This story was originally Appearing on Grist as part of the Climate Desk collaboration.
Ariana Tibon In 2017, while in college at the University of Hawaii, she saw the photo online: a black-and-white photo of a man holding a baby. The caption read: “On March 2, 1954, two days after the ‘Bravo’ incident, Nelson Anjain was being monitored by a member of the AEC RadSafe team at Rongelap.”
Tibon had never seen this man before. But she recognized the name as her great-grandfather’s. At the time, he was living in Rongelap, Marshall Islands, when the United States conducted the Castle Bravo test, the largest of 67 nuclear weapons tests conducted there during the Cold War. These tests displaced Aboriginal people, sickened them, poisoned fish, upended traditional eating habits, and caused cancer and other negative health effects that continue to this day.
A federal report released last month by the Government Accountability Office examined remaining nuclear contamination not only in the Pacific but also in Greenland and Spain. The authors concluded that climate change could disrupt the nuclear waste left behind in Greenland and the Marshall Islands. “Rising sea levels could spread contamination across the Marshall Islands, and conflicting risk assessments could lead residents to distrust radioactivity information provided by the U.S. Department of Energy,” the report said.
In Greenland, chemical contaminants and radioactive liquids are frozen in ice sheets left over from nuclear power plants at a U.S. military research base where scientists studied the possibility of installing nuclear missiles. The report did not specify how or where the nuclear contamination migrated to the Pacific or Greenland, or any health risks it might pose to nearby residents. However, the authors do note that Greenland’s frozen waste may be exposed by 2100.
“The potential is there for environmental impacts, which could further impact the food chain and further impact the people living in the area,” said Halma Dahl, chair of the Greenland Inuit Circumpolar Council. The country is approximately 90% Inuit. “I think it’s important that the Greenland and U.S. governments communicate about this concerning issue and prepare how to respond.”
Greenland and Denmark have not yet proposed any cleanup plans, the authors of the GAO study wrote, but also cited studies that say much of the nuclear waste has decayed and will be diluted by melting ice. However, the studies did note that chemical wastes such as polychlorinated biphenyls, man-made chemicals commonly known as PCBs, are carcinogenic and “maybe the most serious waste at Camp Century.”
The report summarizes disagreements between Marshall Islands officials and the U.S. Department of Energy over the risks posed by U.S. nuclear waste. The U.S. Government Accountability Office recommended that the agency adopt a communications strategy to convey information to the Marshallese people about potential contamination.
Nathan Anderson, director of the Government Accountability Office, said U.S. responsibilities in the Marshall Islands “are governed by specific federal regulations and international agreements.” He noted that the Marshall Islands government had previously agreed to settle claims related to damage caused by U.S. nuclear testing.
“The U.S. government’s long-standing position is that under this agreement, the Republic of the Marshall Islands assumes full responsibility for its lands, including those used for its nuclear testing program.”
For Tibon, who is back in the Marshall Islands and now chairs the National Nuclear Commission, the fact that the report’s only recommendation was a new communications strategy is puzzling. She’s not sure how that will help the Marshallese people.
“What we need now is action and implementation of environmental remediation. We don’t need a communications strategy,” she said. “If they knew it was contaminated, why didn’t they recommend next steps for environmental remediation or how they could return these lands to conditions that were safe and livable for these communities?”
The Biden administration recently agreed to fund a new museum to honor those affected by nuclear testing and climate change initiatives in the Marshall Islands, but the initiatives have repeatedly failed to gain support from Congress despite being part of an ongoing treaty with the Marshall Islands and broader national security efforts to bolster goodwill in the Pacific against China.