451 



Now, do you consider the subseabed emplacement of high-level 

 wastes to be sea disposal, which is prohibited by the law and by the 

 convention? 



Mr. Mattson. Well, I don't want to give a simple answer to the 

 question, because I think you should understand that there is some 

 spread within Federal agencies to the answer to that question. 



Mr. Studds. We're getting that impression. 



Mr. Mattson. We have given for the record EPA's General Coun- 

 sel's opinion on the question of the prohibition of high-level waste 

 in or under the seabed, deriving both from the London Convention 

 and from U.S. laws. 



Personally, it would be my expectation that if anyone were to 

 begin to advocate the placement of high-level waste in or under the 

 ocean, that person would be well advised to bring it back to the 

 Congress. We would like to see it brought back to the Congress. 



Mr. Studds. To hire his or her own set of lawyers to enter the 

 fray? 



Mr. Mattson. Well, I would not like to see this question resolved 

 by being cute with the existing 



Mr. Studds. I understand. In other words, there's sufficient dis- 

 agreement to obviously make it an arguable proposition which 

 could stand some clarification by statute? 



Mr. Mattson. Yes. 



Well, for one thing, some of these approaches weren't around or 

 weren't being discussed, at the time the law was developed or at 

 the time the convention was written. 



Mr. Studds. I understand. 



Very quickly, you say on page 12 that you have also asked the 

 Department of Defense to determine whether it has additional 

 information. Has the Defense Department been forthcoming and 

 cooperative in that regard? 



Mr. Mattson. We have no indication that they won't be. I must 

 say that we haven't asked them until very recently. It had been my 

 general impression — and I think it was some other people's general 

 impression— that if we worked with the old AEC records, either in 

 the AEC laboratories or in the licensee's records, that we would get 

 everj^hing we wanted. 



In Congressman Moffett's hearings in California there were some 

 allegations made that we were unable to respond to. We have 

 written to the Department of Defense at the policy level asking for 

 what's in their records and an assessment of how good their rec- 

 ords are. That is, we don't want an answer that says "we don't 

 have any records." 



Mr. Studds. May I ask you to share that response with this 

 committee when you get it? 



Mr. Mattson. Of course. 



Mr. Studds. I share a little bit of the concern that Mr. Hughes 

 expressed. Can you tell us to what extent you sense a pressure of a 

 time nature from the Navy with regard to the likelihood of their 

 requesting permission to dispose of reactor containers from subma- 

 rines? 



Mr. Mattson. I sense the opposite. I think that the Navy needn't 

 be in any hurry to dispose of submarines. They're not going to rot 

 or fall apart. These are substantial machines and are constructed 



