425 



tection issues and indeed contribute to giving it a higher priority. 

 It could also affect in reevaluating the 1983 NSC statement of U.S. 

 Arctic policy in the post-Cold War era, which was an important 

 part of the discussion at the Fairbanks Conference. 



Finally, in light of some of the gaps and questions of applications 

 that I and others noted in the Arctic legal regime, is the view of 

 the EDF that it is time for there to be a serious consideration by 

 the U.S. government and Arctic countries on the development of an 

 Arctic convention. Such a convention would incorporate protective 

 measures to address all forms of anthropogenic contaminants en- 

 tering the Arctic as well as a comprehensive approach for address- 

 ing and development activities. 



Thank you. 



Senator Murkowski. Thank you very much, Scott. Moving to our 

 last participant, Joshua Handler, Nuclear Free Zone Program with 

 Greenpeace. Please proceed. 



STATEMENT OF JOSHUA HANDLER, NUCLEAR FREE SEAS 



PROGRAM, GREENPEACE 



Mr. Handler. I'd too like to thank you. Senator Murkowski, for 

 holding this hearing. And it's a very important and timely one. 

 Greenpeace is a large, international environmental and peace orga- 

 nization, some four million members worldwide in over 100 coun- 

 tries. We've been opposing — ^we've been actually promoting nuclear 

 disarmament for over 20 years. One of our first activities was op- 

 posing nuclear testing plants for Amchitka here in the Aleutian Is- 

 lands 20 years ago. Over the last two years we've been particularly 

 concerned about the situation in Russia and we've been intensively 

 investigating problems in their naval nuclear program, particularly 

 aboard their submarines and nuclear icebreakers. I personally have 

 visited Russia six times, visiting previously-closed areas, and still 

 closed areas, in the Far East and Far North. During these trips 

 we've gathered documentary evidence. We've taken geiger counters 

 to verify reports of radiation, and we've spoken with admirals all 

 the way down to local ecologists about the situation. 



I don't want to dwell on the dumping question off Novaya 

 Zemlya. I think that's been extensively discussed earlier. Col- 

 leagues at EDF did a very good job of explaining the situation. Oth- 

 ers discussed it earlier. Suffice to say, our reports continue to indi- 

 cate there are 15 nuclear reactors that were dumped off Novaya 

 Zemlya, three fi-om the icebreaker Lenin, 12 fi*om submarines, half 

 of the submarine reactors reportedly still have their fuel in them, 

 and the Lenin reactors also contain their fuel. In addition to this, 

 there's over 10,000 barrels of low level nuclear wastes that have 

 been dumped aroxuid the area. 



The situation in the Pacific, as far as we know — well, my point 

 is we don't know what the situation is specifically, I'm somewhat 

 reassured in my conversations with naval officers but we still want 

 to investigate this further. 



What I will though submit for the record is a number of our re- 

 ports and articles dealing with our trips to the region as well as 

 conferences we've held in Moscow, and I think they will serve as 

 a useful record of our activities. 



