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But as I said and as other witnesses have said, there are a num- 

 ber of other issues which we need to address, and there needs to 

 be, and I think Ms. Goodman stated it as well, a sustaining pro- 

 gram of monitoring. I think that we are well on the road with the 

 tools that we have to be able to do that, understand when some- 

 thing happens what the impact might be, how much time we have 

 to react, what the technical challenges might be in dealing with 

 that. It is a complex problem and it does require sort of a continu- 

 ing effort as we work also to control and prevent the release of fur- 

 ther toxic wastes. 



Mr. Weldon. Admiral and others on the panel, has part of your 

 function been to monitor the Komsomolets and any problems there, 

 or is that not within the jurisdiction and it has not been a part of 

 what has happened in terms of our work? 



Admiral Pelaez. None of our direct measurements were on that 

 site. 



Dr. Brass. I can comment briefly, Mr. Chairman, that my under- 

 standing is from the other international participants in these kinds 

 of programs that for the moment, at least, there appears to be no 

 significant release from Komsomolets, but, of course, all of these 

 problems involve the fact that we do not know enough about the 

 corruption of reactor vessels, fuel rod cladding. There are two nu- 

 clear torpedoes in Komsomolets, as we understand it. We do not 

 know what their corrosion resistance is, how long they will last. 



Admiral Pelaez. Mr, Chairman, I think it is fair to say, though, 

 that from the sites we have visited, even where there was breach 

 of containment of some of the storage vessels, in some cases, in 

 fact, they shot them full of holes to make them sink, even after 

 they went through some precautions to contain the material, the 

 release has been localized, very local in nature so far. So we are 

 very fortunate in the nature of these types of materials, that they 

 tend to be trapped into sediment and they do tend to stay in the 

 near vicinity of the release. 



Mr. Weldon. Did you want to add something. Dr. Gershwin? 



Dr. Gershwin. Yes. Certainly, CIA analysis would agree. I mean, 

 the worst thing you could do in a sense would be to try to raise 

 this thing. Leave it where it is. 



Mr. Weldon. There was some discussion. I have heard others 

 who say you should raise it 



Dr. Gershwin. No. 



Mr. Weldon [continuing]. But the bulk of the evidence I heard 

 is that that should not occur. I assume we are doing even a more 

 aggressive job in monitoring the Thresher and Scorpion. 



Admiral Pelaez. Yes. The U.S. Navy has a continuing program 

 and has had since the Thresher and Scorpion went down. 



Mr. Weldon. And no problems? 



Admiral Pelaez. No. 



Dr. Gershwin. Could I add a point, though, which is a general 

 problem we have in assessing all of this is that while we know the 

 sites and we have information on measurements and so on of the 

 situation in the ocean, what we really do not know is really what 

 is there. We do not know the composition of what has been 

 dumped. We do not know how much of it is leaking. I mean, there 

 is just a basic lack of information on our part on what the Russian 



