FOREWORD
For 8 years, from 1972 until 1980, the United States planned and carried
out the radiological cleanup, rehabilitation, and resettlement of Enewetak
Atoll in the Marshall Islands. This project represented the fulfillment of a
long-standing moral commitment to the People of Enewetak. The cleanup
itself, executed by the Department of Defense (DOD), was an extensive
effort, involving a Joint Task Force staff and numerous Army, Navy, and
Air Force units and personnel. The rehabilitation and resettlement project,
carried out by the Department of the Interior concurrently with the
cleanup, added complexity to the task and required the closest
coordination — as did the important involvement of the Department of
Energy (DOE), responsible for radiological characterization and
certification. The combinedeffort cost about $100 million and required an
on-atoll task force numbering almost 1,000 people for 3 years, 1977-1980.
No radiological cleanup operation of this scope and complexity has ever
before been attempted by the United States.
This documentary records, from the perspective of DOD, the
background, decisions, actions, and results of this major national and

international effort. Every attempt has been madeto record issues as they
developed, and to show the results, good and bad, of specific decisions,
oversights, etc. Because this documentary may have considerable
importance in the future, and because specific needs for data cannot be
foreseen with accuracy, every attempt has been made to record in some
detail ail major facets of the operation and to reference key documents.

Throughout the research, collection, and writing, four major types of

potential users have been kept in-mind. The documentaryis designed:
— First, to provide a historical document which records with accuracy
this major event in the history of Enewetak Atoll, the Marshall Islands,
the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, Micronesia, the Pacific Basin,
and the United States. To serve this end, the documentary addresses
political, legal, administrative, and social issues; and it attempts to put the
cleanup in perspective in terms of the prior history of Enewetak Atoll,
World War II, the nuclear testing period, and the United Nations
Trusteeship.
— Second, to provide a definitive record of the radiological
contamination of the Atoll. It addresses the origins of the contamination
on a shot-by-shot basis; the types, concentrations, and locations of
contamination prior to the cleanup; the radiological cleanup decisions and
their rationale; the cleanup processes themselves; and the resulting
radiological situation, island-by-island. It is believed that this type of data
will be useful over the coming decades as living patterns on the Atoll
change, new radiological surveys are taken, improved health physics

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