HEADQUARTERS AIR FORCE SAFETY CENTER - Radiation Exposures to Air Force

The fieldwork was the culmination of many years of planning conducted by the DoD and predecessors to the DOE – Energy Research and Development Administration (ERDA) and the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). [...] One primary purpose of the cleanup was removal and entombment of soils with the greatest concentrations of plutonium and removal of radiologically-contaminated debris that were residuals from 43 nuclear weapons tests conducted by the US on the Atoll between 1948 and 1958. [...] The figure enclosed illustrates the volumes of debris removed and disposed among islands in the northern and southern parts of the Atoll during the cleanup. [...] As well, 83% of the debris removal was from southern islands of the Atoll, where none of the debris was radiologically contaminated. [...] The report concluded that radiation control measures implemented during the cleanup were effective, with radiation exposures being very low, a small fraction of the radiation exposure standards of the time.