591 
-33- 
Concerning the need for an inventory of all radionuclides -- 
which GAO acknowledges without recommending any corrective mea- 
Wee several contracting parties to the LDC, including 
the United States, have recommended since at least 1978 that IAEA 
take the lead in preparing such an inventory so that "an estimate 
of the capacity of the marine environment to accept the radioactive 
waste from all sources can be developed." (emphasis in aetna ee 
At the recently concluded Sixth Consultative Meeting, the IAEA 
representative advised the contracting parties that no such inven- 
tory effort has been initiated, and that IAEA's near-term future 
work program did not contemplate such work being started unless 
the Contracting Parties performed those data gathering tasks them- 
ee Domestically, the EPA has advised the Congress of the 
importance of such an inventory, stating at the November 1980 hear- 
ing that “[{b]aseline monitoring is particularly important to pro- 
vide information about the normal or ambient concentrations of 
marine radioactivity against which to measure the impact of any 
future radioactive waste ase 
With respect to the need for improved models, based on 
empirical data that comes from monitoring, a principal focus of 
the NEA's Environmental Surveillance Program is "to define a 
coordinated research and environmental surveillance programme-plan 
Q6/ sels 
87/ Third Consultative Meeting of Contracting DEIeELSS OQ eae we, 
Intergovernmental Maritime Organization (IMO), 9-13 OGzEobes 19/78), 
LD€ III/WP.1 (statement by CanaGa). 
5=9 October 1981, Para. 7.6. 
