RADIOACTIVE WASTE DISPOSAL OVERSIGHT 



THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 20, 1980 



House of Representatives, 

 Subcommittee on Oceanography, 

 Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries, 



Washington, D.C. 



The subcommittee met, pursuant to notice, at 10:20 a.m., in room 

 1334, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Gerry E. Studds, 

 chairman, presiding. 



Present: Representatives Studds, Anderson, Hughes, Mikulski, 

 Akaka, Forsythe, Pritchard, and Carney. 



Mr. Studds. The subcommittee will come to order. 



Today's hearing will focus on the environmental implications of 

 the ocean disposal of radioactive waste. The possibility that high 

 level wastes will be emplaced in the deep seabed is currently under 

 study by the Department of Energy. Low level wastes have, in 

 years past, been routinely discarded in U.S. waters, and are cur- 

 rently being dumped under regulated conditions by several nations 

 overseas. 



We hope today to discuss the extent to which we understand the 

 effects of radioactive waste dumping on the marine environment, 

 and to identify areas in which we do not know enough to make a 

 reasoned judgment about the wisdom of allowing ocean disposal of 

 such waste in future years. 



We are concerned today with two distinct types of radioactive 

 wastes — high level — including, for example, the long-lived and ex- 

 tremely toxic elements found in spent fuel rods from nuclear 

 powerplants — and low level — less radioactive materials such as con- 

 taminated hospital and laboratory equipment. The most likely dis- 

 posal techniques for the two differ greatly, as we shall hear 

 shortly. 



Beginning immediately after World War II until the late sixties, 

 the United States, as a matter of public policy, routinely permitted 

 the ocean dumping of low-level wastes. These materials were 

 placed in 55-gallon steel drums lined with concrete and towed to 

 vaguely determined sites, from Massachusetts Bay to the Farallon 

 Islands off San Francisco. Unfortunately, since they were consid- 

 ered to be useless garbage, their precise location and contents were 

 not recorded. In recent years, the Environmental Protection 

 Agency has been able to locate only a minute percentage of these 

 drums, some of which were damaged and leaking. 



We hope today to be able to discuss at length the findings of both 

 EPA and others to date, the plans for future monitoring of these 

 sites, and the likelihood of future ocean dumping of low-level 

 wastes. Several European nations, incidentally, are currently 



(247) 



