EFFECTIVENESS OF THE COMMITTEE ON OCEANOGRAPHY 79 



[OSA No. 1595, for immediate release, Jan. 2, 1062] 



The design contract for a Department of Health, Education, and Welfare facility 

 in Mobile, Ala., has been awarded to two Mobile firms, the General Services Ad- 

 ministration has announced. 



The Shellfish Sanitation Research Center will conduct research into sanitation 

 aspects of the harvesting and marketing of shellfish. 



Plans and specifications for the complex of laboratories and offices that will 

 provide approximately 10,300 gross square feet of space are to be prepared by 

 J. B. Converse & Co., Inc., and Harry Inge Johnstone by early spring. A limit 

 of cost of $508,000 has been set for the project. 



Mr. Lennon. Now I will yield to you. 



Mr. Dingell. Well, the chairman will recognize that you have 

 been very patient. Mr. Morse. 



Mr. Morse. I have no questions. 



Mr. Dingell. Mr. Pelly? 



Counsel? 



Now, I want to get away from this shellfish situation, but before 

 I do, I want to read a section I received from the letter directed to 

 me by Secretary Udall on this point. It says here: 



We have many years experience at Milford, and know the water conditions 

 there are favorable for culture of oyster and clam larvae. We do not know 

 whether the sea water at Kingston, R.I., is equally satisfactory. 



Now that sounds to me like you didn't look at Kingston, R.I., to 

 see whether it was satisfactory in determining whether or not you 

 were going to combine the facilities. Am I correct, on the face of 

 the Secretary's letter? 



Mr. McKernan. Now, if you would allow me to explain, I am 

 very familiar with this particular letter. Our point here is that at 

 Milford, Conn., we have carried out years of research work. We 

 have been working on oysters in this particular location for years. It 

 is in the center, or was in the center of a thriving oyster industry. 



Now, we know, for example, that this particular water is very 

 favorable to the culturing, artificial culturing of clam and oyster 

 larvae, and we have successfully done this within this laboratory. We 

 have accomplished some very wonderful things, I think, in the case 

 of handling shellfish. 



We don't know, in this Kingston area, that we could culture oysters 

 with the same degree of success that we are having here; furthermore, 

 it would take quite a lot of tune, and a lot of facilities, if we were to 

 find out whether we can successfully spawn oysters at any time of 

 the year, whether we could raise the larvae successfully in Kingston. 



Mr. Dingell. Doesn't that indicate to you that you have not made 

 a proper scrutiny, when it says, "We do not know what the water 

 conditions are"? Doesn't that indicate that there hasn't been a 

 proper scrutiny of the water conditions to determine whether or not 

 we could save the taxpayers some money? 



Mr. McKernan. Mr. Chairman, I would submit that it would 

 probably take us 2 or 3 years to find this out. We would have to set 

 up some sort of a field installation at this location to find out whether 

 it would accomplish the same thing that we are accomplishing at 

 Millford. This is what we intended to convey in this particular letter. 

 We intended to convey this as directly as we could, but I don't think 

 it means that we were not willing to cooperate with another agency. 

 Quite the contrary; we are. 



