of DON, told
the subcommittee that the 139 men,
woten and children who have heen
living on Bikini for the past several
years and eating its radioacthve coco
buls and otter foods would have to
undergo medical examinations for the
next year and perhaps the rest of
their lives to kecp track of the raddloactive matter they have invested,
it was the finding of hizh concen.
trations of radinactive ec<iwm and
strontium—above U.S. starlords—in
the bodies of the Bikini residents last
month that convinced Interlor offidlals the people had to be moved,
Van Cleve told the subcommittee
that although “the tests [last month}
do not reveal an immediate dancer"
the move frum Uhe atoll should be
made within 90 days —the time ner ded
to pick a temporary place to live and
build plyweod homes there with aluminum roofs.
Adan PP. Winkel, hich comms:
sioner of the U.S. Trust Territory,
teld the subcommitice he would fly ta
Bikinl next week and tell the resi-
denis "the need for the move and deétermlue their preferences for a place
to settle.”
At that point, Rep. Frank Evans (DColo.) raised the question of what
would be done if they did not want to
leave Hikini.
“We have no cholce but to require
them to move,” Winkel responded.
.
The high commisstoner added, however, that It might be difficult to make
the older people move because they
etl might prefer to remain.
Two aging Marshallese who own
major pieces of land on #ikint Island
are patriarchs of the two family
groups that make up most of the people now living on the island.
Marshall Islanders) who attended
yesterday's subcommittee meeting
were not sufe Winkel could convince
them to Icave.
fiustratlve of the problem was the
éxchanye that tuok place when a quer
tion wae askéd why the people on Bi-
kini kept eating coconuts after they
had been warned they were dangecrous
and supplicd with other food and
water from outside the island.
Oscar DeBrum, the disirict repre
sentalive of the Trust Territory zovernment said, “Coconuls are treasured
by the people. They would drink coconut milk even in the face of the warn.
ings"
DeBrum then noted that when the
medicat team arrived jast month on
Bikinl, the people offercd them the radioactive coconula as a sign of {riendship.
“Either move the people or cut
down the coconut trees," DeBrum auggested.
Representatives of the approximately 400 furmer Bikini people who
now live on Kili Island told the subcommiltce “we see ourselves as the
viclims of bureaucratio incompetence"
It was questioning by the Kili group
about the safety of Bikink four ycars
azo that first raised the possibllity
that dangerous radiation levels might
still exist on the Istand.
At the ume, U.S. officials were pre
paring to return the entire group to
Bnkink
The Kill spokesman, Tomaki Juda,:
reminded the subcommitice that in’
1046, a Navy officer told the Bikinians*
thes had to leave thelr atoll so “it
“could be used for the good of ménkind and to end all world wars.”
The officer compared the Bikinians
“to the children of Israel whom the.
Lord saved from their enemy and led:
into the Promised Land.”
.
“We are.” Jucta said, “sadly mora:
akin to the Children of Israel} when.
they left Egypt and wandered throuch:
the desert for 40 years. We left Bikinl:
and have wandered through the ocean:
for J2 years and we will pever return.
to our Promised Land.”
:
: