A poison in our island
Rising seas caused by climate change are seeping inside a United States nuclear waste dump on a remote and low-lying Pacific atoll, flushing out radioactive substances left behind from some of the world’s largest atomic weapons tests.
We call it the tomb,” says Christina Aningi, the head teacher of Enewetak’s only school.
“The children understand that we have a poison in our island.”
It’s “Manit Day” on Enewetak Atoll, a celebration of Marshall Islands culture when the Pacific nation’s troubled past seems a distant memory.
Schoolchildren sit cross-legged on the coral sands as they sing of the islands and atolls, the sunshine and the breeze; “flowers and moonlight, swaying palm trees”.
They were born decades after the last nuclear explosion ripped through the warm Pacific air with a thunderous roar. But it’s hard to escape the long echo of the bombs.
“Gone are the days when we live in fear, fear of the bombs, guns and nuclear,” they sing.
“This is the time ... this is my country, this is my land.”
But those old fears, thought to be long buried, are threatening to reawaken in their island paradise.
On an atoll in the far-flung west of the Marshall Islands, halfway between Australia and Hawaii, sits “the dome”.
Approaching from the water, it’s hard to appreciate the true scale of the concrete vault, with its shallow profile obscured by palm trees and scrub.
But from the air it looks like a giant flying saucer has crashed on the tip of a deserted island.
Buried beneath this vast disc is 85,000 cubic metres of radioactive waste — a toxic legacy from the dawning of the thermonuclear age.
In the late 1970s, Runit Island, on the remote Enewetak Atoll, was the scene of the largest nuclear clean-up in United States history.
Highly contaminated debris left over from dozens of atomic weapons tests was dumped into a 100-metre wide bomb crater on the tip of the uninhabited island.
US Army engineers sealed it up with a half-metre thick concrete cap almost the size of an Australian football ground, then left the island.
Now with sea levels rising, water has begun to penetrate the dome.
A report commissioned by the US Department of Energy in 2013 found that radioactive materials were leeching out, threatening the already tenuous existence of Enewetak locals.
“That dome is the connection between the nuclear age and the climate change age,” says Marshall Islands climate change activist Alson Kelen.
“It’ll be a very devastating event if it really leaks. We’re not just talking the Marshall Islands, we’re talking the whole Pacific.”
The United States detonated 43 atomic bombs around the island chain in the 1940s and 50s.
Four of Enewetak’s 40 islands were completely vaporised by the tests, with one thermonuclear blast leaving a two-kilometre-wide crater where an island had been just moments before.
Enewetak’s population had been re-located to another island in the Marshalls ahead of the tests.
Residents would only be allowed to return home more than three decades later — some on the island today can still recall returning to Enewetak as children.
As part of the clean-up process, Washington set aside funds to build the dome as a temporary storage facility, and initial plans included lining the porous bottom of its crater with concrete.
But in the end, that was deemed too expensive.
“The bottom of the dome is just what was left behind by the nuclear weapons explosion,” says Michael Gerrard, the chair of Columbia University’s Earth Institute in New York.
“It’s permeable soil. There was no effort to line it. And therefore, the seawater is inside the dome.
Locals rarely set foot on Runit Island. They’re fearful of the lingering radiation from the dome and because it’s been ruled off-limits.
To this day, only three islands along Enewetak Atoll’s slender rim are considered safe enough for human habitation.
“[The other islands were] too hot, too radioactive to worry about,” says Giff Johnson, publisher of the Marshall Islands Journal, the country’s only newspaper.
“There was no point [cleaning them up].”
After the fall-out from the atomic testing, life for the people of Enewetak went from a traditional existence of fishing and subsistence living to one where the waters that once supported their livelihoods were now polluted.
Locals sometimes visit Runit to scavenge from scrap copper left behind by the Americans, selling it for a few dollars to a Chinese merchant.
For 30 years, Jack Niedenthal has helped the people of neighbouring Bikini Atoll fight for compensation for the 23 atomic tests conducted there.
