ADVANCEMENT OF MARINE SCIENCES 71 



During hearings on S. 2692 testimony was given by informed 

 witnesses on the dangers of contaminating the oceans or its tributary 

 waters with radioactive wastes. 



Mr. Sumner Pike, former member of the Atomic Energy Com- 

 mission and a member of the Committee on Oceanography, testified: 



I feel, and Dr. Spilhaus does, that we ought to know 

 what we are doing before we dump any amount of these 

 wastes in the ocean. Once it is done it is irreversible. We 

 ought to be very clear that if radioacitive wastes are to be 

 dumped in the ocean, they shoidd be dumped in such 

 places, at such times, and in such quantities onl}' that we 

 can prove to be completely harmless to the human race 

 and indeed to other forms of life because after all, the 

 human race depends upon other forms of life for its own 

 existence. 



Dr. Dayton E. Carritt, of the Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, 

 Md., who during the war was connected with the Manhattan project 

 at Los Alamos, N. Mex., and who is a member of the Committee on 

 Oceanography's panel on radioactivity in the oceans, testified: 



I have the unpression that a great manj^ people in this 

 countr}- and abroad, both scientists and lajTiien, feel that so 

 long as we do not deliberately add radioactive waste ma- 

 terials in the oceans, the oceans will remain free of all man- 

 made radioactive contamination. I am firmly convinced 

 that this is not so. 



That choice was lost when we, or in fact any nation, 

 embarked on a program utilizing the fission process as a 

 source of power production. 



Neglecting all considerations of fallout from the testing 

 and use of atomic bombs, we still are fenced then with tlic 

 generation of large quantities of radioactive materials in 

 present and proposed peaceful programs. These include the 

 use of radioactive materials in science and technolog}', the 

 development of land-based powerplants, and the develop- 

 ment of nuclear-powered submarmes and surface vessels. 



As presently developed, and as far as I can tell there can 

 only be minor changes in the foreseeable future, all of these 

 peaceful uses will result in certain quantities of radioactive 

 waste materials that must be released to our environment, 

 and which will inevitably find their way into the oceans. 



To be sure, the massive quantities of so-called high-level 

 wastes are and can be contained on land and so kept out of 

 man's immediate envu'onment. Nevertheless, there remain 

 rather large quantities, so far as bulk is concerned, of so- 

 called low-level wastes that cannot be handled as are the high- 

 level wastes. It is, I believe, safe to predict that regardless 

 of all the safety precautions taken, accidents will happen in 

 land-based powerplants, and nuclear vessels will be involved 

 in collisions and sinkings, all of wliich will contaminate the 

 world's oceans. 



I am fu'mly convinced that the basic cpestion that must be 

 answered is not shall we or shall we not release radioactive 



