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STATEMENT OF DR. VERA ALEXANDER, DIRECTOR, INSTITUTE 

 OF MARINE SCIENCES, UNIVERSITY OF ALASKA 



Dr. Alexander. Thank you Senator. And thank you very much 

 for inviting me to take part in the scientific panel originally By 

 moving me to the end of the day, I guess I moved myself in a sense, 

 it made it very easy for me, because ever5^hing that's worth sa5dng 

 has probably already been said today. And so, I have to — it makes 

 my job much easier. 



However, we haven't really addressed in depth the problems that 

 Alaska faces or that the Alaska marine environment faces, and I 

 think that's the other side of the equation to what we have just 

 heard, and I think we need to look at that. And our team proposes 

 also to address that problem. 



Let me first say a few words about my organization since this 

 has been the mode. I'm Director of the Institute of Marine Science 

 but the Institute is now within the School of Fisheries and Ocean 

 Sciences, of which I'm also Dean. And that school has some 56 fac- 

 ulty in tremendous range of expertise. We've got all the way from 

 marine microbiology, toxicology, seafood safety, marine mammals, 

 oceanography, et cetera. We have more than 30 years experience 

 in doing research in Alaskan waters, addressing Arctic and Alas- 

 kan problems relating to the marine environment and its resources. 



I have used these colleagues in preparing this testimony. It's not 

 all my own thoughts, on the contrary, it reflects the thoughts and 

 knowledge of many colleagues. One of them provided to me by Dr. 

 David Shore was illuminating. And he contrasted the pollution in 

 the Arctic, which we're looking at now, with the Exxon Valdez oil 

 spill. Similar in that we know that there's a problem, at least we 

 sense that there's a major problem, but we really don't know the 

 details at this point. But it's much less spectacular. Our oil spill 

 was very spectacular. It was an individual catastrophic event. 



But on the other hand, in this case, we have a much different 

 situation. We have a large number in a broad geographic distribu- 

 tion of the potential pollutant releases, and the effects are likely to 

 be very much more widespread, and it will last much longer be- 

 cause of the nature of the pollutants. We could be affected through 

 decades, centuries or even longer. 



Now as far as the question of research needs in connection with 

 the potential hazards from radionuclide waste entering Arctic seas, 

 at first it may seem reasonable that the tremendous dilution that 

 sea water offers to any substances entering it would preclude any 

 serious problems. But in a fact, it's really the very same properties 

 of sea water that make it possibly a dangerous situation, because 

 within the sea biological systems have tremendous ability to accu- 

 mulate subsistencies. And there's a great ability for oceanographic 

 processes to channel and transport substances. 



And so, we really have to develop an understanding of what proc- 

 esses are active and to understand the sources and the distribution 

 of the materials. That's the first step and that's what we have been 

 talking about. 



Mitigation is another part of that part of the equation. But take 

 one example. Sedimentation can result in the accumulation of 

 wastes in the sediments which immediately impact the biota within 

 them, which accumulate these toxic materials and radioactive ma- 



