569 
=jLil= 
2M, 
EPA's task a virtual impossibility." Thus, the Report 
qualifies EPA's efforts to gather information as adequate. 
While there does exist some information to dispute this claim, 
more importantly there is a significant distinction between EPA 
exercising an adequate effort under the circumstances, and EPA 
having the necessary information to sufficiently analyze actual 
or potential hazards of the past program and make future policy. 
This distinction is one that the GAO Report overlooked. 
After repeatedly showing that the nature, amounts and loca- 
tions of waste dumped at sea are unknown, the Report still finds 
that "DEFICIENCIES IN THE AVAILABLE DATA HAVE LITTLE IMPACT ON 
DETERMINING WHETHER THE WASTES PRESENT POTENTIAL ENVIRONMENTAL 
OR PUBLIC HEALTH cane aunass tis It is difficult to understand 
how this conclusion can be drawn from an equation with so many 
unknowns. Certainly, assumptions can be made as to the magnitude 
of those unknowns, but it must be acknowledged that in a situation 
where a number of unknown factors are involved, errors in assump- 
tions can have an impact on determining consequences. 
One critical assumption the GAO Report makes concerning the 
nature of nuclear waste dumped is a particularly pertinent example 
of the preceding argument, i.e., that all waste dumped was low- 
level waste. The term "low-level" implies that there is a lower 
risk factor involved in dumping this material than in dumping 
materials classified as high-level or transuranic waste. But, 
the terms of reference in the Report are not always so strictly 
21/ GAO Report, supra note 3, at 9. 
OD Ed at Te 
11-267 O—82——37 
