“Turtle and crabs from northernmost islands have always bedn
people of Utirik island, Likiep and Wotje over the years.
No one
them that the level of radiation was higher than in the place
collected by
ever said to
re they live.
They continue to go there and kill birds, eat bird eggs, and everything else from
that area.
So food gathering is very important and eating h&bits are very
important."
8.
The School of Likiep
"In Likiep during the testing, there was a school that had sthdents from all
over the Marshalls.
The Catholics had a school there, the Holy|Rosary school,
several hundred children, not only from Likiep but from all over]
fact, we find scars on girls from Namorik and Ailinglaplap.
go to School? The answer: Oh, Likiep.
scars.
We as, Where did you
And here they are carrying
Ali these people should be tracked down.
were in school when they gave the testing . . . Karlami was one.
9.
thyroidectomy
Cursory invegtigation on my
part, I found at least half a dozen suspicious cases on non-Likieb
of cancer.
and there, in
residents who
fle died finally
Angel, Guidel's wife, and several others.
Construction crews; Cleanup crews who came later to Enewqtak and Bikini
“You have to also remember that when Bikini was originally
Eleaned up, the
hazards of radiation were not quite as well known, quite as well understood, then
as they are now.
So, many of these guys may have been exposedjreally without
anyone knowing how much and to what extent.
The story of the welf
is a classic.
They had a well in Bikini that we, the government, dug to provide
water to water
the trees as they were bing planted.
food, to clean
The men were using it to coo
their clothes and wash themselves with it as well.
It was much,
mech later, like
six or seven years into the program, that the department of enefgy/AEC at that
time, eventually decided that the water was hazardous and that th@
covered over.
wel! should be
In the meantime, we don't know how many guys had drunk the water or
been exposed to it in other way, food, or in actually taking baths, this sort of
thing."
10.
The Oumping of Coora
If anyone begins to suggest that the food really was not affected, we know
it was because after the exposure of the northern Marshalls, when
in those days
we used to collect the copra from all over the islands, includingfsome copra from
the Carolines, into Majuro and then a big ship would come in and take it from
Majuro to Japan.
They had people at the docks with geiger countars to check the
copra out as it left the warehouse to go into the ship and it was
a whole truckload to be dumped right into the lagoon.
17
mot uncommon for
If the opemators felt that