503 



mals that people depend upon as food. People are aware that this 

 is happening. There needs to be a better release or let's say consid- 

 eration and then distribution very widely of the perceived health 

 effects. There's just a little too much confusion on that. 



The second request or recommendation might be that there be 

 the preparation and wide distribution of a brief, that is, five to 10 

 pages or so, illustrated overview of what is known or what is reli- 

 ably suspected regarding pollution of the Arctic Ocean by the 

 former Soviet Union. Of particular importance would be radiation 

 and heavy metal type pollutants. And this is a point we try to keep 

 making over and over again is this plain language summary of re- 

 search or of significant findings in that it find its way to the people 

 of the Arctic. As an example, I would ask you. Senator or staff or 

 someone anjrway, to maybe make a five or 10-page plain language 

 siunmary of what the Secretary Bohlen and Director Gates said 

 and to add to that some of your thoughts maybe and to distribute 

 it widely, maybe to your constituents. And not necessarily wait the 

 eight weeks or whatever it is that we're going to wait for the final 

 document which, you know, it'd probably be more than eight weeks 

 and, once again, itil be heavy and not widely distributed. What we 

 need is something fairly brief, plain language, and get it out to a 

 lot of people because folks are worried. 



The third little request or recommendation would be the U.S., 

 with participation by Arctic residents, take a major role in the 

 international research program that is needed to define the nature 

 of the pollutant problem and how this problem can be dealt with. 

 Once again, this has been mentioned by other people too and it's 

 perfectly obvious. 



The fourth thing would be a particular effort should be made by 

 all parties involved here to keep Arctic residents informed as to the 

 progress of the studies that are going to be done hopefully, espe- 

 cially any findings indicating a possible health threat to the people 

 or to the wildlife that they depend upon. And in this regard,' just 

 fi'om having attended here, I want to echo or support the comments 

 that Charlie Johnson just made and that Dr. Middaugh made. 

 These are very reasonable things. 



So, I think it's fair to say that in conclusion the people that live 

 in the Arctic, and you know many of them, they want to be kept 

 informed, and if they have to wait endlessly for large reports which 

 come out and are distributed in two or three copies to each Bor- 

 ough mayor or whatever it is, it just never gets down to people. 

 And as we mentioned at the arctic Research Commission and in 

 dozens of other forums, please begin to distribute some of this in- 

 formation in brief, readable format in a wide manner. Thank you. 

 And the Mayor of the North Slope Borough will submit some writ- 

 ten comments. 



Senator Murkowski. Thank you very much, Tom. Give our re- 

 gards to the Mayor, and I think it's the consensus of the three of 

 us here that we are going to initiate a synopsis. However, we want 

 to be very careful because we don't want to alarm anyone or mis- 

 lead anyone, because a lot of this information that's been given 

 here could be taken out of context. This is clearly a necessity to ad- 

 dress concerns, but we also want to be sure that we don't generate 

 any needless heartburn out there. 



