190 



Admiral GuiMOND. Yes. I understand that there's a concern in 

 that £irea. I'm going to have a defer a Uttle bit. I have asked some 

 folks in our Region 10 office in our water programs that are dealing 

 with that what they can do to look into what control we can have 

 in that. And I believe that we are currently trying to determine 

 what laws we can bring to bear to provide some additional controls. 

 But I don't think it's as clear-cut as we would like it to be. 



Senator Murkowski. Well, I'd appreciated it if you'd re-remind 

 them, because we've sent a couple letters and the/re still giving it 

 some consideration as to what their role may or may not be. So, 

 well certainly hold the record open for a couple of weeks. 



Admiral GuiMOND. Will do. 



Senator MURKOWSKI. And if you could gently urge them to take 

 a look at that we'd appreciate it. One other question. We're in the 

 process of setting up some radioactive monitoring in Alaska but we 

 want to do it wisely. And I'm wondering if you could share what 

 the priorities might be, the point of view of EPA, between airborne 

 capability, monitoring against another event like a Chernobyl, or 

 marine mammal tissue evaluation, or other types that we haven't 

 mentioned? 



Admiral GuiMOND. As I said earlier, I think there's two areas 

 that you're trying to focus attention on £uid be prepared for. One 

 is trying to assess what have been the impacts of the past, and 

 that's why a number of the things that we've teilked about that we 

 in EPA and the AMAP program would deal with would hopefully 

 give you better indication of how much damage has occurred. The 

 next area, we'll be trying to be protective in having the early 

 warnings for the future. One is the monitoring stations that are 

 currently in place and one that was just put in Fairbanks a few 

 days ago will give you an indication of if any future events occur 

 what kind of deposition might be occurring in this area. However, 

 that's not truly early warning. That will let you know after some- 

 thing has come and you'll get it, you know, a few days later, but 

 you'd like to have something a little earlier than that. So I think 

 I would recommend that you would also have what I would call 

 real time monitors that we would place closer to the coastal areas, 

 closer to where they would be impacted by any airborne materials 

 coming first over and would give you an instant type of indication 

 so that, if necessary, people could be notified to take whatever pro- 

 tective action might be appropriate. 



Senator Murkowski. All right. Well, I appreciate that. We're 

 going to conclude this morning's portion. And let me make a couple 

 of announcements. We'd like to invite everyone to sign in, because 

 if you sign it, you're going to receive a published copy of the tran- 

 script and the hearing record. It's going to take, I'm told, about 

 eight weeks to complete that, so be patient. If you don't get it in 

 eight weeks, why it's fair enough to call collect. 



[Whereupon, at 12:15 o'clock p.m., the Committee was recessed.l 



AFTERNOON SESSION 



Senator Murkowski. We call the hearing back to order. And 

 we'll thank our court reporter again. I would ask that you find a 

 comfortable seat. 