“To me, it’s like this big monument to America’s giant f--k up,” says Niedenthal.
“This could cause some really big problems for the rest of mankind if all that goes underwater, because it’s plutonium and cement.”
Some of the debris buried beneath the dome includes plutonium-239, a fissile isotope used in nuclear warheads which is one of the most toxic substances on earth.
It has a radioactive half-life of 24,100 years.
The first hydrogen bomb test at Enewetak Atoll on November 1, 1952
From the top of the dome, the view is dominated by ocean — the rolling waves of the Pacific to the east, the calm azure surface of the atoll lagoon to the west.
A deep bomb crater from another atomic test is carved into the coral just a few metres away.
Despite Runit Island being officially off-limits, the dome lies unmarked and unguarded.
Its position on the very edge of the shoreline reinforces just how vulnerable and exposed this nuclear waste dump is.
Cracks are visible in the dome’s surface and brackish liquid pools around its rim.
“Already the sea sometimes washes over [the dome] in a large storm,” says Columbia University’s Michael Gerrard.
“The United States Government has acknowledged that a major typhoon could break it apart and cause all of the radiation in it to disperse.”
While Professor Gerrard would like the US to reinforce the dome, a 2014 US Government report says a catastrophic failure of the structure would not necessarily lead to a change in the contamination levels in the waters surrounding it.
“I’m persuaded that the radiation outside the dome is as bad as the radiation inside the dome,” says Professor Gerrard.
“And therefore, it is a tragic irony that the US Government may be right, that if this material were to be released that the already bad state of the environment around there wouldn’t get that much worse.”
But that is cold comfort to the people of Enewetak, who fear they may have to be relocated once again if the dome collapses or crumbles.
“If it does [crack] open most of the people here will be no more,” says Ms Aningi.
“This is like a graveyard for us, waiting for it to happen.”
//MARK WILLACY
Watch the full documentary tonight on 'Foreign Correpsondent'.
© Australian Broadcasting Corporation. All rights reserved.
Comments
Terrible environmental vandals !
Just up the reef lie these two divots.
They measure two kms across
While 300 kms to the east lies Bikini Atoll (bikini means 'coconut place' in Marshallese, apparently). 23 bombs with a collective yield of over 42 Megatons of TNT were exploded at Bikini. The largest was Castle Bravo and blew this big fuck off hole in the reef.
"Castle Bravo's yield was 15 megatons of TNT, 2.5 times more than the predicted 6 megatons, due to unforeseen additional reactions involving 7-Li,which led to the unexpected radioactive contamination of areas to the east of Bikini Atoll."
"Fallout from the detonation fell on residents of Rongelap and Utirik atolls and spread around the world. The islanders were not evacuated until three days later and suffered radiation sickness. Twenty-three crewmembers of the Japanese fishing vessel Daigo Fukuryū Maru ("Lucky Dragon No. 5") were also contaminated by fallout, experiencing acute radiation syndrome."
Unbelievable how fukkin stupid all these so called intelligent governments are........out of site out of mind mentality .....Fuckishima......!
Other than the US government's almost pointless 'acknowledgement' is there any plan in place going forward? Both environmentally and for the people of Enewetak? It's one thing to have had this atrocity happen in the first place, and completely another to bury our collective heads in the sand with what we know today
"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."
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/03/runit-dome-pacific-radioactive-waste
Wow... disgraceful.
'The Deadly Miscalculation at Castle Bravo'
2.5 times more powerful than was expected. Fuckers blew up their own base, poisoned a Japanese trawler unaware of the bomb, and also poisoned atolls to the east as US soldiers sat in their radiation proof bunker!
Spread radiation from India, to Australia, to America.
Incredible video.
