Bikini Atoll History 4/4
During this period the Bikinians signed an agreement with the U.S. government turning over full use rights to Bikini Atoll. According to the agreement, any future claims by the Bikinians based on the use of Bikini by the government of the United States, or on the moving of the Bikinian people from Bikini 
Atoll to Kili Island, would have to be made against the Bikinian leaders and not against the U.S government. In return for this agreement, the Bikinians were given full use rights to Kili and several islands in Jaluit 
Atoll which were Trust Territory public lands. In addition, the agreement included $25,000 in cash and an additional $300,000 trust fund that yielded a semi-annual interest payment of approximately $5,000 (about $15 per person per year). This agreement was made by the Bikinians without the benefit of legal representation.
Typhoon Lola struck Kili late in 1957 causing extensive damage to crops and sinking the Bikinians’ supply ship. Shortly afterwards in 1958, Typhoon Ophelia caused widespread destruction on Jaluit and all the other southern atolls. The Bikinians living on Jaluit moved back to Kili because the satellite community became uninhabitable due to the typhoon damage. The Bikinians continued to fight the problems associated with inadequate food supplies throughout 1960.
The difficulty of inhabiting Kili is due in part to the small amount of food which can be grown there, but more so because it has no lagoon. Kili differs substantially from Bikini because it is only a single island of one-third of a square mile in land area with no lagoon–compared to the Bikinians’ homeland of 23 islands that form a calm lagoon and have a land area of 3.4 square miles. Most of the year Kili is surrounded by 10 to 20 foot waves that deny the islanders of the opportunity to fish and sail their canoes. After a short time on Kili–a place that the islanders believe was once an ancient burial ground for kings and therefore overwrought with spiritual influence–they began to refer to it as a “prison” island. Because the island does not produce enough local food for the Bikinians to eat, the importation of USDA rice and canned goods, and also food bought with their supplemental income, has become an absolute necessity for their survival.
In 1967, U.S. government agencies began considering the possibility of returning the Bikinian people to their homelands based on data on radiation levels on Bikini Atoll from the U.S. scientific community. This scientific optimism stemmed directly from an Atomic Energy Commission study that stated, “Well water could be used safely by the natives upon their return to Bikini. It appears that radioactivity in the drinking water may be ignored from a radiological safety standpoint…The exposures of radiation that would result from the repatriation of the Bikini people do not offer a significant threat to their health and safety.”
Accordingly, in June of 1968 [the story appeared on the front page of the New York Times], President Lyndon B. Johnson promised the 540 Bikinians living on Kili and other islands that they would now be able to return to their homeland. The President also stated that, “It is our goal to assist the people of Bikini to build, on these once desolated islands, a new and model community.” He then ordered Bikini to be resettled “with all possible dispatch.”
In August of 1969 an eight-year plan was prepared for the resettlement of Bikini Atoll in order to give the crops planted on the islands a chance to mature. The first section of the plan involved the clearing of the radioactive debris on Bikini Island. This segment of the work was designed by the AEC and the U.S. Department of Defense. Responsibility for the second phase of the reclamation, which included the replanting of the atoll, construction of a housing development and the relocation of the community, was assumed by the U.S. Trust Territory government.
By late in the year of 1969 the first cleanup phase was completed. The AEC, in an effort to assure the islanders that their cleanup efforts were successful, issued a statement that said: “There’s virtually no radiation left and we can find no discernible effect on either plant or animal life.”
All that was theoretically left now in order for the people to return was for the atoll to be rehabilitated, but during the year of 1971 this effort proceeded slowly. The second phase of the rehabilitation encountered serious problems because the U.S. government withdrew their military personnel and equipment. They also brought to an end the weekly air service that had been operating between Kwajalein Atoll and Bikini Atoll. The construction and agricultural projects suffered because of the sporadic shipping schedules and the lack of air service.
In late 1972 the planting of the coconut trees was finally completed. During this period it was discovered that as the coconut crabs grew older on Bikini Island they ate their sloughed-off shells. Those shells contained high levels of radioactivity, hence, the AEC announced that the crabs were still radioactive and could be eaten only in limited numbers. The conflicting information on the radiological contamination of Bikini supplied by the AEC caused the Bikini Council to vote not to return to Bikini at the time previously scheduled by American officials. The Council, however, stated that it would not prevent individuals from making independent decisions to return.
Three extended Bikinian families, their desire to return to Bikini being great enough to outweigh the alleged radiological dangers, moved back to Bikini Island and into the newly constructed cement houses. They were accompanied by approximately 50 Marshallese workers who were involved in the construction and maintenance of the buildings.
