This Dome in The Pacific Houses Tons of Radioactive Waste - and It's Leaking

This dome in the Pacific houses tons of radioactive waste and it's leaking
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theguardian.com
This dome in the Pacific houses tons

of radioactive waste and it's leaking
Kim Wall
Black seabirds circle high above the giant concrete dome that rises
from a tangle of green vines just a few paces from the lapping
waves of the Pacific. Half buried in the sand, the vast structure
looks like a downed UFO.
At the summit, figures carved into the weathered concrete state
only the year of construction: 1979. Officially, this vast structure is
known as the Runit Dome. Locals call it The Tomb.
Below the 18-inch concrete cap rests the United States cold war
legacy to this remote corner of the Pacific Ocean: 111,000 cubic
yards of radioactive debris left behind after 12 years of nuclear
tests.
Brackish water pools around the edge of the dome, where sections
of concrete have started to crack away. Underground, radioactive
waste has already started to leach out of the crater: according to a
2013 report by the US Department of Energy, soil around the dome
is already more contaminated than its contents.
Now locals, scientists and environmental activists fear that a storm
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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.
Runit Dome represents a tragic confluence of nuclear testing and
climate change, said Michael Gerrard, director of the Sabin Center
for Climate Change Law at Columbia University, who visited the
dome in 2010.
It resulted from US nuclear testing and the leaving behind of large
quantities of plutonium, he said. Now it has been gradually
submerged as result of sea level rise from greenhouse gas
emissions by industrial countries led by the United States.
Enewetak 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.
The remote islands roughly halfway between Australia and
Hawaii 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.
In total, 67 nuclear and atmospheric bombs were detonated on
Enewetak and Bikini between 1946 and 1958 an explosive yield
equivalent to 1.6 Hiroshima bombs detonated every day over the
course of 12 years.
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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.
Detonation of the nuclear device during Operation Ivy in the Marshall

Islands in 1951. Photograph: Bettmann/Corbis
When the testing came to an end, the US Defence Nuclear Agency

(DNA later the DoE) 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 DNAs preferred option deep ocean dumping was
prohibited by international treaties and hazardous waste
regulations, and there was little appetite for transporting the
irradiated refuse back to the US.
In the end, US servicemen simply scraped off the islands
contaminated topsoil and mixed it with radioactive debris. The
resulting radioactive slurry was then dumped in an unlined 350-foot
crater on Runit Islands northern tip, and sealed under 358 concrete
panels.
But the dome was never meant to last. According to the World
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Health Organization, the $218m plan was designed as temporary

fix: a way to store contaminated material until a permanent
decontamination plan was devised.
Meanwhile, only three of the atolls 40 islands were cleaned up, but
not Enjebi, where half of Enewetaks population had traditionally
lived. And as costs spiralled, resettlement efforts of the northern
part of the atoll stalled indefinitely.
Nevertheless, in 1980, as the Americans prepared their own
departure, the dri-Enewetak (people of Enewetak) were allowed to
return to the atoll after 33 years.
Three years later, the Marshall Islands signed a compact of free
association with the US, granting its people certain privileges, but
not full citizenship.
The deal also settled of all claims, past, present and future related
to the US Nuclear Testing Program and left the Runit Dome under
the responsibility of the Marshallese government.
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 Marshallese, meanwhile, say that a country with a population
of 53,000 people and a GDP of $190m most of it from US aid
programs is simply incapable of dealing with the potential
radioactive catastrophe left behind by the Americans.
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Bravo Crater at Bikini Atoll, site of the 1954 hydrogen explosion where the
island of Nam was destroyed. Photograph: Alamy
Its clear as day that the local government will neither have the
expertise or funds to fix the problem if it needs a particular fix, said
Riyad Mucadam, climate adviser to the office of the Marshallese
president.
Today, Runit the setting for JG Ballards short story Terminal
Beach is still uninhabited, but it receives regular stream of visitors
heading from neighboring islands to its abundant fishing grounds or
searching for scrap metal to salvage.
Approaching the island by boat across from the vast, shallow
lagoon the worlds second largest the concrete structure is
barely visible among the scrubby trees.
Three decades after the Americans departure, abandoned bunkers
dot the shoreline, and electric cables encased in black rubber
snake across the sand.
Nowhere on the beaches or the dome itself is there a warning to
stay away or even an indication of radioactivity.
Enewetaks senator Jack Ading, who lives in Majuro 600 miles
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away, doesnt believe his home atoll is safe: resettlement efforts in

Rongelap and Bikini atolls, also affected by testing, had to be
aborted in the 1970s due to lingering contamination, despite safety
assurances by the US.
Just close it off, said Ading, who has called for armed guards to
be stationed on the site or at the very least the construction of a
fence.
If they |the US government] can spend billions of dollars on wars
like Iraq, Im sure they can spend $10,000 for a fence. Its a small
island. Make it permanent for people not to visit Runit Dome and
the surrounding area, ever.
Locals say they know there is poison on the island there is no
Marshallese word for contamination but say that Runit offers one
of the few sources of income on the impoverished atol.
The US has yet to fully compensate the dri-Enewetak for the
irreversible damage to their homeland, a total amounting to roughly
$244m as appraised by the Nuclear Claims Tribunal, which was
established by the US Congress in 1988 to adjudicate claims for
compensation for health effects from the testing.
Traditional livelihoods were destroyed by the testing: the US
Department of Energy bans the export of fish and copra dried
coconut flesh used for its oil on the grounds of lingering
contamination.
Nowadays, the atolls growing population survives on a depleted
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trust fund from the Compact of Free Association with the US, but
payouts come to just $100 per person, according to locals.
Many locals are deeply in debt, and dependent on a supplemental
food program funded by the US Department of Agriculture, which
delivers shipments of process foods such as Spam, flour and
canned goods. The destruction a centuries-old lifestyle have lead to
both a diabetes epidemic and regular bouts of starvation on the
island.
The Lady E, a vessel that transports supplemental food from the capital to
Enewetak, now hosts people who migrate in and out of the atoll.
Photograph: Coleen Jose/Coleen Jose
Those who can afford it have taken advantage of the Compacts

