Mr. PANETTA. Have you confirmed the existence of these sites? Mr. DYER. Yes, of sites 2 and 3, because those drums that you saw were observed directly in those two sites.

Unfortunately, again, we are having some problems seeing.
Mr. MOFFETT. Go to the next slide.

Mr. DYER. This is a close-up of the area, areas reported to be the Farallon Islands dump site. The Pioneer Sea Mount is visible in the center there of that red square, and we are looking at areas that are approaching 4,000 meters.

Mr. MOFFETT. How large an area?

Mr. DYER. It is very difficult to tell, but I would say that that whole area, that is all the polygons together would be in excess of 300 square miles.

Mr. PANETTA. Is this site 3?

Mr. DYER. Sites 3, 4, and 5 would be the equivalent of 1, 2, and 3. Mr. PANETTA. Are there three or five sites?

Mr. DYER. I am sorry, this was just a different numbering system used by one of our staff. There is no consistency in the numbering here. Šites 3, 4, and 5 are equivalent to 1, 2, and 3 in that first slide.

Mr. MOFFETT. Let us proceed now, as is our usual practice, with questions, and we thank you for that.

At this time the Chair recognizes Mr. McCloskey for questions. Mr. MCCLOSKEY. In your investigation, what caused the selection of that one site for the dumping of roughly 40 times the number of containers dumped at any other site?

Mr. DYER. According to the records we obtained in May 1974, if I can go through those numbers.

Mr. MCCLOSKEY. 44,000 canisters dumped at one of those Farallon sites while no other site had more than 1,000 or 2,000 containers dumped, except one site on the east coast.

Mr. DYER. Site No. 1 was just used 1 year, and it appears for only three dumpings. Historically, after 1946, site No. 3 that received the 44,000 containers was used between 1946 to late 1950.

In late 1950, and I cannot answer the cause and effect here, but in late 1950 the site was moved to what we labeled as site No. 2 at 900 meters. Site No. 2 was used from late 1950 to January 1954, and after that it was redetermined that the site at 1,700 meters should be used, and it was used from 1954 until the cessation of dumping.

Mr. MCCLOSKEY. Do you have any idea of the reasoning that went into the selection of the deeper sites for the major dumping? Mr. DYER. I really can't answer that.

Mr. MCCLOSKEY. The three major sources are apparently the laboratories, Livermore, Berkley, and-

Mr. DYER. The Naval Radiological Defense Laboratory.

Mr. MCCLOSKEY. Have they no records, no explanation of how much and why and what they put in those containers?

Mr. HAWKINS. Mr. Cunningham from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission may be able to shed additional light on the rationale. Just speculating, though, it could well be simply nothing more than a continuation of a practice in a particular location following the initial dumps, and people believing, well, that is one place where they are licensing it and that is where we will go, too.

When the search of the records is concluded, we may be able to shed a little bit of additional information on it, although the kind of question you are asking is sort of a history type of question trying to explain what it was that went into people's figuring.

I think we can also shed some additional explanation on it, although as I indicated in my testimony those criteria would not be adequate in view of our current knowledge of what are appropriate environmental safeguards.

Mr. MCCLOSKEY. In the 11 reports there is no indication that any danger or problem has occurred as a result of this dumping; is that correct?

Mr. HAWKINS. The evidence that we have does not indicate any apparent environmental damage or likelihood of damage as a result of the practices. That is a matter of luck rather than planning, and we don't want to rely on luck in the future.

Mr. MCCLOSKEY. That is despite the fact you say about one-third of these canisters have imploded in some way?

Mr. HAWKINS. Right, the implosion will, in some cases, cause the release of radionuclides such as plutonium from the immediate contents of the barrel.

Mr. MCCLOSKEY. That has occurred with some of the barrels? Mr. HAWKINS. Yes, and what appears to be occurring is that the plutonium lodges in the sediment and does not disperse widely in the ocean environment which is better than if it did disperse widely in the ocean environment. It is not as good as if it had never gotten out of the barrel in the first place and not as good as if it had never gotten into the barrel.

