Soil Cleanup Planning
assure that doses to future residents of Enewetak Atoll would not
significantly exceed proposed EPA guidelines for transuranics?
b. What advice can be given to DNA at its early May conference to
facilitate planning for cleanup of transuranics on Enewetak?
c. What additional information can be obtained which could improve
the confidence of the dose estimates and cleanup criteria for
transuranics?
d. Can plowing be used as an effective cleanup measure for transuranics
in soils?
The Committee reviewed information and data provided by DOEDivision of Occupational and Environmental Safety, LLL, DOE-NV, and
DNA. The draft LLL dose assessment study was the basic document from
which the Committee was to formulate answers to the questions raised
and to provide advice. The Committee offered the following response to
the questions as they pertained to transuranic elements only (not fission
products, which they understood might delay the resettlement of some

islands for a numberof vears):

a. The Bair Committee did not find it possible to develop reasonable
cleanup guidance which would assure that radiation doses from
transuranics to future residents would not exceed proposed EPA
guidelines to the extent to be of concern. Obviously, the more
stringent the cleanup criteria, the greater the degree of assurance; but
uncertainties inherent in our present understanding of the problem
precluded absolute assurance. One could not predict with certainty
the contamination levels that would exist in the islands after cleanup;
this would be determined at a future time. One could not predict the
lifestyle and dietary habits of every individual who returns to the
islands. Perhaps most important, many of the factors that are
involved in movement of transuranics in the environment and the
depositions and retention of transuranics in human beings are not
well established.
However, the Committee was of the opinion that its recommended

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subsequently exposed populations that would be commensurate with
proposed EPA guidelines. The EPA considered its guidance levels to be
equivalent to a lifetime risk of about 14 premature cancer deaths per
100,000 persons exposed and to perhaps an equal number of genetic
effects, although these estimates are based on many uncertain
assumptions and generally are considered to be quite conservative. An
estimate of I4 cancers per 100,000 people would correspond to a 3 percent
chance of one cancer appearing in a population of 200 people exposed to
EPA guidance levels for their lifetime; or expressed differently, to a
probability of one cancer in every 2,]00 years (assuming a constant

aR:

cleanup criteria would result in average transuranic radiation doses to

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