44 



sponsibility for its own waste and its own debris, so that is at least 

 a useful point of departure. Thank you. 



Mr. Underwood. Thank you. 



Mr. Weldon. Thank you, Mr. Underwood. 



Mr. Kennedy from Rhode Island. 



Mr. Kennedy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 



When facing the problem, it seems to me first you do an inven- 

 tory of the problem and you do a risk assessment. To me, I just 

 want to clarify some of the questions that have been raised so far 

 as to what you have participated in and what we have done as a 

 country. 



As I understand it, the International Atomic Energy Agency has 

 already begun an assessment of the radioactive contamination due 

 to dumped radioactive waste in the Barents and Kara Seas, is that 

 not the case? So there is already cooperation between your govern- 

 ments and ours in determining just to what extent there is this 

 dumping that has already taken place. 



Am I to conclude from this that we have some pretty hard data 

 from your slides that you showed of where there are problems and 

 how much waste there actually is? We have scientific data on that, 

 am I right? 



Dr. Yablokov. Yes. 



Mr. Kennedy. So it seems to me what we need to continue to do 

 is determine to what extent in the future that is going to become 

 a problem, and it requires the best scientific kind of evaluation of 

 where these radionuclides are and other toxic waste sites are and 

 what is the possibility of them spreading, so you sort of do a risk 

 assessment. 



So what I am asking you is, is not this already taking place? I 

 mean, I see the Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program has al- 

 ready been up and its report is due this spring. I understand it is 

 done in conjunction with your countries. It is an intercountry group 

 that is doing this. They will be able to issue a report that will say 

 pretty specifically where there are problems and what the hier- 

 archy of our interest should be in terms of which problems we need 

 to solve first, am I right? 



I mean, are we going to get a pretty good map here? Not only 

 do we have a map of all the sites, but we also have a map of which 

 sites, in an order of priority, we would want to go after first as op- 

 posed to second or down the road. So that would answer my col- 

 league's question as to where would we spend the money first if we 

 had it. Is that pretty much the case? 



So what I would like to hear from you, given the cooperation that 

 seems has already taken place between our two countries, is where 

 do we have an agreed-upon approach of the technical capabilities 

 that we share in this world for determining what the extent of a 

 given problem is and what the best technology is for mitigating 

 that problem, whether it is capping it or excavating it and dumping 

 it someplace else. To what extent do you think there can be com- 

 mon agreement on that issue, of what is the best way to go about 

 this? 



I want to hear your acceptance of my premise, and that is we 

 have already got the map and we already have a list of priorities 

 as to which are the hot spots and which are not. Am I to under- 



