410412 Briefing on Cleanup of TRU Contaminated Soil January 17, 1984 Planning Phase Enewetak Atoll Cleanup T. McCraw This summary reviews actions during the period 1972-77 by AEC-ERDA-DOE to conduct radiological surveys, to develop radiological cleanup criteria, and to assist in obtaining approval and funding for cleanup and rehabilitation of Enewetak, an Atoll used for U.S. nuclear tests from 1948 to 1958. These criteria are compared with current EPA draft criteria. Mr. Bruce Church will cover Enewetak cleanup field operations. This presentation highlights those aspects of criteria development and planning that are different from and/or incompatible with EPA's draft criteria. Figure 1 is a chronological outline of the events leading to cleanup field operations at Enewetak. Following the announcement of the U.S. commitment to return this Atoll to the Trust Territory, and without waiting for a final agreement on AEC, DOD, and DOI responsibilities, an AEC task group began development of recommendations on cleanup concurrently with the radiological survey phase of the project. The first draft dose estimates from the 197273 radiological survey of Enewetak began to be available during the period of task group deliberations. As the task group members formed their opinions, a number of ideas were considered and rejected that might have misdirected cleanup planning. Among these were proposals that radiological criteria were not needed and that the amount of cleanup performed would automatically be determined by the amount of funding provided by Congress, or that cleanup criteria should be derived through a consideration of risk estimates, or that dose criteria should be equivalent to the highest doses being received by any population such as those living in high natural radiation areas in Brazil. There was also the idea that the benefits to the Enewetak people of return to their homeland transcended any risk from radiation. The task group chose instead to derive its recommendations on cleanup criteria through a conservative application of current national and international standards for individuals in the population, and considering a wide range of land use and soil cleanup options. The task group sought to recommend soil criteria that were practical in their application and expressed as a flexible guideline, not a limit. Its recommendations were considered to be site-specific for Enewetak. There was a consensus within the group that if its recommendations were to be technically defensible and useful, site-specific soil cleanup criteria must be developed that were related to current radiation standards, and expressed in units that could be compared with measurements made in the field. The task group recommended use of 50 percent of the annual doses for individuals and 80 percent of the 30 year dose for populations issued by the FRC, for cleanup and resettlement planning for fission product doses. Soil cleanup