Mr. MCCLOSKEY. Do I assume if one-third of these barrels have had some damage to them, and the radioactive material has been released, that 100 years from now when all of the barrels may be expected to leak something, you don't expect any additional damage, at least not from the leakage over the next 100 years? Mr. MATTSON. In fact, the picture should get better. Some of them will decay significantly.

Mr. MCCLOSKEY. The sediment also?

Mr. MATTSON. There will be some sinking, and some down slope slumping, the material tends to bury itself, and there will be radioactive decay inside the barrels.

Mr. MCCLOSKEY. What about the earthquake hazard? What happens if you have an 8-magnitude earthquake like we have had? Would that enhance the danger?

Mr. DYER. No; it generally wouldn't enhance any danger there because these are small objects. They are also, there is a moderating effect by a large blanket of water, and if these drums were moved around, they would be moved around as a unit and there would be no reason to expect them to break apart.

Mr. MATTSON. There would also be the cushioning effect of sediments.

Mr. MCCLOSKEY. The one question that comes to me from your testimony, you state you have had absolute cooperation from the Department of Energy in the various laboratories. Yet there are no records as to what caused them to choose this one site for 44,000 canisters?

Mr. MATTSON. Well, let me help with that. That is a question that has occurred to us also. We have asked it of ourselves. One thing that helped put it in perspective for me was in 1946 just after World War II, the maximum operating depth of a submarine was about 900 feet, so these wastes at the 900-meter site were being placed at approximately three times the depth at which man had ever operated in a submarine. It may be that people in 1946 thought of 900 meters as a much deeper location then than we do today.

Mr. MCCLOSKEY. They changed their mind in 1970. Some scientists decided after 1970 they never wanted to do this?

Mr. MATTSON. As science marched on, people became less enamored with the dumping of low-level waste.

Mr. MCCLOSKEY. Despite the finding of lack of damage, it is now EPA's position that we should not consider further dumping in the oceans of any kind of nuclear waste?

Mr. HAWKINS. It is our position that the resumption of this practice should not occur until we have adequate answers to questions like baseline data, questions of durability of containers.

Our regulations on ocean dumping for all sorts of materials, including raw material, specifically require that an applicant for such a dumping permit would have to make a showing to the Agency of baseline information, a showing that during the expected life of the container that by the end of that expected life any materials would decay to harmless environmental levels.

Mr. MCCLOSKEY. I understand that, but the problem I have with your testimony is you are saying you found there has been no danger, no damage from what has happened, and yet on that same evidence you don't feel it is adequate to permit any new dumping? Mr. HAWKINS. That is because our surveys represent pioneering work in the examination of the ocean environment. It is not comprehensive work.

If the committee is asking, and the public is asking what does the evidence that we have in hand show, the evidence that we have in hand shows us no indication of environmental damage. However, the evidence that we have in hand is not encyclopedic and we want to have a far greater body of evidence to confirm what our initial conclusions are.

Mr. MATTSON. That is a good technical answer, but there is a legal answer that goes with it, too. In 1972 Congress passed a law that is referred to in our fact sheet, the Marine Protection and Research Sanctuaries Act of 1972, which requires EPA to develop criteria for future permitting of low-level waste disposal in the

ocean.

And one of the conditions required by Congress is for EPA to evaluate low-level ocean disposal versus other alternative forms of disposal. And we are saying as a legal matter we won't be able to meet that test for some years yet because of insufficient data. Mr. BURTON. Why did it take you 5 years to come up with regs? You had the authority in 1972. You issued your regs in 1977. Mr. HAWKINS. Unfortunately, it takes us too long to do almost anything, including writing regulations. It took us 5 years because of the survey work that was required to have been done.

Mr. BURTON. What is the position of the other groups involved, AEC, et cetera?

Mr. HAWKINS. I can't speak to that. These ocean regs cover a wide variety of compounds, not just radionuclides, and I would not want to try to blame it on other agencies. We have a process that requires a great deal of internal review.

Mr. BURTON. You can't be any worse than the GSA, and they get them out faster than that.

In the previous hearing, in effect you said that you relied to a great degree on what was then ERDA-not you, Dr. Rowe-for your information? "They have an $80 million budget and we used much of their information and we used much of the information from NRC, but there are certain things we do independently"— Mr. MOFFETT. The gentleman is reading from?

