590 
— 32- 
How can one determine whether site monitoring is possible 
(other than depth limitation standards) and what periodic 
monitoring requirements are appropriate and necessary absent 
site-specific and basin-specific assessments? Keliance on 
international guidance alone that is focused on the Northeast 
Atlantic site certainly won't provide the needed information. 
At the risk of relying on undocumented assertions, it is 
widely accepted that the ocean is not a homogenous environment: 
normal or ambient concentrations of marine radioactivity from 
natural sources and human activity vary; biological food enews: 
currents and physical transport mechanisms and other processes 
vary. Given these and other variations and discontinuities that 
are peculiar to specific regions of the ocean, it is essential 
that site-specific monitoring of “test" sites precede any change 
of existing U.S. policy. 
Two additional examples of the value that would result from 
monitoring "test" sites (as well as past dumpsites) are the 
development of (1) a complete inventory of all radionuclides 
deposited in the ocean by human activity; and (2) improvement of 
the technical adequacy of models, based on empirical data, 
that will allow radiation exposure to the marine environment 
and man to be calculated with greater reliability and accuracy. 
Both of these concerns have been emphasized repeatedly -- both 
internationally and domestically. 
