86 



Perhaps there are areas in which we cannot work with the Rus- 

 sians, and I need to understand that. But I do not have that an- 

 swer now and I would appreciate it if you could help me get that, 

 if you do not have an answer now, which I assume you do not. 



Ms. Goodman. I am not personally familiar with it but I will get 

 you the answer. I do know that under the auspices of the Depart- 

 ment of Energy, a Russian delegation has been to Hanford and I 

 will look into this invitation. 



Mr. Weldon. I will give you a copy of the letter. Thank you. 



Mr. Kennedy. 



Mr. Kennedy. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 



I wanted to ask Ms. Goodman about the statement that you 

 made about the Department studies indicate the immediate threat 

 to human health and the food chain in the Arctic is negligible. 

 What is that based upon, what assessment? 



Ms. Goodman. That is based on the studies that have been con- 

 ducted by the Office of Naval Research, which Admiral Pelaez will 

 address, as well as other research conducted by Russia and Nor- 

 way. As I also said in my next sentence, that is not necessarily a 

 sign for complacency. It is an indication that there is not an imme- 

 diate risk to human health and that most of what we can detect 

 today is localized as opposed to spreading throughout the Arctic. 



But there is reason to continue to understand the Arctic environ- 

 ment better, particularly to understand the impact of chemicals 

 and persistent organic pollutants. Those are as important, perhaps 

 more important in their environmental effect than the radioactive 

 contaminants. 



Mr. Kennedy. How is this measured, can you tell me? How are 

 these assessments made? Can you give me a description of how the 

 study was conducted? 



Ms. Goodman. There were a whole series of studies, and what 

 I would like to do is ask Admiral Pelaez in his testimony to address 

 that so that he can give you the best technically accurate state- 

 ment on that. 



Mr. Kennedy. That is terrific. Thank you. 



If I could just ask Dr. Hecht, what you were talking about was 

 essentially how prospectively we keep this stuff from ever getting 

 dumped to begin with, just so that we can understand what your 

 testimony was, because I think it is confusing for us, talking about 

 ocean dumping, when we are thinking about all the sites out there, 

 to distinguish between what has been dumped and what you are 

 working on doing and that is building a facility so that they do not 

 ever have to dump it. They put it and process it in the facility. 



I applaud your efforts, but I just wanted to make that very clear, 

 because the threat of contamination spreading is as much a part 

 of keeping the thing from ever being dumped as it is keeping what 

 has already been dumped from spreading. It may seem like I am 

 splitting hairs here, but it was not clear to me. I think it is impor- 

 tant for the committee later on to understand what you are doing 

 is prospective and it is not looking back at what has already been 

 done. 



Dr. Hecht. You are quite correct. I think in stages, thanks to the 

 report of Dr. Yablokov, and I think you really cannot underesti- 

 mate the importance of that white paper, we have the history of 



