164 OCEANOGRAPHY 



aspect of biology now or at any time. The only way in which species 

 can be identified is through the long study and concerted judgment 

 of the person who has become thoroughly familiar with the particular 

 organisms with which he is concerned. 



There is no computer, no electronic brain that can take care of these 

 data. The only way they can be handled is by utilization of the most 

 complicated computer known and that is the human brain. For this 

 we need a great many more of them in this line. 



I have touched briefly of some of the points I mentioned in my pre- 

 pared statement. If there are any questions, I should be glad to tiy to 

 answer them. 



Mr. DiNGELL. Your statement has been most helpful to the commit- 

 tee this morning. 



Mr. Baiter. As a biologist, Dr. Ray, are you concerned with the 

 disposal of atomic wastes in the Columbia River where I understand 

 2,500 curies a day are going into the river at Hanford and 1,000 curies 

 a day coming out of tlie mouth of the river ^ Would you talk to that ? 



Dr. Ray. Speaking as a biologist, we cannot help but have concern; 

 that is true. I think anyone who knows that any amount of radiation, 

 especially at these levels, enters the ocean or any body of water at any 

 point, must be concerned for what the eft'ect of these substances may be 

 on the living organisms in the vicinity. 



I have no direct contact with the production or the dispersal of 

 these materials. I have no personal knowledge of the situation as it 

 exists in the Columbia River. I can only say as an interested biologist 

 in the general area that to the best of my knowledge we do not have 

 the amount of information that we ought to have to determine what 

 is going on in terms of the effect of the thousand curies a day, let us 

 say, coming out of the mouth of the Columbia River. There may be 

 studies in ])rogress that have not come to our attention at the univer- 

 sity and it may be that the people at Hanford or others working 

 through the Atomic Energy Commission are carrying on studies that 

 are not public knowledge, but to the best of my information there is 

 not the kind of daily or continuing study monitoring what substances 

 are entering the ocean and what is happening to them that I feel as 

 a biologist should be going on. 



Mr. Bauer. Are 3'ou familiar with the work of Dr. Erling Ordal? 



Dr. Ray. Yes. 



Mr. Bauer. Would you tell us a little bit about his observations of 

 mutations of Chondrococcus columnarisf 



Dr. Ray. Cliondrococcus columnoHs is a bacterium belonging to the 

 general group of myxobacteria w^iich are present in many bodies of 

 water, both marine and fresh. 



It is an organism that has been seen on a few occasions in the past in 

 certain rivers in the United States. I believe it was first identified in 

 some branches of the Mississippi River. At any rate, during the 

 summer of 1042 Dr. Ordal was interested in the fact that the salmon 

 in the Columbia River, many of them became violently ill and a very 

 large death resulted, a mass mortality of the salmon in the river. This 

 was repeated at a number of intervals of time and he became more 

 interested in the phenomenon in the early 1950's and began to^ look at 

 it rather carefully. As a microlnologist with a broad biological back- 

 ground, he was interested in the causative agent and was the first one 

 able to identify and to isolate the bacterium (hat caused the disease, to 



