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have also brought copies of the Arctic Contamination Research and Assessment 

 Program detailed description which includes budget figures for the various agencies 

 who wish to participate in the program. 



This program envisions an attack on four key classes of contaminant in the Arctic: ♦ 

 persistent organic compounds, trace and heavy metals, radionuclides and chronic 

 hydrocarbon contaminants. The Program is based on an integrated, comprehensive 

 assessment including: 



Data and information management, data rescue and synthesis; 



Observations; 



Process-oriented research; 



Model development; and 



Impact analysis and determination of risk. 



Although constructed by lARPC to meet the nation's needs and approved by the office 

 of the President, the plan is not included in budget requests nor is it, as far as I can tell, 

 included in any way in Congressional budget initiatives. The Office of Naval 

 Research's Arctic Nuclear Waste Assessment Program has not been funded this year 

 and that program will be rapidly winding down. The result is that the United States will 

 have no organized program for the study of contaminants in the Arctic. 



The Federal agencies have not remained passively on the sidelines even though the 

 lARPC Initiative was not supported. We can look to one planned, two current and one 

 recent agency activity focussed on Arctic contamination. These are: The NOAA 

 Coastal Arctic Initiative, AEPS, SCICEX and AMAP. 



The NOAA Coastal Arctic Initiative: The planned activity is the NOAA Coastal Arctic 

 Initiative, i have brought with me a few of the summary discussion notices of the NOAA 

 Coastal Arctic Initiative. This program is focussed on the problems affecting the coast 

 of the Arctic including the following activities: 



Memoranda of Understanding for cooperation in the initiative between NOAA 



and other Federal and State of Alaska agencies; 



Formal accords and other arrangements for involvement in the initiative of the 



North Slope Borough and regional organizations; 



Preliminary assessment of the current extent and magnitude of contamination 



and biological effects in the US Arctic; 



Microcomputer-based information management and delivery system for the 



Arctic for officials, international organizations and students; 



Establishment of a long-term environmental and ecosystem monitoring network 



in the US Arctic; 



Establishment of an Alaskan Early Warning System so that catastrophic events 



can be monitored; 



Integrated modeling of contaminant transport and exposure pathways, especially 



