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bottom of the bay and become effectively isolated from the inhabitants in the
area.
And third, the clean-up operations which had already taken place were
not completed until the end of March, which left only a few weeks before the
ice would become unsafe to work on.
Many environmental surveys have been conducted by Danish scientists in the
years since the accident.
These surveys have focused on determining the
levels and distribution of plutonium contamination in the marine environment
and investigating the possible impact that might be transmitted through the
food chain to the Greenlanders (see Figure 2).
The surveys have produced the
following major conclusions:
1.
The inventory of plutonium in the sediment on the bottom of the bay is
about 30 Ci.
The maximum concentration under the crash site is about
50 pCi/g (see Figure 3).
The vertical displacement of the plutonium
is about 7-8 mm/y which indicates that it will become increasingly
unavailable to the biota in the sediments.
2.
Plutonium has been found in increased quantities (up to 6 pCi/g) in
the organisms (mussels, starfish, and shrimp) that live in the
sediment, but the concentrations are decreasing with time.
3.
Certain seaplants have been found to concentrate plutonium by a factor
of about 13,000.