Letter to B Burr, Subject: Comments on Marshall Islands Workshop

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Rill Burr, DEER / Rqer Ray , NVOO Bill Forster, DBER Enclosed please find my comments on the Marshall Islands Workshop held at Lawrence Livermore Laboratories,June

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TRIP REPORT BY YJIZLIAM L. TEMPLETOX, PNL At the in vita tim of Roqer Ray, NVOO; Bill Forster, RER; - and Bill Robj-son, LLL, I attended and participated ir, the submit my perceptions of the program in writing and h3ve inajor areas of concern.for attention by AES: 1) The lack c.f a coherent program plan defining short - and long - term oj j ect ives and priorities. It is suggested that the appoint nen t of a scientific ’ director for program management supported by a small steering committee is a priority requirement.2) The rationale for the Enewetak soil cleanup and disposal operation is base2 on assumptions regarding re suspension of plutonium that have not . been validated by empirical data. The proposed soil gci ide lines for the removal o f soil do not appear,to be technically support - able. Itis recommended that the basis for the proposed scil reevaluated. The present terrestrial inventory available for re suspension and the resultant dose commitment cannot be a it ered by the proposed course of action.3) Resuspensi.on. research studies are required to be intensified to define the inhalation Bikini inhabitants at some radiological risk,alternative resettlement proposals need to be considered in greater depth, and scientific and.technical bases need t o be examined a1or.g with the social and economic impacts.

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At the in vita tian of Roger Ray, NVOO; Bill For s tel ' , BER; and Bill Robison, LLL, I attended the Marshall Islands Workshop at Lawrence Livermore Laboratory to take part in the research discussions. One the first day and part of the seeond each pr in civ al investigator presented an abstract of his study. This was followed by es ten sive in - depth discussions of selected .segments of the overall pro gra x. It is pertinent to note that this was the first time that all concerned with this pro _ ram, i.e., the technical rep res zn ta - tives from kAES, BER, and OES ; NVOO; SAN ; and principal invest i - gators from BEL, LLL, University of Washington, University af Hawaii, Bowling Green State University had met. Since I was the only technical person present who was nat closely associated with the program, it was agreed by Bill Burr, Bill Forster,and Roger Ray that my written perceptions of this workshop would be useful. be borne j.n mind thatI may have missed some of the finer points in the technical and political discussions. acting as a rapport eur for the workshop. details were presented, I. will restrict my comments to four I agreed to do this,but it should While many project major areas ' that I feel need ERDA senior management attention. ._ PROGRAPI ORGANIZATION AND STRUCTURE It was apparent that there was an overall lack of direction in this program with the result that AES hasa number of projects that do not necessarily share the same philosophy or objectives. From the discussions the problem appears to exist mainly at HQ, particularly between OES and BER,and,toa lesser degree, with the result that there is no coherent program in place, nor have the priorities been identified. The issues and program object iv cs are not clear

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the principal invest iga tots, t!mt there is anime diaz e nee3 for strong program managcmen*t embracing all the existing AES pi’ograms. It is my recommendation thata program manager o r scientific / tech nl cal director and a small steering comt it tc - 2 be appointed from alist of persons not presently rcs2on sib lc for the conduct of the program. The program manager shoulc? 5 e given some executive responsibility and should be resTon sib le directly to the AES. It was very app g rent to KC, hnd al‘so expressed by some of The one project that received the most attention from the workshop was the proposed cle ail up of the Enewetak Lag3on Islands. Initially,concern was expressed regarding the place mm t of rationale for using Cactus Crater for the contaminated concrete slurry was not obvious.This parti cul ’ ar operation appear & t o have many disadvantages in that it does not remove the material Contaminated nate rials and soil on Runit.In particular the c from environmental interaction since there are data that indicate ocean water connections do exist and that erosion,etc.,will ultimately result in the material being returned to the uncontrolled situation.As a repository for relatively short - lived radioactive materials this concept could be useful,but thc consensus of the meetincj was that the crater was not an acceptable solution for plutonium contaminated wastes. The discussion then moved to alternatives. The most obvious one discussed was ocean disposal outside the lagoon. ... It was reported that this was not acceptable to E.P.A. This is difficult to accept from a technical standpoint. The United States is a signatory to the London Convention o n the Dumping of Vlastcs a t Sea. Resolution was signed by E.P.A. on behalf of the United States Government and includes the definition and recornmendations for radioactive materials,providing the basis for ocean The Technical Memorsndun and

