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STATEMENT OF DR. ROBERT WHITE, INSTITUTE OF ARCTIC 

 BIOLOGY, UNIVERSITY OF ALASKA 



Dr. White. Thank you for the invitation to talk today, Senator 

 Murkowski. I've been working in the area of radioecology with a 

 close colleague and several other people for more than 20 years, 

 monitoring radioactive cesium in the lichen-caribou-wolf food 

 chains in a number of systems in Alaska. And so it's with this per- 

 spective and the perspective of the land component that I'd like to 

 talk about a little bit. 



We've used the knowledge that we've gained from these studies 

 to study the ecology of caribou and wolves. We've also developed 

 models of cesium transport which we've used to make assessments 

 on human exposure through consumption of caribou. We also as- 

 sisted in the training of scientists who have been more recently 

 working on some aspects of the Chernobyl disaster as it impacted 

 Norway and other countries. 



Our studies also tell us that the monitoring of radioactivity in 

 reindeer and caribou could certainly be used as a method to scan 

 large areas of the land mass for possible contaminated hot spots, 

 and whereas particularly a large number of ground samples would 

 need to be counted in order to do the same integrated measure. 



However, what I'd really like to mention today, besides this in- 

 sight I have, is that first of all we have to know the amounts and 

 where the contamination is, for without that information no well- 

 directed research and monitoring program in Alaska or the marine 

 environment can adequately be designed. From a University of 

 Alaska perspective, what I see is that we're rich in ecologists and 

 rich in the understanding of some components of the ecosystems 

 that I think that can be brought to bear on the study. 



Now there are four main pathways that I feel importsint for the 

 transport of radionuclides and perhaps other pollutants to the ter- 

 restrial system. An example is the Uchen-caribou, man or wolf, 

 bear or scavenger system that has been intensively studied, and 

 gives us a few important quantitative measures of the rates of 

 transport and turnover in such a system. In the system atmos- 

 pheric fallout of pollutants are sequestered by lichens. The lichens 

 are preferentially consumed by caribou and reindeer, in winter, and 

 the caribou and reindeer are eaten by people and other predators. 

 At each trophic level, contamination or pollutants in the tissues in- 

 creases very dramatically, something like two to ten-fold, depend- 

 ing on the pollutant, as you move up the trophic system. Humans 

 then are at risk because they eat food that can be enriched in the 

 pollutant. 



I would maintain that biological processes such as this not only 

 concentrate pollutants but also distribute them from hot spots to 

 other areas through the movement of animals and particularly mi- 

 gratory species, and they direct pollutants therefore to new sys- 

 tems, as animals maybe a major carrier of pollutants between the 

 main ecosystems, between river, stream and terrestrial systems, 

 and between the marine and terrestrial systems. In this respect, 

 likely rolls of shore birds and migratory water fowl in transport of 

 pollutants from marine beaches, tidal basins where they aggregate 

 and feed, and from river and stream estuaries where eggs are laid 

 and young grow to maturity, then migrate to close-by areas, local 