Plutonium239 is an alpha source so the radiation has very little penetration. To be harmful it has to enter the body. For humans, breathing in the dust is extremely dangerous as it is likely to stay in the respiratory system. Eating contaminated food less so as it is poorly absorbed. Being a heavy metal it bioaccumulates in living tissue so that would seem to be the main threat to local populations, particularly if they are growing food in contaminated soil. I will have a look to see if I can find any relevant data.
Be alert and alarmed - our alliance partners
How many people in the world would be dead from conventional warfare without the threat of nuclear war hanging over our heads ?
You think the Cuban missile crisis was ugly ?
I'd call it a peaceful solution.
People die in war . It's fucked. But nuclear arms prevent wars.
Just as it's arguable that the outlawing of DDT has been the single greatest avoidable cause of human death - due to malaria and other insect borne diseases - maybe the relatively few lives lost to nuclear ambition and destruction is a smaller price to pay for man's inherent power struggles ?
very short term view there Blowin , we now have a situation where we have a major Toxic radioactivity problem that will last for the next 20000 years , and so far 50 years in, we already have major problems because we don't really know what to do with nuclear waste , which poses a problem for man and the environment for thousands of years to come , big price to pay for a so called break in mans endless wars!
agree, stop trying to send men to mars and clean up your fucking mess!
"maybe the relatively few lives lost to nuclear ambition and destruction is a smaller price to pay for man's inherent power struggles ?"
Never the ones in power who suffer though, eh? Wonder if the Marshallese had ever heard of the atom bomb, radiation, or even the United States before they started keeling over from the combined effects of those three agents.
Life always finds a way.
http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/-bikini-atolls-marine-life-...
No doubt the relatives of those who died from cancer and radiation poisoning are comforted.
You reckon their grief is a greater burden than that of the relatives of the Marshall Islanders that were massacred during the conventional war of WW2 ?
Or more than that of the relatives of potentially millions that would have died had the Cold War amounted to more than sabre rattling due to the threat of mutual destruction provided by nuclear weapons ?
I'm definitely not into what's gone down regarding the consequences of the testing. I wouldn't have done it.
I'm not sure if there was an alternative to testing the devices in this manner , but history has been altered by their existence. On which side of the ledger their existence falls is hard to say.
Stu , does it make you feel better if I told you that I lived within very close proximity to our very own local source of Empire supplied Nuclear experimental residue for years ?
"You reckon their grief is a greater burden than the relatives of the Marshall Islanders that were massacred during the convention war of WW2 ?"
No, people really should stop complaining and look at the bigger picture. Bit of radiation poisoning to safeguard someone else's future? Don't be a whinger...
Foreign Correpsondent was a good watch last night, expanded upon a lot of the above.
From Gra Murdoch at White Horses, shorthanding a piece in that mag called 'Evil Fucking Idiots':
Say hello to a fellow named Alvin Graves.
Graves was a nuclear physicist in US. In 1946, he was involved in a laboratory accident that exposed him to a hefty does of gamma radiation, and was given a 50/50 chance of survival. Despite being horribly sick, and one of his colleagues dying in desperate agony, Graves pulled through, thanks to intensive medical care and regained full health.
This experience profoundly changed Graves’s attitude to the dangers of nuclear radiation. He believed that if he could survive it, anyone could – with the right attitude. He dismissed the risks from fallout as being “concocted in the minds of weak malingerers.” Basically, he was fearless, delusional, dangerous and the very last person you’d want in a position of power.
The American Atomic Commission put Graves in sole charge of the biggest nuclear test the US has ever conducted: The Hydrogen Bomb test known as Castle Bravo detonated on March 1, 1954, on Bikini Atoll.
How big? Well they expected it to be 17 megatons – but it turned out to be 50 megatons. (By comparison the bomb that flattened Hiroshima was 20 kilotons –and there’s 1000 kilotons in a megaton, so that’s like, 2,500 times bigger).
Here’s where it gets even more messed up – in the week leading up to the blast, the wind had been blowing to the north west – which would have helped disperse the fallout (relatively) harmlessly (for humans at least) to a vast uninhabited swathe of the Pacific.
