This has sparked a leading US Senator to intervene to reverse the decision, and prompted concern at home.

Until now, Federal officials and leaders of the Bikini Council met each year to agree on a withdrawal, usually six to seven million US dollars.

The Council then decided how to spend it, subject to a Department of the Interior veto.

Last August, the Bikini Council asked the Department of the Interior to transfer full control of the Trust Fund to them.

The Department of the Interior agreed and turned over control on November 21st.

As soon as the decision took effect, US$11 million was withdrawn from the US$59 million fund.

Now Senator Lisa Murkowski of Alaska plans legislation to restore federal supervision.

In a letter to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, Murkowski rebuked the Department of the Interior for the unilateral decision to wash its hands of trust fund management.

Murkowski chairs the Energy and Natural Resources Committee which exercises oversight on United States policy and funding for the Marshall Islands.

She objected to the fact that the sum of money withdrawn this year is almost double the amount usually agreed on.

And there was no agreement on how it would be spent.

Murkowski has drafted legislation to impose what she described as a reasonable limit on annual withdrawals.

Bikini Mayor Anderson Jilas told the Marshall Islands Journal: "We are free to determine our own destiny and every Bikinian should be proud of this new era."

But former mayor Alsen Kelen expressed concern about the US$11 million withdrawal: "The money belongs to every Bikinian alive, not just to council members," he told the Marshall Islands Journal.

Source

• RNZ
• Hawai'i Public Radio
• Image: i imgur

It was constructed in 1979 to temporarily store nuclear waste produced from nuclear testing by the United States military during the Cold War.

Residents have expressed concerns about cracks which are slowly developing in the dome's concrete surface.

The US Department of Energy insists the cracks are cosmetic, a result of drying and shrinking of the half-submerged dome, but there are plans for repairs.

Radio New Zealand's correspondent Giff Johnson has also expressed concern that the atoll may have been washed over with radioactive waste, after the island was hit by Typhoon Nangka earlier this month.

There are fears that the storm may have churned up lagoon sediment which is laced with nuclear waste.

"Did this stir up a lot of the plutonium and radioactive waste that's in the sediment, because actually what is more radioactive than what's in the dome is what's in the lagoon sediment."

In total, 67 nuclear and atmospheric bombs were detonated on Enewetak and Bikini between 1946 and 1958 - an explosive yield equivalent to 1.6 Hiroshima bombs detonated every day over the course of 12 years.

The detonations blanketed the islands with irradiated debris, including Plutonium-239, the fissile isotope used in nuclear warheads, which has a half-life of 24,000 years.

The Vatican has long opposed nuclear weapons, but Pope Francis is making the cause one of the top diplomatic priorities.

Source

• radionnz.co.nz
• www.truthdig.com
• www.worldbulletin.net
• Image: www.news.com.au