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studying transport pathways of radioactive materials released 

 from these sources and relative risk to populations that may be 



exposed to radiation from any released 



EPA is the lead U.S. agency for the Environment Committee of 



the Gore-Chernoniyrdin Commission. The 



radioactive materials, 



Environment Committee of 



the GCC is the forum for facilitating Cooperative projects at the 

 highest levels in the U.S. and Russian} governments . The key 

 Arctic project in this forum is the Muirmansk Initiative, an 

 ongoing initiative that EPA, along with other federal agencies, 

 Norway and Russia is taking to address one of these problems. I 

 will describe this project to you in some detail later. 



U.S. concern for the potential impacts on Alaska of past 



radioactive waste dumping by the forme 

 a three year research, monitoring and 



r Soviet Union resulted in 

 assessment program, the 



Arctic Nuclear Waste Assessment Program (ANWAP) , which began in 

 1993 . Although this program will be covered in much greater 

 detail by scientific experts in later testimony, EPA is the lead 

 organization in two key studies: 



evaluation of the two key barrier materials used in the 

 packaging of the high-level radioactive waste dumped in 

 the Kara Sea (furfurol and special steels) , 



the immobilization poten 



tial 



of sediments m the Kara 



