Bikini Atoll: The True Nuclear Battlefield

[disclaimer: the following article is a used assignment of mine on July 2020 under Aquatic Ecology course]

DISASTROUS BATTLE BROUGHT TO THE ATOLLS

The Republic of Marshall Islands is an America associated country which located in the central Pacific Ocean. It is spanning more than 5,025,000 km², comprised of 1,225 islands and islets including 29 atolls and five solitary low coral islands. Most atolls of the Marshall Islands consist of an irregular shaped reef-rim with numerous islets encircling a lagoon with water depths that can reach 60 m. Prior to Western contact, people of Marshall Islands relied on fishing and tropical agriculture for subsistence.  (Beager et al., 2008). Meanwhile, the Northern edge of Marshall Islands is no longer known to be safe for human habitation. Located above the equator in Pacific Ocean, the ring of 23 islands surrounding a lagoon called Bikini Atoll.

On February 1944, during the peak of World War II, Kwajalein Atoll in the southeast of Bikini Atoll witnessed the United States army took control over Japan’s occupation of Marshall Island after a bloody battle. Following the event, the war ended shockingly a year later by atomic bombing of Japan by United States. Shortly after, United States military forces planned to use Marshall Islands as an opportunistic location to experiment with nuclear weapons. The first series conducted within Bikini Atoll, called Operation Crossroads. By the summer of 1946, two detonations scheduled to study the effects of nuclear weapons on ships, equipment, and material. March 1946 was the time when 167 local people leaving Bikini Atoll after an intense negotiation. The locals were assurance to moved back after the testing, thus the resources of their relocation atoll would suffice for the temporary inhabitation. United States landed a craft to Rongerik Atoll, 125 miles east. Rongerik Atoll was previously uninhabited due to lack of adequate food and water supplies. Lagoon within 17 small islands of Rongerik Atoll only sized 55 square miles, about a sixth of Bikini Atoll that covered 299 square miles (Homeyer, 2006).

First atomic bombing, an airdrop code-named Able unleashed on July 1, 1946. Baker, an underwater blast, detonated on July 25. Each had the power of 21 tons of TNT, equal to one of two atomic bombs of Japan that kills 150,000 lives. The explosion sent a one-mile-wide mushroom of water into sky, sunk five target ships, and contaminated the lagoon water with mist and radioactive products. On March 1, 1954, the most disastrous explosion occurred. Atomic weapon called Bravo, scarred the atoll reef with 15 megatons of TNT, 1,000 times than the first bombing. It resulted in a mile-wide crater, exploded three of the atoll’s islands, and radioactive fallout contaminated throughout Bikini atoll and the water to surrounding atolls (Homeyer, 2006). In addition, the effect also created a transpacific ban on consuming fish (DeLoughrey, 2012). The fallout reached people of Rongelap Atoll, 100 miles east of Bikini Atoll. It caused a two inches radioactive dust, acute symptoms of radioactive effects on residents, and drinking water turned brackish yellow.  Radiation levels at Bikini increased and the off-limit zoned expanded to surrounding atolls: Rongerik, Utirik, and Likiep (Homeyer, 2006). The islanders were facing countless miscarriages, leukemia deaths, thyroid cancers, and genetic damage (DeLoughrey, 2012). Even of the islanders were in danger, the series of testing in Bikini Atoll continued until the execution of Operation Hardtrack I in 1958 (Homeyer, 2006).

 

STRUGGLING AWAY FROM HOME

Former residents of Bikini Atoll suffered the lack of resources on their first resettlement location, Rongerik. Even with the help of surrounding islands’ residents’ food aid, the food source still inadequate. On July 1947, Bikini people suffered from malnutrition and lack of water supply. They later evacuated to temporary camp of Kwajalein airbase before traveled to Kili Island. The lack of protected waters for fishing resulted in the insufficient food supply that getting worse by time. They once resettled to Jalut Atoll before a typhoon destroyed the crops, thus forced them to return to Kili Island. Until today, the shifting populations at many of the new locations dependent on food aid delivery. Land space overcrowding occurred due to the poor consideration of space and resources during resettlement, along radioactive contamination of the areas (Homeyer, 2006).

Meanwhile, Bikini Atoll surveyed by Atomic Energy Commission. They discovered that agricultural rehabilitation program could support the relocation of Bikini people back to Bikini Atoll. However, they later reported the contamination of Cesium 137 and Strontium 90 as the most questionable factors for Bikini Atoll safety. They suggested a reduction of coconut crab consumption due to high Strontium content. They also advised topsoil removal prior to Pandanus sp. planting. In other hand, food aid should also conduct to assure proper nourishment and reduce Strontium uptake by increasing calcium levels from powdered milk. The reportage concluded with the first resettlement of Bikini people back to Bikini Atoll in 1968. The groups consists of several families returned became part of United States funded restoration effort. Five year cleanup program of Bikini Atoll with $2.7 million budget conducted on 1969 by United States. By 1975, levels of Plutonium 39 and Plutonium 40 increased 10 fold since the start of resettlement and attributed to contaminated food. Even with addition to their trust fund and compensations, the condition followed by health threats and continuous destruction of culturally significant homeland (Homeyer, 2006). Nowadays, most Bikini islanders live on islands of Kili and Ejit in southern Marshall Islands, even never lived or visited Bikini. The atoll however remains culturally important place for the approximately 3100 people (Davis, 2007).

