373 



If there is no further business to come before the coniinittee, the 

 •committee will stand adjourned until 10 o'clock tomorrow morning. 

 (The documents mentioned follows:) 



;Risks of Radioactive Pollution of the Oceans — Jekold M. Lowenstein, As- 

 sociate Clinical Pkofessob of Medicine, Radioactivity Reseakch Center, 

 University of California, San Francisco, California, U.S.A., Member, Board 

 of Directors Oceanic Society — Presented at International Colloquium on 

 THE Exploration of the Oceans, Bordeaux, France, March 9-12, 1971. 



At a recent meeting of the United. Nations Food and Agriciiltui-e Organiza- 

 tion in Rome, it was reported tliat all types of pollutants in the ocean are in- 

 creasing except for radioactivity. The report was widely disseminated in the 

 news media and probably reassui-ed millions of people who are concerned about 

 the dangers of radioactivity in the environment. This happy situation can last 

 only a short time. The major source of radioactive pollution of the oceans now 

 Is nuclear fallout due to atomic weapons testing in the atmosphere, which has 

 been decreasing for the past ten years, since the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. stopped 

 atmospheric testing. Veiy soon, however, this trend will be reversed because of 

 resumed atmospheric testing of nuclear weapons by other nations, and because 

 of the increasing numbers of nuclear power plants and nuclear ships in opera- 

 tion. Within a generation, we may be seeing serious radiation effects on ocean 

 ecology and human health. 



Due to fallout that will continue for another generation from nuclear weapons 

 already tested, the world's oceans have already been contaminated with ap- 

 proximately twenty million curies of strontlum-90 and cesium-137, isotopes with 

 lialf-iives of thirty years, which enter the metabolic cycles of all living orga- 

 nisms (1). There are, at present, measurable amounts of these two radioactive 

 isotopes in all living creatures, including man. There is considerable scientific 

 controversy as to the "safe" concentration of these materials, or whether there is 

 a safe concentration. But it is important to realize that if at some point we 

 should decide that the "safe" concentration has been exceeded, we must then 

 wait at least 30 years for that amount to be reduced by fifty percent. 



Present levels, whether safe or not, are low indeed compared with those that 

 may be projected to the end of the century. Until now, nuclear i>ower has been 

 largely experimental, but by 1980 there are expected to be about 100 plants of 

 1000 megawatt capacity in operation. Under present U.S. regulations, the allow- 

 able release of radioactive materials into coolant water will be 22,000 curies 

 per year. The nuclear industry claims it is only releasing 2.5% of the allowed 

 amount, but it violently opposes any downward change in the regulations. The 

 direct discharge, however, accounts for less than one hundred millionth of the 

 total radioactive wastes, which are either stored in tanks as corrosive liquids that 

 will boil for more than a hundred years, or incorporated into .glassy materials 

 and stored in abandoned salt mines. By 19S0, it is estimated that ten trillion 

 curies of accumulated wastes will be stored, of which one trillion will be stron- 

 tium-90 (2). Although precautions are taken to prevent these lethal and long- 

 lived radioactive poisons from entering the environment, a number of storage 

 tanks have already developed leaks, and the heat from wastes stored in salt 

 mines have been observed to deform the walls of the mines and raise the ground 

 temperature at the surface by several degrees. Inevitably some of these radioiso- 

 topes will find their way into the world's waters and into the hydrobiosphere. 



What I have said so far takes the most optimistic view of future radioactive 

 pollution, for it assumes that present U.S. standards will be adhered to, and that 

 there will be no major accidents. But some other nations already have less 

 rigorous controls of nuclear wastes, and it cannot be expected that developing 

 nations, which are viewed as possible customers for nuclear power plants ex- 

 ported by the advanced nations, will adhere to waste disposal techniques which 

 are expensive and require a high level of technology. With regard to accidents, 

 even at the present minimum stage of nuclear activity, there have been several 

 major blow-ups (at Windscale, England; Chalk River, Canada; and Colorado, 

 U.S.A., for examples) which spilled vast quantities of radioisotopes into the sur- 

 rounding areas. With the extreme safety-consciousness of the nuclear industry. 

 I think it fair to predict that major accidents will be rare — but serious, for un- 

 like other industrial explosions, the radioactive hazard may persist for months 



