Blunder on Bikini Island

After ten years, it is still dangerously radioactive

A decade ago, when the U.S. finally agreed to let some 500 Micronesians return to their native island of Bikini, Washington officials determined to undo the damage inflicted by 23 nuclear tests. All sorts of debris was scooped off the beaches and dumped out at sea. Swaths of local jungle were cleared so that some 50,000 new coconut trees could be planted. Forty cement houses were built along the shore of the lagoon, and an Atomic Energy Commission spokesman declared that there was "virtually no radiation left." After a generation of exile, the first 100 of the Bikini islanders contentedly settled down in their new homes, at peace at last.

Last week, in confirming an embarrassing blunder, U.S. officials acknowledged that their assessment of Bikini was premature. Periodic radiological surveys conducted by the Government since 1975 showed that the earlier tests had been inadequate. Bikini's well water still contains strontium 90 and cesium 137, radioactive products of the bomb tests, and so do the coconuts, fruits and vegetables grown on the island.

The U.S. Interior Department, which has supervisory authority over the island as part of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, insisted that none of the people on Bikini had shown any adverse effects from radiation during periodic health checks. But officials found that levels of strontium and cesium, as well as of plutonium, were rising alarmingly among the returned islanders, and they now believe that Bikini probably will not be safe for long-term human occupation for another 35 to 50 years. "It is now clear," as the department put it, "that for the foreseeable future the island of Bikini should not be used for agricultural purposes and should not be considered a residential area." Those islanders who have been repatriated will have to be evacuated again. In the meantime, they have been forbidden to eat their home-grown coconuts, bananas and breadfruit. Food is now being shipped in from outside.

A likely resettlement site is the island of Eneu, also a part of the Bikini Atoll, but presumably far enough from the center of nuclear testing to be safe for people. In fact, the Interior Department is already asking Congress to allocate $6 million as the first payment in a resettlement program ultimately expected to cost $15 million.

Still, before any further decision is made on a new home for the Bikinians, the department will conduct its long-promised aerial radiation survey of all the areas in the Marshall Islands where nuclear devices were exploded, in order to determine which of the now peaceful islands are once again fit--truly--for human inhabitants.

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