ATOMIC VETERANS WORLDWIDE
United States Atomic Veterans
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US Atomic Veterans
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Enewetak Atoll Atomic Cleanup Veterans
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Atomic Veterans: Enewetak Atoll Atomic Cleanup Veterans
The cleanup of Enewetak Atoll began in 1977 and ended in 1980. The original estimate for the cleanup was $40 million, but Congress only allocated $20 million and stipulated that “all reasonable economies should be realized in the accomplishment of this project through the use of military services’ construction and support forces, their subsistence, equipment, material, supplies, and transportation.” As a result, approximately 6,000 servicemen from the Navy, Army, and Air Force participated n what would become “the first comprehensive project to clean up and rehabilitate a former nuclear‐test site.” The Navy was responsible for operating ships and creating waterways to less accessible islands; the Air Force was tasked with communication, air supply operations, and health facility operations; and the Army Corps of Engineers handled the actual cleanup of the islands. |
Their toxic lagacy lives on in their children, grandchildren and future generations. The 4,000 Enewetak Atoll Cleanup Veterans, many of whom faced a long list of cancers and other deadly illnesses, are mostly gone today. Groups that track them estimate there are only about 400 left today. Dispatched in the late 1970s to clean up the fallout from U.S. atomic bomb tests conducted in the Marshall Islands several decades earlier. In a 10-year period that ended in 1958, 43 tests were conducted at Enewetak Atoll, the ring-shaped collection of 40 coral reef islands. For the next 20 years, the contamination sat atop the atoll, 850 miles west of Hawaii.
“The Marshall Islands were also used as a testing ground for conventional and biological weapons following a temporary moratorium on nuclear testing in 1958″ according to information received by the LA Times in 2014.
There has never been a formal study of the health of the Enewetak cleanup crews. Tying any disease to radiation exposure years earlier is nearly impossible; there has never been a formal study of the health of the Enewetak cleanup crews. The military collected nasal swabs and urine samples during the cleanup to measure how much plutonium troops were absorbing, but in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, it said it could not find the records.
“The Marshall Islands were also used as a testing ground for conventional and biological weapons following a temporary moratorium on nuclear testing in 1958″ according to information received by the LA Times in 2014.
There has never been a formal study of the health of the Enewetak cleanup crews. Tying any disease to radiation exposure years earlier is nearly impossible; there has never been a formal study of the health of the Enewetak cleanup crews. The military collected nasal swabs and urine samples during the cleanup to measure how much plutonium troops were absorbing, but in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, it said it could not find the records.
United Kingdom Nuclear Test Veterans
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US Atomic Veterans
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