Bikini atoll trials

For 12 years the hydrogen and atomic bombs on the island have been tested. During this period the Atoll has experienced more than 65 experiments.

Nowadays the high radiation level is the main danger for the islanders and the tourists. It must be noted that Bikini Atoll was still inhabited before the trials. People live here today. After the beginning of the military experiments, the local residents were repeatedly evacuated to the other islands.

Some of them, however, have canceled the abandonment of their houses. Today, about ten people live on the island terrarium. It is therefore concluded that:.

Provided that certain remedial measures are taken, Bikini Island could be permanently reinhabited. Several possible remediation strategies were considered with the result that the following were selected as a basis for further assessment:. While no definite recommendations are given on which strategy to follow, it is considered that the strategy using potassium fertilizer is the preferred approach. In this connection, it was noted that the soils of Bikini Atoll are extremely deficient in potassium and extensive field trials have demonstrated that the application of potassium rapidly reduces the concentration of l37Cs in food crops since potassium is taken up by the plants in preference to caesium.

The reduction of Cs in the food crops is sustained for about four to five years, after which the values slowly begin to increase again. However, repeated application of fertilizer forms an effective strategy in reducing the estimated doses to the potential inhabitants of Bikini Island.

Furthermore, the supporting strategy of removing soil from dwelling areas would eliminate most of the external and internal exposures from direct soil ingestion or inhalation.

The results expected from the potassium fertilizer remediation strategy are consistent with international guidance on interventions to avoid dose in chronic exposure situations and, therefore, this strategy would provide a radiologically safe environment permitting early resettlement.

Depending on the assumptions made concerning diet, the annual calculated mean effective doses would be reduced as follows: from about 15 mSv if the dose due to natural background radiation were added, this would result in an annual effective dose of about Even for the more conservative assumption of a high calorie diet of totally locally produced foodstuffs, the resulting doses will be far below acceptable generic action levels for intervention.

The doses will be somewhat higher than those due to natural background radiation that were incurred by the inhabitants of Bikini Island before the evacuation and prior to when the nuclear weapon tests took place, and also somewhat higher than global average natural background doses, but lower than typical elevated levels of natural background doses around the world.

The alternative strategy, i. The consequences may be serious because the fertile topsoil supports the tree crops, which are the major local food resource.

The replacement of the soil with topsoil from elsewhere would be an enormous undertaking which is likely to be prohibitively expensive. The content of natural radionuclides in any continental soil used as replacement soil would most probably exceed that of the present soil. No remedial actions should be proposed at this stage for the islands of Bikini Atoll other than Bikini Island.

The other islands have historically been nonresidential and used only for occasional visits and for fishing. On the assumption that the proposed remediation strategy is undertaken, it is further recommended that:. Regular measurements of activity in local foodstuffs should be made to assess the effectiveness of the measures taken.

A simple, local whole body monitor and training in its use should be provided as a further means of enabling potential inhabitants to satisfy themselves that there is no significant uptake of caesium into their bodies.

Politics vs. Science The problem with most of the scientific studies conducted on Bikini Atoll and throughout the Marshall Islands prior to the late s, including the IAEA Study above, is that they all assumed a safe level of radiation to be millirems [mrem] above background levels of radiation. While this level of radiation may in theory be considered safe in many segments of the scientific community, the U.

Environmental Protection Agency has adopted a standard of 15 millirems above background for cleanups under the Superfund. When the people of the Marshall Islands came to understand about the EPA's 15 mrem EPA standard, the mrem standard, regardless of its scientific merits, became all but irrelevant.

The theory and politics behind the islanders' thinking is simple: If 15 mrem above background is the standard that the United States cleans up their former nuclear test sites with, and the United States did all the damage to the Marshall Islands, then clearly this is the standard that should be adopted for radiological cleanups in the Marshalls.

What makes this a conflict is that most of the scientists doing the data collection in the Marshall Islands, and most of the other regulatory agencies in the United States and the world, subscribe to the mrem standard.

The bottom line is, however, that the islanders want unrestricted use of their islands, which the 15 mrem standard ultimately provides while the mrem standard does not. Accordingly, the Nuclear Claims Tribunal, the body set up in under the Compact of Free Association with the United States to hear lawsuits resulting from damages arising from the U.

They also brought to an end the weekly air service that had been operating between Kwajalein Atoll and Bikini Atoll. The construction and agricultural projects suffered because of the sporadic shipping schedules and the lack of air service.

In late the planting of the coconut trees was finally completed. During this period it was discovered that as the coconut crabs grew older on Bikini Island they ate their sloughed-off shells. Those shells contained high levels of radioactivity, hence, the AEC announced that the crabs were still radioactive and could be eaten only in limited numbers.