Twenty four hours before the blast, the wind clocked around and started blowing to the east.
One hundred and thirty clicks east of Bikini lay the densely populated Ronjelap Island.
Graves’s staff tried to convince him not to press the button. It was obvious the people of Ronjelap would be irradiated.
Graves dismissed the threat of radiation as no big deal. Because, as he was ond of saying, if he survived it, well, they could survive it.
Under Graves’ instruction, the bomb went off early in the morning. A mushroom cloud went up 25 miles high. Within half an hour, radiation swept over Ronjelap. The locals there, woken up by the blast to the west, were just stirring.
They started seeing what looked like snowflakes floating down from the sky and started picking it up, tasting it, smelling it. An hour later they began to get seriously sick.
The military observed from a distance through binoculars, and decided not to help straight away, as it was a golden opportunity to study the effects of radiation on living human subjects. It was a week before they took action to evacuate the Islanders. Countless went on to die from thyroid cancer and leukemia.
.
Don't get me wrong . I think it's fucked up what happened and is still happening.
But that doesn't mean what I've said isn't true , regardless of how repugnant it sounds.
Sadly I agree with Blowin.
The threat of nuclear war has caused many a potential war to remain just a threat (except maybe North Korea)
It remains a noose around the necks of all that have the power, for now.
These test were done a mere 10 years after the first bomb and I don't reckon they knew all the terrible consequences.
"These test were done a mere 10 years after the first bomb and I don't reckon they knew all the terrible consequences."
You mean the war that ended with Hiroshima and Nagasaki?
Jeez mate, of course they knew the consequences...
I agree that nuclear weapons may have averted greater deaths, but to use that as justification for killing innocent people is perverse. Apply that logic to your family and see how much sense it makes.
The only case where nuclear testing to bolster US primacy would make sense is when the victims were also US citizens. Ask not what your country can do for you..etc etc. But no, they rained fire on innocent people.
I have a few days off before I start teaching formal logic for the summer semester...so let's use blowin's argument in defense of the US bombing of the Marshall islands as a warm-up for next week.
(Premise 1) The existence of nuclear weapons prevents wars (and hence prevents deaths) (that is, the existence of nuclear weapons has brought about fewer deaths than the absence of nuclear weapons).
(Conclusion) Therefore, US actions taken on the Marshall Islands (the bombings, the storage and disposal of nuclear material, the dispossession of land etc.) are right and justified.
This argument is not valid -- how do we know? well, it's possible to hold the premises true and deny the conclusion (that's the definition of validity).
To make the agument valid we need to add another premise:
(Premise 2): if the actions taken on marshall island (the bombings, the storage and disposal of nuclear material, the dispossession of land etc.) did not happen, then there could be no nuclear weapons.
With this added premsies the argument is valid. The next step is to ask is it a sound argument? A sound argument is a valid argument with true premises. The important point about sound arguments is that a sound argument forces the truth of its conclusion. Hence, if we can establish the soundness of the argument, then we can establish the truth of blowin's conclusion.
So, let's look at the premises and ask, are they true?
Is premise one true? Let's accept it as true. Instead, let's move onto premise two. Is premise two true? No. It is not necessary for the development of nuclear weapons that the marshall islands be bombed as they were and the material be left in an unlined bomb crater etc.
So, there you go. The argument is unsound. Blowin has failed to establish the truth of his conclusion and as such he fails to give any reason to hold that the treatment of the marshall islands and islanders is just and right. Blowin may well be right, but his argument does not show this.
If you want your arugment to succeed, blowin, you need to provide an argument in support of premise two -- demonstrating that nuclear weapons could not have been developed without treating the marshall islands and islanders exactly as they have been treated. That is, you are going to have to argue, among other things, if the US did not bomb the marshall islands and throw nuclear waste into an unlined bomb crater that the US could not have developed nuclear weapons. This is patently false. Your argument is dead in the water.
