Operation_Crossroads_Baker_Edit.jpeg

U.S. Dept. of Defense/public domain

The "Baker" explosion, part of Operation Crossroads, a nuclear weapon test by the United States military at Bikini Atoll, Micronesia, on 25 July 1946.

The United States’ Radioactive Legacy in the Marshall Islands

A leaking dumping ground and a depleted resettlement fund add to decades of broken promises.

by

Officials in Washington are keeping quiet about multiple nuclear-related crises affecting the Marshall Islands, a small island nation in the Pacific Ocean where the United States detonated sixty-seven nuclear bombs between 1946 and 1958 during the early years of the Cold War.

As U.S. officials renegotiate the economic provisions of a special bilateral agreement between the United States and the Marshall Islands called a compact of free association, these same officials are showing little interest in addressing the ongoing effects of U.S. nuclear testing. Their intransigence has been especially jarring to the Marshallese people, who are being overwhelmed by multiple crises, including the leak at a U.S.-built radioactive dump in Enewetak Atoll, the exhaustion of a resettlement fund for the Bikinian people, and the ongoing effects of U.S. nuclear testing on residents’ health and environment.

“If we’re going to get to an agreement with the Marshall Islands . . . then the United States is going to need to address the issues that are standing in the way of the finalization of that agreement,” U.S. Representative Katie Porter, Democrat of California, said at a Congressional hearing last week, referring to the U.S. nuclear legacy.

The U.S. nuclear tests, which were conducted in the atolls of Bikini and Enewetak, caused tremendous harm to the Marshallese people and their environment. Prior to bombing the atolls, the U.S. military removed the residents of Bikini and Enewetak from their homes. To this day, the Bikinian people are unable to return to their homes, which remain contaminated.

When the United States conducted its Castle Bravo test on March 1, 1954, it detonated the most powerful nuclear weapon it has ever tested. The bomb caused tremendous damage to Bikini and nearby atolls, where residents suffered burns and illnesses due to radioactive fallout. Today, dangerous levels of radioactive contamination make it unsafe for people to live in several atolls, including Bikini, Enewetak, Rongelap, and Utrik. Some U.S. government reports indicate that several additional atolls were affected.

To address the harmful effects of nuclear testing, the United States provided the Marshallese people with modest reparations, including compensation for resettlement and personal injuries. In the late 1970s, the United States launched a cleanup project in Enewetak Atoll, where it constructed the Runit Dome, a dumping ground for materials contaminated by radiation.

Although U.S. officials continually insist that they have taken responsibility for their actions, citing the terms of the 1986 Compact of Free Association, which refers to the implementation of a “full and final settlement,” islanders continue struggling with several nuclear-related crises. 

One major crisis concerns the Runit Dome. Known to islanders as “the tomb,” the dome contains plutonium and the most lethal soil and debris from Enewetak Atoll and other testing sites, including a testing site in Nevada. This radioactive dump, which is capped by a concrete dome, is being weakened by rising sea levels. A 2019 report by the Los Angeles Times asserted that the dome is in danger of collapsing.

“That dome is leaking, and the danger is unclear,” Representative Porter said at a Congressional hearing on the dome in October 2021. 

For years, the dome has been moving up and down with the tide, providing a clear indication that the radioactive materials under the dome are coming into contact with the atoll’s lagoon and surrounding ocean.

“What we have to assume is, based on the linkage between the tide rising, the tide going down, and what we’re seeing with levels inside the dome, that there is some leakage occurring with the dome,” Energy Department official Matthew Moury told Congress at the October 2021 hearing. “How much [leakage there has already been] we don’t know.”

As the Marshallese people have sought assistance from the United States government, U.S. officials have largely deflected responsibility. The State Department refused to participate in the October 2021 hearing. “The State Department spent a considerable amount of time instructing our witnesses today on what not to say,” Representative Porter noted at the time.

U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Compact Negotiations Joseph Y. Yun, who is leading the negotiations, visited the dome when he traveled to the Marshall Islands last year. The Marshall Islands Journal covered Yun’s visit and reported that Marshallese children greeted him by singing “we live in fear, fear of the bombs, guns, and nuclear.” Yun acknowledged that U.S. nuclear testing had resulted in a “terrible tragedy” but made no promises to help the Marshallese people with the dome, which continues leaking.

Another crisis is the depletion of the Bikini Resettlement Trust Fund. During the 1980s, the U.S. government established the fund to support displaced Bikinian people, who could not safely return to their homes. For decades, Bikinians received small payments of about $150 each month to help them pay the costs of resettlement.

This past January, the Bikinians stopped receiving their payments. The fund, which was valued at $59 million in 2017, had been almost entirely emptied.

The Trump Administration is largely responsible for the depletion of this fund. In November 2017, Trump-appointed officials at the Department of the Interior gave full decision-making power over the fund to a Bikinian council of representatives, which had requested control of the fund.

The Trump Administration is largely responsible for the depletion of this fund.

Critics speculated that the Trump Administration made this move in order to abandon its responsibility of providing aid and assistance to the Bikinian people. Douglas Domenech, who was then Assistant Secretary for Insular Areas at the Interior Department, fueled speculation by indicating that the Trump Administration would no longer deal with Bikinian officials over the fund and that the United States would not be responsible for replenishing the fund if it ran out of money. 

People must understand “the incredible things that we wrought on the people of Bikini and their island,” Senator Martin Heinrich, Democrat of New Mexico, commented at a Congressional hearing on the fund in February 2018. “I get the sense that this Administration cannot wait to wash their hands of that responsibility.”

Multiple experts and officials warned the Trump Administration that its approach would result in the fund’s depletion. They called attention to clear signs of corruption and mismanagement by the Bikinian council, which had made an exceptionally large $11 million drawdown once it acquired control of the fund. The council began making questionable purchases, such as cars for council members, and it began providing large cash payments to displaced Bikinians. 