The conflicting information on the radiological contamination of Bikini supplied by the AEC caused the Bikini Council to vote not to return to Bikini at the time previously scheduled by American officials. The Council, however, stated that it would not prevent individuals from making independent decisions to return.

Three extended Bikinian families, their desire to return to Bikini being great enough to outweigh the alleged radiological dangers, moved back to Bikini Island and into the newly constructed cement houses. They were accompanied by approximately 50 Marshallese workers who were involved in the construction and maintenance of the buildings. The population of islanders on Bikini slowly increased over the years until in June of , during regular monitoring of Bikini, radiological tests discovered "higher levels of radioactivity than originally thought.

Department of Interior officials stated that "Bikini appears to be hotter or questionable as to safety" and an additional report pointed out that some water wells on Bikini Island were also too contaminated with radioactivity for drinking.

A couple of months later the AEC, on review of the scientists' data, decided that the local foods grown on Bikini Island, i. Medical tests of urine samples from the people living on Bikini detected the presence of low levels of plutonium and Robert Conard of Brookhaven Laboratories commented that these readings "are probably not radiologically significant. The lawsuit stated that the U.

The result of the lawsuit was to convince the U. Unfortunately, more than three years of bureaucratic squabbles between the U.

Departments of State, Interior and Energy over costs and responsibility for the survey, delayed any action on its implementation. The Bikinians, unaware of the severity of the radiological danger, remained on their contaminated islands. While waiting for the radiological survey to be conducted, further discoveries of these radiological dangers were made.

In May of the level of radioactive strontium in the well water on Bikini Island was found to exceed the U. A month later a Department of Energy study stated that "All living patterns involving Bikini Island exceed Federal [radiation] guidelines for thirty year population doses. Alarmed by these numbers, the DOE told the people living on Bikini to eat only one coconut per day and began to ship in food for consumption.

In April of medical examinations performed by U. The very next month U. An ironic footnote to the situation is that the long awaited northern Marshalls radiological survey, forced by the lawsuit brought by the Bikinians against the U. In the 's, after filing a lawsuit in the U. Federal Claims Court [Juda vs. You can read about these trust funds on our Reparations for Damages page. In the 's the Bikinians began a Tourism program on Bikini for those people who might want to visit our historic atoll.

You can read about this operation on our Dive Tourism page. On March 5, , the Nuclear Claims Tribunal handed down a decision on a seven year lawsuit the Bikinians had brought against the United States for damages done to their islands and their people during the nuclear testing on Bikini. The problem is that the Nuclear Claims Tribunal, which was created by the Compact of Free Association of , was underfunded and does not have the money to pay for this claim.

It is now up to the people of Bikini to petition the U. Congress for the money to fulfill this award. This is expected to take many years and it is uncertain if the United States will honor their claim.

Government in the U. Court of Federal Claims. The lawsuit seeks compensation under the Fifth Amendment to the U. Constitution for the taking of their property damage claims resulting from the U. Alternatively, the people of Bikini seek damages for the U. This complaint was amended on July 18, The case was refused by the U. Supreme Court in April of PDF] April Bikinian vs.

Lawsuit Information. At this time the people of Bikini remain scattered throughout the Marshall Islands and the world as they wait for the cleanup of Bikini to begin in earnest, mostly due to the fact that the money they have received from the U.

Read the submitted testimony [in. S's refusal to consider the nuclear issue in these negotiations. Read the decision of the Nuclear Claims Tribunal in. For demographic information about the people and where they are today, please read Bikini Atoll Facts. For the latest developments with regard to the Bikinians and their attempts to resettle their homeland, please read the Radiological Cleanup and Future and Resettlement Program pages, along with the news articles linked below.

Nuclear testing. The History of the Bikini Bathing Suit. A very brief two-piece bathing suit worn by women. Brief underpants that reach to the hips rather than to the waist. Bikini, an atoll in the Marshall Islands. Bravo for the Marshallese By Holly Barker. A book about the nuclear victims of the Marshall Islands. Bikini Atoll is one of the 29 atolls and five islands that compose the Marshall Islands. These atolls of the Marshalls are scattered over , square miles of a lonely part of the world located north of the equator in the Pacific Ocean.

They help define a geographic area referred to as Micronesia. One of the best books on diving anywhere. It is remarkable, fantastic and a treasure for those who have served and who have dove on this magnificent ship]. The Lucky Dragon Links page. This book tells the story of the people of Bikini from their point of view via interviews, and the author's more than two decades of firsthand experiences with elder Bikinians.