ATOMS, NATURE, and MAN
Man-made Radioactivity in the Environment

by Neal O. Hines

The Understanding the Atom Series

Nuclear energy is playing a vital role in the life of every man, woman, and child in the United States today. In the years ahead it will affect increasingly all the peoples of the earth. It is essential that all Americans gain an understanding of this vital force if they are to discharge thoughtfully their responsibilities as citizens and if they are to realize fully the myriad benefits that nuclear energy offers them.

The United States Atomic Energy Commission provides this booklet to help you achieve such understanding.

Edward J. Brunenkant, Director Division of Technical Information

UNITED STATES ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION

Dr. Glenn T. Seaborg, Chairman

James T. Ramey

Wilfrid E. Johnson

Dr. Theos J. Thompson

Dr. Clarence E. Larson

CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION 1

SOME PRELIMINARY IDEAS 2

A VIEW IN PERSPECTIVE, 1946-1963 8

THE ATOM IN ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES 20

ENVIRONMENTS—SINGULAR, YET PARTS OF A WHOLE 29

PROBLEMS AND PROJECTS 41

WHERE ARE WE NOW? 52

SUGGESTED REFERENCES 55

United States Atomic Energy Commission
Division of Technical Information
Library of Congress Catalog Card Number: 66-61322
1966

THE COVER
Scientists aboard a seagoing vessel prepare to study contents of a plankton net as part of their research into radioactivity in an oceanic environment.

THE AUTHOR
NEAL O. HINES is an established writer and experienced academic administrator with an unusual background in radiobiological surveys of the Pacific Ocean atomic test sites. He holds degrees from Indiana and Northwestern Universities. A former journalism teacher at the University of California and Assistant to the President of the University of Washington, Mr. Hines also worked for a number of years with the Laboratory of Radiation Biology of the University of Washington, where he served from 1961-1963 as administrative assistant and as Executive Secretary of the Advisory Council on Nuclear Energy and Radiation for the State of Washington. He was a member of the survey teams visiting Bikini and Eniwetok in 1949 and 1956 and Christmas Island in 1962. His “Bikini Report” (Scientific Monthly, February 1951) was one of the earliest descriptions of radiobiological studies in the Pacific. He is the author of Proving Ground (University of Washington Press, 1962), a detailed history of radiobiological studies in the Pacific from 1946-1961.

ATOMS, NATURE, and MAN
Man-made Radioactivity in the Environment

By NEAL O. HINES

INTRODUCTION

Mankind, increasingly crowding the earth, modifies the earthly environment in uncounted subtle and unpredictable ways, too rarely to the benefit of either earth or man. In this century it has become critically important that we comprehend more precisely than ever before the biological mechanisms and balances of our environment and that we learn to detect changes and to understand what they imply.

The release of atomic energy added a new dimension to the possibility of environmental change. In man’s first experiments with atomic energy, he added small but perceptible amounts of radioactivity to the earth’s natural total; as the Atomic Age matures, he inevitably will add more. But, in the course of his experiments, man has come to realize that environmental and biological studies, which now are necessary because of the use of atomic energy, may help solve not only the problems atomic energy creates but also the larger problem of how to manage wisely the world’s limited natural resources.

This booklet describes the environmental investigations that have been conducted with the aid of the atom since the first atomic detonation near Alamogordo, New Mexico, in 1945. The earth’s mysteries, however, are not easily unlocked, and investigations of our environment with atomic tools have only begun. The story thus is one of beginnings—but of beginnings that point the way, it is hoped, to a new understanding of the world in the atomic future.

SOME PRELIMINARY IDEAS

Biologists are interested in every kind of living thing. When they study organisms in relation to atomic radiations, they enter the field of radiobiology, which really is not a science in itself but merely a branch of the larger interest in biology. Biologists find that atomic energy has significance both in the study of individual organisms and in studies of organisms in their natural communities and habitats.

Skin-diving biologist collecting giant clam from coral bottom of Bikini Lagoon in the Pacific Ocean.

Radioactivity introduced into any community may be “taken up” by the biological system, becoming subject to cycling in food chains or to accumulation in plant or animal tissues. The presence of radioactivity permits study of the workings of a system as large as an ocean, perhaps, or of one no larger than a tree. And in each case it thus may be possible to observe how the cycles of organic renewal are related to the larger systems of life on earth.

The Single Environment

The environment in which we live is recognizable as a single complex, composed of many subenvironments—land, oceans, atmosphere, and the space beyond our envelope of air. The deer in the forest, the lizard in the desert burrow, and the peavine in the meadow are different kinds of organisms living in situations that are seemingly unalike. Each creature is part of its environment and a contributor to it,