A very important factor in the structure of the ERSP operations was "the home team." At the home pase of each participating organization were one or more persons acting as a point of contact on ERSP matters (usually these were individuals who, in the rotational cycle, had served or would serve tours on Enewetak). These home teams were responsible for taking actions on technical questions from the field, obtaining urgently needed supplies or repair parts, and dealing with personal needs of their counterparts on Enewetak. This home team concept was vital to maintaining smooth and efficient operations in the field. Another policy, adopted by management very deliberately, concerned the acquisition and maintenance of technical and mechanical equipment. Because Enewetak was approximately 4,500 miles from mainland U.S., obtaining repair parts or services of factory representatives would be both slow and costly. Also, because of the tropical climate with its persistent high humidity and corrosive salty air, the environment was inherently conducive to rapid deterioration of equipment. Therefore, at the outset, a policy was adopted and passed on to the supporting contractors that whenever possible new equipment should be acquired for use on Enewetak, and it should receive scrupulous preventive maintenance. A related policy was that of carefully selecting a large reserve of spare parts, keeping them immediately at hand on Enewetak, and reordering spares promptly when standby units were placed into use. This was particularly important for those components that malfunction, had long lead times to replace, or were otherwise hard to obtain. were susceptible to The most elaborate example of these policies may be illustrated by the approach taken for the IMPs. Three complete systems were “ibricated and sent to Enewetak, even though there were only two teams of IMP personnel, The intention was that the third system would be available either as a complete spare unit, or as a source of 100 percent of the spare parts, any of which could be transferred to another IMP requiring a replacement component (meanwhile, new replacement parts would be procured). Since a complete IMP system cost approximately $100,000, this was expensive insurance; but it allayed eoncern that if the IMPS could not be kept operational, they would cause the overall cleanup project to fall off schedule. These policies repeatedly demonstrated their wisdom, as it was very rare for any key capability of ERSP to be out of operation because of component failure. The significance of this can be fully appreciated only by those able to observe the astonishingly high attrition of other equipment experiencing the working and climatic environments on Enewetak. 2.3.5 Typical Sequence of ERSP Radiological Surveys To assess the concentration of transuranic radionuclides in the soil of a given island, and to provide this information to JTG, the following sequence was generally employed by ERSP. a. Background information, primarily from NVO-140, the The Enewetak Fact Book (NVO-214), and from the 1977 aerial survey, was studied to determine from the history of the island and from recent investigations what its radiological characteristics might be, especially whether there was reason to suspect subsurface contamination in any given location. b. Then ERSP personnel made a reconnaissance visit to the island to become familiar with its current physical condition (both the perimeter geometry and the vegetation can change with time). Plans were made to clear vegetation, lay out a survey grid, devise the soil sampling scheme and the approachfor in situ measurements with an IMP. e. Following this, the Army element cleared the island prior to the radiological survey. Explosive Ordnance Disposal (EOD) personnel searched the island to locate and remove (or destroy in place) any unexploded ammunition or other hazardous ordnance remaining from combat during World War IL Heavy vegetation (trees, dense shrubs, ete.) was either removed or access lanes were cut through thickets. The vegetation thus removed was piled to dry and then burned. Metal debris and concrete structures were present to varying degrees on many islands. The Army removed and disposed of those which might prove a hazard or interfere with cleanup and future use of the area. 75