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