104 



and that program will be rapidly winding down as the currently 

 appropriated funds are expended. The result is that the United 

 States will have no organized program for the study of contami- 

 nants in the Arctic. 



The Federal agencies have not remained passively on the side- 

 lines even though the initiative was not passed, and we can look 

 to two other programs, one ongoing and one proposed. The ongoing 

 program is the scientific ice experiment, SCICEX. The Arctic Re- 

 search Commission coordinated the signing of an MOA between the 

 Navy, the National Science Foundation, NOAA, NSF, and the U.S. 

 Geological Survey for a program of annual deployments of a Navy 

 nuclear submarine into the Arctic Ocean. 



This program, known as SCICEX, conducts an ambitious sci- 

 entific program and in 1995 has just finished its program in the 

 summertime. Four civilian scientists sailed in the USS Cavalla 

 from Pearl Harbor through the Bering Strait and into the Arctic 

 Ocean. The scientific program occupied 44 days and covered a track 

 of 10,800 nautical miles. The 1996 expedition is under active plan- 

 ning. It will sail in the coming summer on the USS Pogey. 



These studies represent the best way that intermediate and 

 wide-ranging surveys can be carried out in the Arctic Ocean. The 

 mobility and endurance of the nuclear submarine makes it a re- 

 search platform without peer. The limited availability, the small 

 size of the science party, and the limitations in onboard working 

 space are obstacles which the scientific community has worked 

 hard to overcome with the outgoing and thorough cooperation of 

 the Navy and the active and enthusiastic participation of the sub- 

 marine's officers and crew. 



This is a unique activity for civilian science and it has gone ex- 

 tremely well and yielded important results which are entering the 

 literature now. The oceanography meeting of the American Geo- 

 physical Union and ASLO, the American Society of Luminology and 

 Oceanography, next February will have a session on Arctic ocean- 

 ography every one of the 5 days. 



We need to exploit this opportunity fully. The NOAA coastal Arc- 

 tic initiative is a planned initiative, and I sent over to you the 

 NOAA one-pager on that. There are more detailed descriptions of 

 the plans and I think they are still evolving, so I am not going to 

 go into any detail with them, but they do include integrated model- 

 ing of contaminant transport, establishment of an Alaska early 

 warning system, the assessment of contaminated coastal sites, and 

 an evaluation of risk to all comers. 



You have asked about international cooperation and we want to 

 reinforce what has been said about the Arctic environmental pro- 

 tection strategy. I will not go into any details on AEPS, but it is 

 the view of the Arctic Research Commission and the Interagency 

 Arctic Research and Policy Committee that that is a major forum 

 for our international collaboration in understanding contamination 

 in the Arctic. 



Mr. Chairman, the Nation needs an integrated program to study 



fundamental questions in the Arctic, such as the paths by which 



"materials of all kinds are transported in the Arctic and the proc- 



ss which can transfer contaminants from one transport path to 



