499 



acceptable technique . . ." And, at the outset of the 1977 effort, he said, "We need 

 to learn how long the drums will last, and how to improve the packages." While 

 omitting tests on the shelled seafood, and failing to retrieve a new kind of giant 

 sponge which grows on the Farallons barrels, the EPA did manage to recover one 

 intact drum. This was sent to Brookhaven National Laboratories to aid in designing 

 a new, so-called approved container — an obvious prelude to more ocean dumping. 



These suspicions are confirmed by a June 30, 1978 Office of Science and Technol- 

 ogy Policy (OSTP) draft report. It describes a seven-million dollar study started in 

 1974 by the Federal Government in conjunction with Sandia Corporation and the 

 Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute. And the results of this work is contained in a 

 seventy-page issue of Ocean us magazine from Woods Hole, Volume 20, Number 1, 

 Winter 1977, entitled "High-level Nuclear Wastes in the Seabed?" 



The topics included in the contents are: "Burying Faust, Disposing of High-Level 

 Radioactive Waste, The Seabed Option, Barriers to Radioactive Migration, Physical 

 Processes in Deep-Sea Clays, Abyssal Communities and Radioactive waste Disposal, 

 and Seabed Emplacement and Political Reality." From the first subject, an editorial, 

 reference is made to what is regarded by some as "the Faustian nature of the 

 disposal bargain — present advantage in return for liability stretching millenia into 

 the future." The editor also says that "We have not solved . . . the problem of 

 permanent disposal . . . Where? . . . there is disagreement among the experts." And, 

 "Terrestrial disposal may prove feasible or it may not. The search for alternatives is 

 on, some of it at sea. Several scientists have spent the past three years (1974-1977) 

 investigating the sub-seabed in certain deeps. . . . They do not now advocate 

 emplacement of high-level radioactive wastes in those abyssal clays, but they have 

 not encountered anything that would automatically rule out such disposal. . . . We 

 are surrounded by poisons of our own making, some extremely dangerous and long 

 lived. We have not dealt with them well, witness our belated awakening to the 

 threat of 'environmentally caused' cancers. Perhaps radioactive waste, with its 

 almost archetypal ability to inspire fear, can sharpen our sensing of reality." 



In "The Seabed Option" (page 25), Mr. Hollister of Woods Hole says that "there 

 appears to be no scientific or technical reason to abandon the seabed disposal 

 concept at this time." This is claimed despite the admission (page 31) that "It is 

 assumed that the canister will develop cracks or leaks after a few hundred years." 

 And, "... the waste elements must not be allowed to escape from the seabed for a 

 million years." On page 27, the canister is described: "When newly filled, such 

 canisters will give off 10 to 30 kilowatts of heat as well as radiation so intense that 

 anyone foolish enough to spend even a second at a distance of 3 feet from the 

 canister would be exposed to as much radiation as the NRC presently permits 

 people working with radioactive materials to receive during their entire lifetimes." 

 And, "Their (Sandia Laboratories) best estimate at present is that material capable 

 of confining the wastes for a few thousand years can be found, if reasonable 

 temperature levels are maintained (not greater than 200 degrees Centigrade). Again, 

 this is far from the minimum of a million years of total containment that is 

 needed." He (Mr. G. Ross Heath) concludes that "The gaps in our knowledge 

 considerably exceed the facts in hand when it comes to deciding whether High-Level 

 wastes can be safely contained in the seabed of the deep ocean." Once again we are 

 being asked to rely on hopeful expectations that future designs will deliver us from 

 our continued creation of the problem today. 



In the same report (page 40), Mr. Arnold J. Silva of the University of Rhode 

 Island says "At this stage of the program, we do not know whether the unlithified 

 sediments of the deep seabed form an effective barrier to contain high-level wastes." 

 (After they have leaded from the breached 100-year canisters . . .) 



With respect to environmental impact, Hessler of Scrips Institute and Jumass of 

 the University of Washington say (page 46): "The fauna (involving the abyssal 

 bottom) is likely to be sensitive to minor environmental perterbations, and would 

 require a very long time to recover. Nor is its isolation so complete as to preclude 

 the possibility of biological transfer of harmful substances if radionuclide leakage 

 were to accidentally occur. . . . the amount of available data on the deep-sea 

 community is very small, much too small to form a sufficient base for such an 

 important conclusion. ... To date, nothing is known about the ways in which deep- 

 sea organisms will respond to exposure to radionuclides." It appears that Mr. 

 Hollister' s optimism is not substanciated by other data further along in the same 

 Oceanus report. 



Despite the above scientific unsolved problems. Congress was told at a Merchant 

 Marine and Fisheries subcommittee hearing (May 15, 1978) that the DOE and the 

 NRC feel ocean disposal of nuclear wastes deserves continued investigation. Sheldon 

 Meyers, director of material safety for the NRC, said the commission staff is 

 beginning preliminary work to assess the risk of seabed disposal. He said it is an 



