By April 1978, however, in spite of the above actions, it was clear that the body burdens of 137Cs and 99sp of the people resident on Bikini were still on the increase, and a decision was made by the Department of the Interior to moveall of the people off Bikini. This was done in August 1978. Approximately 140 people were moved, and most were resettled either at Kili (whence they had come)or at Ejit Island in Majuro Atoll DOE/HQ reviewed data available from islands of Enewetak and made a preliminary determination that the northeastislands had soil coneentrations of 99Sr and 137Cs in the range of values observed at Bikini. On the basis of these findings, DOE/HQ recommended on 18 August 1978 a delay in planting coconuts in any islands beyond the southern islands until a major review of the matter had been conducted. DNA was immediately concerned that a delay in planting according to the planned schedule would have an adverse impact which might be difficult to overeome later, and that alternatives should be promptly evaluated so that the 13,000 coconut seedlings scheduled for the northeast islands could be planted elsewhere if the major review concluded the northeast islands should not be planted at all. By 29 September 1978, DOE/HQ had completed an island-by-island comparison of the 137Cs eoneentration in Enewetak soil with values found at Bikini, and concluded that all the northern Islands at Enewetak Atoll exceeded the Bikini Island levels. Because copra from Enewetak was expected to be important to the long term economic base of the Atoll, DOE/HQ was also concerned that radiologically-contaminated copra would be unacceptable for commercial purposes. In view of these concerns, DOE/HQ recommended not planting coconuts on the Northern Islands during the 1978-79 planting season. The DOE Advisory Group met on 3-4 October 1978 to consider the issue of planting coconuts on Enewetak Atoll, along with consideration of several other topies, and offered the following comment: "A final decision concerning the permissible degree of occupancy of the northern islands ean be made only after conclusion of the present cleanup effort and after acquisition of additional information on applicable living habits and food chains and the movement of radionuclides such as 9%spr, 137Cs, 239Pu and 241Am through these food chains. Pending this evaluation it would be unfortunate if steps were taken that would encourage the Enewetak people to believe that a decision had already been made. (We assume that it has not been stated or implied to the people that they can expect to return to the Northern Islands at the completion of the cleanup effort.) This is particularly cogent in view of the unfortunate experience at Bikini. That experience suggests that coconuts grown on the northernislands might not be suitable for human consumption and might not be suitable for copra production. To plant coconut trees on the northern islands at this time might, therefore, require their early future destruction, which would have unfortunate repercussions. Alternatively it might require restricting their consumption, which the Bikini experience would indicate to be ineffective. Therefore, the Advisory Group recommends that coconuts not be planted now and that decisions to plant in the future be delayed until dose assessments and evaluations are completed." (Bair, 10/1978.) DNA expressed concern that important decisions were being made based on old, pre-cleanup data (NVO-140), and that no effort was given to utilizing soil samples collected during cleanup to more accurately describe the current situation. DOE responded that cleanup project soil samples were not representative of the coconut tree root zone because cleanup was aimed at the transuranics and not at the more soluble fission products which tend to become more evenly distributed to greater depths in the soil than is true of the transuranics. (These exchanges occurred in the fall of 1978 and became the basis for the Fission Product Data Base Program, which commenced 28 February 1979, as described in Chapters 4 and 6.) By early November 1978, a study of alternatives for coconut planting had been prepared and distributed for review, with the intent of presenting the alternatives to the Enewetak Planning Council at their quarterly meeting in late November-early December. All agencies but DOE favored presentation of alternatives to the Enewetak Council to allow them consideration of options and to provide time for a considered response. The DOE view prevailed, however, and no alternatives were presented at the 2 December 1978 meeting. In the DOE view, it was premature to discuss impact of to alternatives for several reasons: the research @ post cleanup radiological assessment remained to be done, the program remained 71 be measured, and hard lessons from the