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dumping. The Enewt -ik material is w?ll with ii. die guide lin2s proposed,and ocean‘-dumping walclld result in no significant radiological hazard to man or marine organisms. (I should point out that I was chairman and Uni’ted States representative radiological basis of the London Convention for theUx it ed Nations Intergovernmental Maritime Consultative Organ i zac ion ? .I The discussion then moved t o the rationale for the cl dan up. The participants could see the necessity to remove contaminated concrete, metal, ground disposal sites from the Islan?s andto place this in some form of controlled state on Run it. However, they were not convinced that the rationale for removing soil from the islands was based on acceptable assumptions,i.e.,a re suspension problem, nor had any attempt been made to validate those as sun pt ions.The need for are suspension research program-. rather than an inadequate monitoring program was called for. Additionally,the guidelines proposed for levels of plutonium in soil appeared to conflict with recently proposed federal guidelines and the basis for a double standard was ’ not made . clear. Whiie it was accepted that the decisions to conduct this operation were complicated and had been made over the last two years,the consensus was that the soil removal aspect and the attendant disposal should be immediately re - evaluated.Anu doer of participants were sufficiently concerned that they prep z red a draft memorandum, which Bill Burr agreed to bring to the BIKINI AND ENEU A considerable time was spent discussing the B iki.ni Island problem. While it. is obvious that there have been, are, and always will be considerable political, economic and social pressures to resettle the islanders,I was not convinced t!iatsufficient technical and scientific discussions had been ,conducted to come to a decision acceptable to or for the island crs. The indications are that the present inhabitants

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consumption of subsistence anci garden ' crops from Bikini.It appears to me rather naive to expect them not t o consume subsistence crops growing on their doorstep. Even ifthe present islanders are moved t o Eneu, from the little1learned about their way of life,they will still cross to Bikini to harvest the available food. If the remainder of the island z rs are resettled there as well, it is doubtful that Eneu can support them, exacerbating t!ic problem. Relative to the economic base ' for B j - kini and Eneu Is l mds, the consensus was that the copra meal would not be ac zep ta5le although the oil might be. While the interdependence of the economics of these two products might suggest some form of subsidy for the meal, the disposition of that material only raises another disposal problem. I found it disturbing that,while ERDA is very concerned ' with the social and economic impacts of the developing energy technologies,there appears to be no one specifically addressing the social and economic implications of governmental actior,s i n the Marshall Islands as a part of present operations.Without this input the scientific and technical decisions may not serve _ -t h e best interests of the islanders. With reference to the radiological aspect, the' immediat-.e - need is to reassess the dose commitment and measure the body .burdens. My impression was that the food consumption studj.es need to be intensified to refine the actual in take of radio - nuclides and that increased efforts are required on the whole body c cunt ing and the urine analysis. The workshop discussed the problems of analysis of urine for plutonium at low levels. Our at ten tim was drawn ts the recent IIASL' Report 319 which -- would indicate that the nuniucr of laboratories able to conduct thcse Pu an;iyscs (and even y scans)with a high dey ree of conf id cn ce in their data is surprisingly small.

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Ny impression from the workshop was that the questions asked tii.en were not being addressed with sufficient urgency. the plutonium pathways. Some of these have been elucidate GI are available on drinking water from roof cat cn ment,folia r retention of re suspended material and inhalation. It was clear from the discussion that the proposed BNL high-volume sampling program (supported by OES) will be insufficient to define the problem. The need was identified for a well - conceive3resxs ? e n - of res pir able particles for various activities,i.e.,inthe sion research program to determine the degree of re suspension I villages,garden tilling, etc., the role of folia r uptake by garden crops r and the role of marine aerosols. The need for supporting meter o logical data is essential if any meaningful data are t o be gained. It was suggested that this program be conducted by there suspension group at LLL who have had Many of the areas of concern expressed at the workshop were perceived by me to stem from alack of communication, on the one hand, within and between division staffs in Heaclquarters ; and on the other, with the contractors.It was very apparent that the only way this program can havc pri crit iz cd objectives and eon gu ct the surveillance and research projects in acc he rent manner is with the appointment of a scientific . director with program management responsibilities. The _identification and selection of such a person will not be a simple task since,while it is essential that he ha vc objective scientific prowess, h e will also need considerable management

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skills and expert is L. and should report d:rectly t o 1G.S. He will require exec uti.2responsibilities While it is appreciated that the DOD operation at Enewc'cak has begun,I concur with the suggestion that the soil cleanup and disposal operations be re eva lute d by AES immediately. The consensuswas that it was not too late torc direct and restrict these efforts to the cleanup of cont an in a ted material. ~ only,while this reevaluation is made. While it may be beyond the scope of my commitment atthe workshop, I would like to say that many of the participants felt that there were some compelling moral and ethical.aspects of this b lars hall Islands situation that need t o be addressed by the government as soon as possible.