I agree. Blowin's argument provides a get out of jail card for every short cut, cost cut, rash thought, and evil deed in the process. It assumes a destiny that can't be altered.
The Marshallese had to suffer, there was no other way.
But of course there were other ways, except in this case the US sought a cheap, silent, and compliant target.
Not at all. Blowin's argument is that fewer lives have been lost (by a considerable margin) as a result of the existence, and demonstrated power, of nuclear weapons. This is essentially unknowable since we can't rewind and re-run history, but is an enirely reasonable point of view. It is worth pointing out that exactly the same line of argument was used by the US for their use of nuclear weapons against Japan. They asserted that fewer lives would be lost than in a land invasion of the Japanese mainland. If you want to go into the ethics of these decisions, they are essentially trolley problems and there is no ethical consensus on them, the lesser of two evils still being evil vs Singer type utilitarianism.
Not disputing that BB. I'm asking things like, why didn't the US test them on their own soil?
They could've developed them to the same standards.
So why didn't they make that choice?
BB..?
Sorry Stu, I missed those posts. I think you know the answer as well as I do. Why shit in your own backyard if you can do it in someone else's? As the British also did in Australia. I think that people are coming at this from different philosophical directions. Blowin is a straight utilitarian, less people killed is better, while I think you take the view that the lesser of two evils is still evil. The problem that arises in the first case is that the outcome of changes to historical events are inherently unknowable. You cannot assert that there would not have been a nuclear war if those tests had not taken place. It might be a reasonable assumption but against that you have the reality that, with the tests, a war did not take place. None of this has anything to do with ethics. The problem with going down the "lesser of two evils" road is that it leads into a very ugly, difficult swamp from which few emerge unscathed. So was it an appalling and inhumane act to conduct those tests? Absolutely. Is it possible to justify them? Depends on your personal philosophy.
Not quite BB. I'm enough of a realist to understand the inevitability of nuclear weaponry, but it's employing a version of the Manifest Destiny argument that grates.
The Americans have long believed in MD, it's their right to expand and rule, and exploitation or injury along the way is the price others pay for their divinity.
So sure, overall less lives were lost due to nuclear testing, simply no argument there, except the tests could all have all been held on US soil. If they want space then how about Alaska, for instance?
It's that decision, the one that directs the argument away from 'choice' and toward 'destiny' that should be highlighted here, and not how many lives have been saved.
The US could have achieved the same outcome by testing at home, but they chose not too and no appeal to 'the amount of lives saved' should justify the innocent lives that were lost.
Point taken Stu, but would it really change anything if we were discussing the Inuit rather than the Marshallese?
According to Wikipedia, Marshall Islands WAS United States of America at the time of the testing:
1947: Following capture and occupation by the United States during World War II, the Marshall Islands, along with several other island groups located in Micronesia, passed formally to the United States under United Nations auspices in 1947 as part of the Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands established pursuant to Security Council Resolution 21.
1946 to 1958: The United States tested 67 nuclear weapons at its Pacific Proving Grounds located in the Marshall Islands... Castle Bravo was 1952.
1979: The Government of the Marshall Islands was officially established and the country became self-governing.
1986, the Compact of Free Association with the United States entered into force, granting the Republic of the Marshall Islands (RMI) its sovereignty.
So is your argument that they tested on USA land, or that they tested it on mainland USA?
(BTW, I'm not condoning what was done.. just correcting the argument that it was not done on USA soil)
Technically it is, but...
The US established the Pacific Proving Grounds just five days - FIVE DAYS! - after securing an agreement to govern Micronesia. It was the only such trusteeship ever granted by the UN.
Reckon they might've had something on their mind when they were signing the papers?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_nuclear_weapons_tests_of_the_Uni...
Ive also been giving the idea of manifest destiny a bit of thought since you posted about it.
I'm starting to warm to the concept . Destiny must play a significant part in our lives both collectively and as individuals. I can see how it came to receive mainstream backing amongst the Septics escpecially regarding how faith based their culture is.