Senator Lisa Murkowski, Republican of Alaska, introduced legislation in December 2017 that would have established U.S. oversight and limited annual withdrawals from the fund, but Congress never voted on it.

At the February 2018 hearing, local mayor Anderson Jibas assured Congress that local officials were spending the money responsibly. He insisted that it was necessary to make larger withdrawals for the purpose of investing in new income-generating projects and helping displaced Bikinians on Kili Island, where residents suffered from limited resources, food shortages, and power outages. He made a compelling case, but he faced a great deal of skepticism, especially from former trust liaison Jack Niedenthal.

“I can assure you that all the money in this trust will disappear quickly if Congress does not intervene to stop the flow of money out of it,” Niedenthal warned Congress. Expecting the fund to run out of money, he blamed Domenech and the Interior Department’s Office of Insular Affairs for abandoning their responsibility to the Bikinian people. Due to their actions, he said, the Office of Insular Affairs is “unquestionably the enabler of the demise of this trust fund.”

Jibas, the mayor who oversaw the withdrawals, bears additional responsibility for the fund’s depletion. Several months after the February 2018 hearing, the mayor contradicted his reassurances to Congress when he told the Marshallese government that if the fund ran out, “the U.S. will have to give us [more] money.” The mayor’s remarks were first reported by The Marshall Islands Journal in August 2018.

Despite the mayor’s belief that he could continue withdrawing large amounts of money from the fund with few repercussions, neither Congress nor the Trump Administration took action to protect the fund’s long-term viability.

Now that the fund is nearly empty, officials in Washington are facing pressure to act. Bikinians have begun protesting the depletion of the fund, which has left them without an essential source of income. So far, officials in Washington have remained silent.

The ongoing crises over the Runit Dome and the Bikini Resettlement Trust Fund are taking place within a broader context of ongoing negotiations between the United States and the Marshall Islands over the Compact of Free Association. With economic provisions set to expire this year, U.S. officials have been trying to renegotiate the compact, which could provide the Marshall Islands with another twenty years of economic assistance while ensuring that the United States maintains direct influence over the Marshallese economy.

“That dome is leaking, and the danger is unclear.”—U.S. Representative Katie Porter

Negotiations have been tense, as Marshallese officials have demanded that the United States provide just compensation for the ongoing effects of nuclear testing. Countering the U.S. position that nuclear matters are settled, Marshallese leaders have insisted that the United States has not done enough to fully address its nuclear legacy.

Marshallese leaders offer many reasons to support their position, such as their Changed Circumstances Petition, which calls for additional compensation based upon new information about nuclear testing that was not available when they approved the terms of the initial 1986 compact. They also point to the rulings of the Nuclear Claims Tribunal, an independent arbiter that has awarded islanders more than $2 billion in compensation, nearly all of it as yet unpaid.

U.S. officials have dismissed the Changed Circumstances Petition and largely ignored the rulings of the Nuclear Claims Tribunal, leaving the Marshallese people with few options but to raise their concerns during the negotiations over the compact. Marshallese leaders have refused to accept a new version of the compact without a just resolution, adopting a position of “no nuclear, no compact.”

In January, Marshallese Minister Kitlang Kabua and U.S. diplomat Joseph Yun signed a Memorandum of Understanding that outlined basic terms of a deal, but the Marshallese parliament has yet to accept it. Some officials on the Marshallese negotiating team said they were excluded from the negotiations. Critics have noted that the memorandum does not include the word “nuclear.”

With the Marshall Islands yet to finalize an agreement, the country stands apart from the two other countries in the Pacific Islands that maintain compacts with the United States. In May, both Palau and the Federated States of Micronesia approved their own deals, which are set to provide them with another twenty years of U.S. economic assistance, pending congressional approval.

“Together, we’re modernizing and enhancing the Compacts of Free Association,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced in May. “These are the bedrock of U.S. engagement in the Pacific.”

Without a deal with the Marshall Islands, however, the United States faces the possibility that Marshallese officials could start looking elsewhere for assistance.

Rather than engaging in good-faith negotiations over the U.S. nuclear legacy or apologizing to the Marshallese people, as more than 100 organizations urged the Biden Administration to do earlier this year, U.S. officials have remained focused on their strategic objectives.

With the Marshall Islands hosting a key U.S. missile testing site, U.S. officials have made it their goal to preserve the U.S. military presence in the country. They believe that the island nation is critical to projecting power into the Pacific and countering China.

Yun, the U.S. diplomat who is leading the negotiations, said at an event in April that the three compact states “are strategically very important.” They are home to important U.S. military facilities, he explained, citing the U.S. missile testing site in the Marshall Islands.

“U.S. control of the Pacific is crucial for homeland security ultimately, but also for projection of U.S. forces throughout Asia Pacific,” Yun stated. “Whether it’s a North Korean peninsula contingency, Taiwan contingency, you name it, it has to be there.”

As U.S. officials focus on their strategic objectives, they continue to overlook the plight of the Marshallese people. What U.S. officials are reluctant to admit is that the U.S. nuclear legacy continues to affect the lived experience of the Marshallese people on a daily basis.

In Bikini, “the land remains radiated,”—U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Compact Negotiations Joseph Y. Yun

In Bikini, “the land remains radiated,” Yun acknowledged. “And there are some health effects continuing, so-called transgenerational health effects.” 

Until U.S. officials work with the Marshallese people to create a just plan for addressing the U.S. nuclear legacy, they leave the islanders little hope for the future. All that the Marshallese people can do is continue their fight for justice, as they confront multiple crises in the face of a largely indifferent and intransigent United States.