173 



Arctic. I will provide some detail on the first two programs because 

 they were specifically mentioned in your letter of invitation. 



The marine mammal tissue archive is part of the National Ma- 

 rine Mammal Tissue Bank and Stranding Network Program man- 

 aged by NOAA's National Msirine Fisheries Service. It is designed 

 to conduct on a regular basis the collection and storage of selected 

 marine mammal tissue based on available funds, the nationsd goal 

 is to conduct a standard suite of analysis on 10 to 20 marine mam- 

 mals in each region fi"om which tissue is taken. The normal suite 

 of analysis will include organics, inorganics, toxins, necropsy, and 

 histopathology. The Alaska Marine Mammal Tissue Archival 

 Project sponsored by our sister agency, the Minerals Management 

 Agency of the Department of the Interior, is now also being man- 

 aged by NOAA's National Marine Mammal Tissue Bank on a coop- 

 erative basis. Based on this agreement, tissues will continue to be 

 collected and will be stored together at a national repository at our 

 Institute of Standards and Technology. Samples fi-om as many as 

 10 bowhead whales taken during 1992 subsistence hunts at Bar- 

 row, Alaska will be collected as part of this program. The sampling 

 will be conducted with the help of the North Slope Borough Depart- 

 ment of Wildlife Management. With the help of NMFS's Western 

 Alaska field offices in Anchorage, samples might also be collected 

 this year fi-om beluga whales, as many as five animals, taken in 

 native subsistence hunts or from standings in Cook Inlet. In the 

 case of both the bowheads and the belugas, additional samples will 

 be collected for contaminant analysis by our Northwest Fisheries 

 Center. 



NOAA's National Standards and Trends Program for Marine En- 

 vironmental Quality includes projects that periodically monitor the 

 level of about 70 different toxic contaminants, both heavy metals 

 and persistent organic contaminants, at sites around the coasts of 

 the United States. Nine of these sites are located along the U.S. 

 Arctic coast, six in the Bering Sea, one in the Chukchi Sea, and 

 two in the Beaufort Sea. Contaminant levels are measured in both 

 biota and the sediments and from three stations at each site. 



The National Status and Trends Program also includes an ele- 

 ment that monitors levels of artificial radioactivities, radionuclides 

 in the U.S. coastal environments. In 1990 we conducted surveys of 

 the levels of americonium, plutonium, cesium, silver, strontium, 

 zinc and cobalt in biota at about 36 sites around the U.S. to com- 

 pare with levels from 1970. Unfortunately, none of these sites were 

 in the Arctic environment. 



NOAA has also been involved with the Department of State on 

 deliberations that led to the Arctic Environmental Protection Strat- 

 egy, which Secretary Bohlen referred to, and with its associated 

 ^ctic Monitoring and Assessment Program, AMAP, where NOAA 

 is co-chair with the Environmental Protection Agency for the Unit- 

 ed States' involvement. I believe that an assessment by the United 

 States of the contamination of the Arctic by the FSU is quite fitting 

 with the United States' responsibilities under AMAP and associ- 

 ated AEPS. 



To conclude my brief remarks to the Committee, and speaking 

 for NOAA, I support the approach of a coordinated interagency as- 

 sessment of the potential contamination of the Arctic by the former 



