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Edward Lee Gorsuch Paee 2 



benefits of alternative mitigation strategies? 

 • And, fourth, how will the study, its identified potential risks and 

 mitigation alternatives, be communicated to Arctic residents, and 

 how will their concerns and views be solicited and considered? 



While radlochemists and marine scientists are investigating, tracing, and 

 projecting how radioactive materials may be transported and enter the food web, 

 blo-medlcal researchers, epidemiologists, economists and social scientists should 

 be conducting complementary investigations, locating human populations living In 

 proximity to these pathways, and documenting where Arctic people gather, harvest, 

 process, and share or distribute food and water. These Important social, 

 economic, and cultural patterns will vary significantly by size and cultural 

 composition of each community. 



Enormous economic, as well as ecological and cultural values, would be at 

 risk should radioactive materials be transported Into the Bering Sea. The study 

 called for and the monitoring and mitigation which will follow will help protect 

 this Invaluable ecosystem where literally billions of dollars of fish product are 

 harvested annually, representing almost ten percent of the entire world's fish 

 supply. Economic models of the Bering Sea fisheries would need to be built to 

 estimate and distribute these potentially catastrophic losses among the tens of 

 thousands of fishermen, processors, boat owners, wholesalers, retailers, and the 

 hundreds of thousands of consumers, all of whom directly benefit from the Bering 

 Sea's bounty. 



