ENEWETAK ATOLL FULL

The Marshallese, meanwhile, say that a country with a population of 53,000 people and a GDP of $190m вЂ“ most of it from US aid programs вЂ“ is simply incapable of dealing with the potential radioactive catastrophe left behind by the Americans.Д«ravo Crater at Bikini Atoll, site of the 1954 hydrogen explosion where the island of Nam was destroyed. Today, the US government insists that it has honoured all its obligations, and that the jurisdiction for the dome and its toxic contents lies with the Marshall Islands. The deal also settled of вЂњall claims, past, present and futureвЂќ related to the US Nuclear Testing Program вЂ“ and left the Runit Dome under the responsibility of the Marshallese government.

ENEWETAK ATOLL FULL

Three years later, the Marshall Islands signed a compact of free association with the US, granting its people certain privileges, but not full citizenship. Nevertheless, in 1980, as the Americans prepared their own departure, the dri-Enewetak (вЂњpeople of EnewetakвЂќ) were allowed to return to the atoll after 33 years. And as costs spiralled, resettlement efforts of the northern part of the atoll stalled indefinitely. Meanwhile, only three of the atollвЂ™s 40 islands were cleaned up, but not Enjebi, where half of EnewetakвЂ™s population had traditionally lived.

According to the World Health Organization, the $218m plan was designed as temporary fix: a way to store contaminated material until a permanent decontamination plan was devised. The resulting radioactive slurry was then dumped in an unlined 350-foot crater on Runit IslandвЂ™s northern tip, and sealed under 358 concrete panels.Д«ut the dome was never meant to last. In the end, US servicemen simply scraped off the islandsвЂ™ contaminated topsoil and mixed it with radioactive debris. The DNAвЂ™s preferred option вЂ“ deep ocean dumping вЂ“ was prohibited by international treaties and hazardous waste regulations, and there was little appetite for transporting the irradiated refuse back to the US. When the testing came to an end, the US Defence Nuclear Agency (DNA) carried out an eight-year cleanup, but Congress refused to fund a comprehensive decontamination programme to make the entire atoll fit for human settlement again. The detonations blanketed the islands with irradiated debris, including Plutonium-239, the fissile isotope used in nuclear warheads, which has a half-life of 24,000 years.Дetonation of the nuclear device during Operation Ivy in the Marshall Islands in 1951. In total, 67 nuclear and atmospheric bombs were detonated on Enewetak and Bikini between 19 вЂ“ an explosive yield equivalent to 1.6 Hiroshima bombs detonated every day over the course of 12 years. The remote islands вЂ“ roughly halfway between Australia and Hawaii вЂ“ were deemed sufficiently distant from major population centres and shipping lanes, and in 1948, the local population of Micronesian fishermen and subsistence farmers were evacuated to another atoll 200 km away. вЂњNow it has been gradually submerged as result of sea level rise from greenhouse gas emissions by industrial countries led by the United States.вЂќД®newetak Atoll, and the much better-known Bikini Atoll, were the main sites of the United States Pacific Proving Grounds, the setting for dozens of atomic explosions during the early years of the cold war.

вЂњIt resulted from US nuclear testing and the leaving behind of large quantities of plutonium,вЂќ he said.

вЂњRunit Dome represents a tragic confluence of nuclear testing and climate change,вЂќ said Michael Gerrard, director of the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University, who visited the dome in 2010. Now locals, scientists and environmental activists fear that a storm surge, typhoon or other cataclysmic event brought on by climate change could tear the concrete mantel wide open, releasing its contents into the Pacific Ocean.

Enewetak atoll