Mr. BURTON. I am reading from the record of the hearing of September 17, 1976. I made the comment they got $80 million, and I think Dr. Rowe said you had only $60,000.

Do you not independently do your evaluation? I know you get factual data from these other agencies, but I mean, do you just take their numbers and you do the work on it or do you take their assumptions and everything else?

Mr. HAWKINS. Let me start to respond and ask Dr. Mattson to expand.

The surveys that we are discussing here today are surveys that were developed using EPA funds and contractors providing us with information directly on the results of having the ships go out to

sea.

Mr. BURTON. I am asking you in effect if you have changed in 4

years.

Mr. HAWKINS. Those surveys represented an attempt by the Agency to document actual levels of environmental concentrations. Mr. BURTON. You are no longer relying on them except for facts, not for interpretation of fact?

Mr. HAWKINS. We still have very small resources compared with the magnitude of a full-scale investigation of background levels in the ocean and a comprehensive evaluation of all of the waste dumping.

Mr. BURTON. What is your budget right now? It was $60,000 and somebody got it up to $250,000. What is your budget now for monitoring this type of stuff?

Mr. HAWKINS. We don't have a continuing monitoring budget item. We do not have resources budgeted for a continuing program of monitoring.

Mr. BURTON. Don't you think you should do that?

Mr. HAWKINS. We think that the Federal Government ought to be undertaking additional monitoring, and what we are exploring with NOAA is focusing a lot of their work to the extent that it is consistent, and we think it is, with gathering background baseline information on oceans to focus specifically on issues like the radiological quality of the ocean environment.

Mr. BURTON. All right, you don't have-don't you think that you ought to have a specific dollar amount for monitoring because we are hearing today from you, and we will hear from others, that there is not a problem now but it must be monitored.

You are telling me you don't really have specific funds for that and you are going to maybe work out something with NOAA, and NOAA might come back and say, "We thought EPA was doing that."

Do you have a memorandum of understanding with NOAA? Mr. HAWKINS. We don't at this point, and to answer your question directly, Mr. Burton, we agree with your view that the Government ought to be spending additional resources on the question of monitoring.

Mr. BURTON. You don't know if it should be you?

Mr. HAWKINS. I am not here to put in a commercial for EPA to get that money.

Mr. BURTON. Are you the institution that should do the work? Mr. HAWKINS. We think a good sharing of responsibility that probably would play up pretty well in terms of getting the work done would be to have NOAA, which has large number of ocean vessels that are available, to be able to collect these samples, to have a lead responsibility for those samples.

Mr. BURTON. Are you prepared to enter into a memorandum of understanding with NOAA that you could submit to this committee to see if we could put some moneys somewhere to see something is done?

Mr. HAWKINS. Yes; we would be happy to pursue that and follow up on it.

Mr. BURTON. We have to know where to put the money to get it done.

I have two more questions, Mr. Chairman.

Can you think of any way-we were talking before about the implosions and Dr. Rowe said they looked at 150 containers—this is back in the 1976 hearings-25 percent may have shown implosion and leakage.

Have you looked at any containers since that time?

Mr. HAWKINS. Yes; we looked at containers in 1977 at the Farallon site.

Mr. BURTON. What did the percentages show?

Mr. DYER. Basically, I selected slides from the 1977 survey and the ratio was running about the same.

Mr. BURTON. It still runs at 25 percent?

Mr. DYER. Roughly the same, yes.

Mr. BURTON. All right.

Second to last, can you think of any way or which would be the proper Federal agency that-I don't know if you ever watched "Get Smart," but they have got the silencer that drops over them-have a way to drop something over this that would shield whatever is there from spreading out farther in the oceanic way? Is that too far out?

Mr. HAWKINS. Some of these sites were 300 square miles, and the barrels are not all located in an area like the size of a football field. I don't know if anyone has examined the feasibility of that.

Mr. BURTON. Would that be something worth, you know, would that be as important a feasibility thing as the sex life of Tanner crabs by the National Science Foundation?

Mr. HAWKINS. It is certainly worth our giving more of an answer than we can give you at the table today.