visaless travel benefits and migrated to Hawaii.
Enewetak has no money. What will people do to make money?
asked Rosemary Amitok, who lives with her husband Hemy on the
atolls largest island.
The couple eke out a living by scavenging for scrap copper on
Runit and other islands on the atoll. For weeks at a time, they camp
out in a makeshift tent on the island while Hemy digs for cables and
other metal debris.
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The sell the salvage for a dollar or two per pound to a Chinese
merchant who runs Enewetaks only store and exports the metal,
along with sea shells and sea cucumbers to Fujian in China.
Other and more worrying traces of Enewetaks history have also
reached China: according to a 2014 study published in
Environmental Science & Technology, plutonium isotopes from the
nuclear tests have been found as far a the Pearl River Estuary in
Guangdong province.
Many people in Enewetak fear that one day the dome will break
open, further spreading highly radioactive debris.
As catastrophic weather events become more frequent, recent
studies including 2013 study of the Runit Domes structural
integrity carried out by the DoE have warned that typhoons could
destroy or damage the cement panels, or inundate the island.
A 2013 report commissioned by the US Department of Energy to
the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory acknowledged that
radioactive materials are already leaching out of the dome, but
downplays the possibility of serious environmental damage or
health risks.
The waste within the dome is at least contained. There arent too
many concerns for the Runit Dome to pose a threat to local
people, said Terry Hamilton, the scientific director for the Marshall
Islands Program of the DoE-commissioned Lawrence Livermore
National Laboratory.
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Hamilton said that cracks in the concrete were merely the result of
long-term drying and shrinkage, but said the DoE was planning to
carry out cosmetic repairs in order to restore public confidence.
The DoE insists Enewetak is safe for human settlement today, and
says it monitors local residents, groundwater, crops and marine life
for radiation. Separate checkups are carried out on those
suspected of digging for scrap metal.
Though Enewetak is not allowed to sell its copra and fish, Hamilton
insists the produce would satisfy safety standards on the
international market.
But locals complain that basic information including results of
their own tests for exposure to plutonium is not readily accessible
to them.
Independent scientists say that salvaging Runits scrap metal may
expose locals to much higher risks.
Those guys are digging in the dirt breathing in stuff in hot spots.
That has to be hundreds of thousands times higher doses of
potential health effects than swimming, said Ken Buessler, a senior
scientist and marine chemist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic
Institution, who visited Runit and gathered samples of sediment in
the lagoon earlier this year.
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Navy clean-up crews swab the deck of the Prinz Eugen in an attempt to
reduce radiation levels after the July 1946 nuclear test blast at Bikini Atoll.
Photograph: AP
In 2012, Barack Obama signed legislation directing the DoE to

monitor the groundwater beneath the dome, conduct a visual study
of its exterior and submit reports determining whether
contamination in the dome poses a health risk to the dri-Enewetak.
In an emailed response to questions, US ambassador to the
Marshall Islands Thomas Armbruster said that a recent meeting
between the US, the DoE and the Marshall Islands government
was one of the best ever.
The minister himself remembers that encounter differently.
Tony De Brum was nine years old and living on the atoll of Likiep,
when he witnessed the blinding flash, thunderous roar and
blood-red skies of Castle Bravo, the most powerful hydrogen bomb
ever detonated by the US, which was tested at Bikini Atoll on 1
March 1954.
Now the Marshall Islands minister of foreign affairs, he has since
emerged as a voice for small island nations in international climate
negotiations and leading advocate on the non-proliferation of
nuclear weapons. De Brum is spearheading an ambitious lawsuit
against the worlds nuclear powers, including the US, at the
International Court of Justice.
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We asked the Americans, are you going to put a sign on the dome
that says Dont come here because you might get exposed? he
said.
Our president asked: Are you going to put a sign up so that the
birds and turtles also understand?
The US has never formally apologized to the Marshall Islands for
turning it into an atomic testing ground. When the UN special
rapporteur on human rights and toxic waste, Calin Georgescu,
visited the Marshall Islands in 2012 he criticized the US, remarking
that the islanders feel like nomads in their own country. Nuclear
testing, he said, left a legacy of distrust in the hearts and minds of
the Marshallese.
Why Enewetak? asked Ading, Enewetaks exiled senator during
an interview in the nations capital. Every day, I have that same
question. Why not go to some other atoll in the world? Or why not
do it in Nevada, their backyard? I know why. Because they dont
want the burden of having nuclear waste in their backyard. They
want the nuclear waste hundreds of thousands miles away. Thats
why they picked the Marshall Islands.
The least they couldve done is correct their mistakes.
This article is part of a multimedia project produced by The
GroundTruth Project
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This Dome in The Pacific Houses Tons of Radioactive Waste - and It's Leaking

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This Dome in The Pacific Houses Tons of Radioactive Waste - and It's Leaking

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This dome in the Pacific houses tons of radioactive waste and it's leaking

This dome in the Pacific houses tons

surge, typhoon or other cataclysmic event brought on by climate

The detonations blanketed the islands with irradiated debris,

Detonation of the nuclear device during Operation Ivy in the Marshall

When the testing came to an end, the US Defence Nuclear Agency

Health Organization, the $218m plan was designed as temporary

away, doesnt believe his home atoll is safe: resettlement efforts in

Those who can afford it have taken advantage of the Compacts

In 2012, Barack Obama signed legislation directing the DoE to

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