You don't believe in destiny ?
I agree with Blowin to the extent that mutually assured destruction is a powerful disincentive and has worked so far, and yes has limited the geopolitical risk taking to some extent. In terms of the current situation with North Korea, this has been caused by US policy. The excuse for invading Iraq was that they were developing weapons of mass destruction. This was a convenient lie to cover up what was essentially a war fought for domestic political reasons. The clear message to North Korea though was that the only way to be sure the US would not invade was to have nuclear weapons. Then there is the example of Libya, which gave up its nuclear ambitions, but then had a US supported revolution which overthrew the regime anyway. In the circumstances North Korea's policies were not only predictable but also completely rational. It is the US that continues to be the irrational actor in international affairs, as is likely to be demonstrated when, in the near future, their trade policies significantly damage their own economy.
Straw man! You do not address Blowin's argument but an entirely different one.
ok, then mr freshman philosophy -- you've learned the words "strawman argument".
now show me it is a strawman argument?
is my statement of premise one wrong? if so, what is the correct statement of the premise
is my statement of the conclusion wrong? if so, what is the correct statement of the conclusion
come on, time to pony up blindboy. and hurry up...i'm in the middle of taking my board of the roack and heading out the door.
I'm up for a debate with a smart arise know-all academic any day of the week! Blowin made no statement about ethics. You put the words "right and justified" in his mouth.
here's another first-year phrase for you "ad hominen argument".
it's simple, you claim i have blowin's premise and/or conclusion wrong -- that i am prosecuting a strawman argument. ok, you might be correct -- so give blowin's "correct" premise and conclusion. back up your claim instead of running away like a little coward and calling me names.
So "freshman philosophy student" was a term of endearment and not an attempt to undermine my arguments with an appeal to your higher status. Mate if you can't take it, don't dish it out!
Chook , sorry mate, but your conclusion is false and presumptuous.
"I'm definitely not into what's gone down regarding the consequences of the testing. I wouldn't have done it.
I'm not sure if there was an alternative to testing the devices in this manner , but history has been altered by their existence. "
No right or justified about it.
My point was digressionary but not contrary.
My comment to Stu wasn't phrased correctly regarding the suffering of the Marshallese as my other posts will attest that the whole episode was evil but the testing of the bombs in and of themselves wasn't.
Plus , in my defence , I was freaking out this morning .
so moving forward, what is the planned action to resolve the existing problem.
chook you have a major problem with your second premise which should refer to the deterrent effect of nuclear weapons, not simply their existence. I would further suggest that this leads you into the problem of the unknowability of the influence of the Marshall Islands tests on deterrence. You cannot simply assert that the tests were irrelevant. I suppose if you could get access to Soviet records of the time you might find some evidence to support that position. Good luck with that.
It isn't an effective deterrent if no one knows about it.
I was over in Marshall Islands for work recently and was staying on the island where the majority of people were relocated to. They all seem pretty bitter towards the US government but I think it is offset by the money they receive as "compensation."
Terrible conditions for the people living there, water network has just been upgraded but sewer system and power network is buggered. Food is in $US so very expensive and beer is plentiful. Most housing would be classified as slum but even that is being generous!
People are great and very friendly though and really appreciated the work we were doing for them. The US base next door had a few people over doing some rebuilding work on the island but a lot more could be done.
The main problem is that the people that have been relocated have lost their traditional ownership to land and feel out of place. they also have lost all their traditions like fishing and growing their own food.
Whole place will probably be under water soon so the radiation might be the least of their worries.
Be patient, takes a little time to get going but you'll get the picture soon enough.
http://enenews.com/ap-japan-poised-to-flood-pacific-with-1-million-tons-...
http://www.jimstonefreelance.com/fukushima1.html
https://311truth.wordpress.com/
Bingo.
sorry for the name calling, blindboy.
All good chook, it's part of robust debate!