The population of islanders on Bikini slowly increased over the years until in June of 1975, during regular monitoring of Bikini, radiological tests discovered “higher levels of radioactivity than originally thought.” U.S. Department of Interior officials stated that “Bikini appears to be hotter or questionable as to safety” and an additional report pointed out that some water wells on Bikini Island were also too contaminated with radioactivity for drinking. A couple of months later the AEC, on review of the scientists’ data, decided that the local foods grown on Bikini Island, i.e., pandanus, breadfruit and coconut crabs, were also too radioactive for human consumption. Medical tests of urine samples from the 100 people living on Bikini detected the presence of low levels of plutonium 239 and 240. Robert Conard of Brookhaven Laboratories commented that these readings “are probably not radiologically significant.”
In October of 1975, after contemplating these new, terrifying and confusing reports on the radiological condition of their atoll, the Bikinians filed a lawsuit in U.S. federal court demanding that a complete scientific survey of Bikini and the northern Marshalls be conducted. The lawsuit stated that the U.S. had used highly sophisticated and technical radiation detection equipment at Enewetak Atoll, but had refused to employ it at Bikini. The result of the lawsuit was to convince the U.S. to agree to conduct an aerial radiological survey of the northern Marshalls in December of 1975. Unfortunately, more than three years of bureaucratic squabbles between the U.S. Departments of State, Interior and Energy over costs and responsibility for the survey, delayed any action on its implementation. The Bikinians, unaware of the severity of the radiological danger, remained on their contaminated islands.Womens Abercrombie and Fitch Camis
While waiting for the radiological survey to be conducted, further discoveries of these radiological dangers were made. In May of 1977 the level of radioactive strontium-90 in the well water on Bikini Island was found to exceed the U.S. maximum allowed limits. A month later a Department of Energy study stated that “All living patterns involving Bikini Island exceed Federal [radiation] guidelines for thirty year population doses.” Later in the same year, a group of U.S. scientists, while on Bikini, recorded an 11-fold increase in the cesium-137 body burdens of the more than 100 people residing on the island. Alarmed by these numbers, the DOE told the people living on Bikini to eat only one coconut per day and began to ship in food for consumption.
In April of 1978 medical examinations performed by U.S. physicians revealed radiation levels in many of the now 139 people on Bikini to be well above the U.S. maximum permissible level. The very next month U.S. Interior Department officials described the 75% increase in radioactive cesium 137 as “incredible.” The Interior Department then announced plans to move the people from Bikini “within 75 to 90 days,” and so in September of 1978, Trust Territory officials arrived on Bikini to once again evacuate the people who were living on the atoll. An ironic footnote to the situation is that the long awaited northern Marshalls radiological survey, forced by the 1975 lawsuit brought by the Bikinians against the U.S. government, finally began only after the people were again relocated from Bikini.
In the 1980’s, after filing a lawsuit in the U.S. Federal Claims Court [Juda vs. the United States] in 1981 that was eventually dismissed in 1987, the people of Bikini received two trust funds from the United States government as compensation for giving up their islands to the U.S. government for nuclear testing. You can read about these trust funds on our Reparations for Damages page.
In the 1990’s the Bikinians began a Tourism program on Bikini for those people who might want to visit our historic atoll. You can read about this operation on our Dive Tourism and the Sport Fishing pages.
On March 5, 2001, the Nuclear Claims Tribunal handed down a decision on a seven year lawsuit the Bikinians had brought against the United States for damages done to their islands and their people during the nuclear testing on Bikini. The Tribunal gave them a total award of $563,315,500.00 [loss of value $278,000,000.00, restoration costs $251,500,000.00, suffering and hardship $33,814,500.00], which is the final amount after deducting the past compensation awarded by the U.S. government [see above three trust funds]. The problem is that the Nuclear Claims Tribunal, which was created by the Compact of Free Association of 1986, was underfunded and does not have the money to pay for this claim. It is now up to the people of Bikini to petition the U.S. Congress for the money to fulfill this award. This is expected to take many years and it is uncertain if the United States will honor their claim.
On April 12 [April 11 US date], 2006, the people of Bikini Atoll filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Government in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims. The lawsuit seeks compensation under the Fifth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution for the taking of their property damage claims resulting from the U.S. Government’s failure and refusal to adequately fund the March 5, 2001 order of the Nuclear Claims Tribunal. Alternatively, the people of Bikini seek damages for the U.S. Government’s breaches of its fiduciary duty to provide just and adequate compensation for the taking of their lands in consideration for their agreement to move off Bikini Atoll and for the breach of the implied duties and covenants integral to that agreement, the Compact of Free Association, and the Section 177 Agreement. The lawsuit will seek compensation and/or damages of at least $561,036,320 (which represents the Tribunal’s original award to the Bikinians of $563,315,500 less the two payments totaling $2,279,180), plus interest as required by law. The total with interest on the filing date of April 11, 2005, is approximately $724,560,902. This complaint was amended on July 18, 2006. The case was refused by the U.S. Supreme Court in April of 2010.
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