FIGHTS OF REMAIN SURVIVORS

In general, reef habitats at Bikini Atoll and other Marshall Island atolls include narrow reef flats with spur and groove development, reef crest and steep vertical exposed walls, protected sandy lagoons with patch reef development and inter-reefal sea floor. Prior to the nuclear testing, coral assemblages of Bikini Atoll contained 174 scleractinian coral species. It was described by Wells (1954) cited in Richards et al (2008)  as two new genera, 23 new species, and two new varieties based on field observations of variability within species. After series of nuclear testing, surface seawater temperatures raised by 55,000 ^oC, blast waves with speeds of up to 8 m/s, and shock and surface waves up to 30 m high with blast columns reaching the lagoon floor (approximately 70 m depth). Coral fragments landed on decks of target fleet deployed within the lagoon. High amount of fine material redistributed over sediment surface, altered natural sediment distribution. Beside nuclear fission particles fission contamination, remobilization from environment and lagoon sediments contaminated sea water. Low-level radioactivity identified in marine growth, fish, clams, calcareous algae Halimeda spp., and coral skeletons. The huge destruction by Bravo which destroyed three islands causing million tons of sand, coral, plant, and sea life from Bikini’s reef to become air-borne (Richards et al., 2008).

Through series of nuclear tests, coral communities experienced repeated exposure to significant physical disturbance which detriment to coral survivorship: substrate removal, extreme waves, light/heat exposure, increased sediment loading, and long term raised levels of radio-nucleotides that recorded in invertebrate tissues and sediments. Proportion of fine particles which doubled in result of explosion caused shift in spatial particle distribution. The cumulative impacts pushed lagoonal specialist species beyond their capacity for recovery. The event followed by local extinction since coral recovery expected to be slow in altered physical environment such as at Bikini Atoll (Richards et al, 2008).

Research by Richards et al (2008) recorded 183 Scleractinian coral, compares with 126 species in amended species list from Wells (1954).  The result also compared to total of 168 species reported of northern Marshall Islands atolls and total of approximately 284 species for the entire Marshall Islands. Four species are considered to regionally restrict to Bikini Atoll, although occurring at other locations to the west of Marshall Islands: Acanthastrea hillae, Acropora bushyensis, Montipora cocsensis, Poliphyllia talpina. The species missing from the assemblage today are 16 obligate lagoonal specialist (e.g. Leptoseris gardineri, Oxypora lacera) and 12 species with wider habitat compatibility (e.g. Acropora micropthalma, Diploastrea heliopora). These results indicate that loss and failure to recover from nuclear explosions is concentrated in the lagoon of Bikini Atoll, with other locations showing a similar diversity to that recorded before the nuclear testing (Richards et al., 2008) compared to result observed on Bikini Atoll.

The present landscape of Bikini Atoll is still scarred with artifacts from the nuclear testing era. Dangerous radiation levels reduced human activity on the atoll to a minimum for almost forty years. The terrestrial landscape is still considered unsafe for long-term habitation, but most of the marine resources and the Bikini’s lagoon are generally regarded as safe. The lack of large human habitation resulted in different oceanic and terrestrial environment than is found in the rest of the Marshall Islands and Micronesia. There has been almost no fishing pressure on the reefs. The reefs on Bikini Atoll and other nearby nuclear-affected atolls are relatively healthier and populated by a greater diversity of marine life than other areas in Marshall Islands. Specially mentioned to sharks, members of species found at Bikini Atoll tend to be larger and numerous than in other parts of Micronesia (Davis, 2007). Modern Bikini Atoll coral community may have been replenished by self-seeding from brooded larvae from surviving adults, survival of fragments of branching corals, and/or migration of new propagules from neighboring atolls. Corals living on deep exposed escaped some of the direct impact and mitigate the overall effect of the disturbance event (Richards et al., 2008).  This recovered nature pristine attraction gave Bikini Atoll a status of tourism site and conservation area. The Kili/Bikini/Ejit Local Government Council made a regulation which enacted on 28 July 1997. The act mainly focused on animal protection, especially coral reef inhabitants (e.g. fish and lobster), within hunting and tourism. Davis (2007) summarized the regulation as shown in Appendix 2.

Today Bikini Atoll provides a diverse coral reef community and convincing example of partial resilience of coral biodiversity to non-chronic disturbance events of human habitation. Beside supportive prevailing hydrodynamic regime for larval import, the recovery of coral community on Bikini Atoll however benefited from human disturbance absence after nuclear testing series (Richards et al., 2008). The events told a survival story of the community of Bikini Atoll after struggled against a disastrous battle with nuclear bombing and the following radioactive damages.

 

REFERENCES

Beger, M., Jacobson, D., Pinca, S., Richards Z., Hess, D., Harriss, F., Page, C., Peterson, E., Baker, N. (2008). The State of Coral Reef Ecosystems of The Republic of the Marshall Islands. Marshall Islands. pages: 387-417

Davis, J.S. (2007). Scales of Eden: conservation and pristine devastation on Bikini Atoll. Environment and Planning D: Society and Space 25. pages: 213-225

DeLoughrey, E.M. (2012). The myth of isolates: ecosystem ecologies in the nuclear Pacific. Cultural Geographies. Sage Publishing. Los Angeles. page: 1-18

Homeyer, K. (2006). Bikini Atoll: Living with a Nuclear Legacy and Mediating Conflict with the United States. Environmental Conflict Resolution. pages: 1-25

Richard, Z.T., Beger, M., Pinca, S., Wallace, C.C. (2008). Bikini Atoll coral biodiversity resilience five decades after nucleat testing. Marine Pollution Bulletin 56. pages: 503-515