51 



strong public relations overtones appearing to be immediately prag- 

 matic. RANN may not be curtailed by its own mandates or resources, 

 or whatever it is, but it almost always reacts as to whether it will upset 

 or be upset by EPA or the Corps of Engineers or some other man- 

 agement group. 



Senator HollixcxS. "What about research within the Department of 

 the Interior? Do you think, as an independent observer, Interior is 

 capable of carying on the research necessary for the coastal zone 

 development ? 



Dr. TuREKiAx. Interior is just one Department that does work 

 in-house. I don't mean to attack the work being done in-house by 

 organizations capable of doing this, like NOAA and Interior or who- 

 ever else does this. These are competent outfits and they do competent 

 work in these areas, but both of those organizations, as well as the 

 others who don't have strong in-house capabilities, talk about out- 

 house work. 



They talk about involving universities, and other research orga- 

 nizations, but it is complex trying to get money from these agencies 

 to do work universities are most capable of doing. Universities don't 

 primarily go out and measure the level of a pollutant. That is not 

 their job. Their job really is essentially to brainstorm and think about 

 the problem and get people out there working who are aggressive, 

 active young people who are going to be the future managers and 

 scientists in these organizations. 



Senator IIollixgs. How would you coordinate in a better fashion, 

 Doctor? What would you do among them all? Are you suggesting 

 there should be better coordination ? 



Dr. TuREKiAX. I am not sure coordination is the important thing. 

 I think if there is competition, which I approve of, that it should 

 not be detrimental to the support of pure research. 



Everybody should not trv so hard to be involved with the decision- 

 making process as to what should be done in a coastal area that they 

 are afraid of supporting apparently nonfocused research. 



For example, we have been doing work in Long Island Sound for 

 a long time, long before it was a popular thing, and a lot of the deci- 

 sions about the properties of coastal Avatere came to us from those 

 preliminary studies. Dr. Bostwick Ketchum did the same thing else- 

 where 20 years ago. Now, there is a danger that agencis are not 

 accessible to requests for further funding for such types of research. 



I don't mean that one can't get money. Don't misunderstand that, 

 but the funding agencies seem ahvays to want the proposal to be 

 phrased to answer questions like : "Gan you find a plutonium problem 

 outside a reactor?" or some other highly focused question. I want to 

 study what will happen if you dump plutonium in the oceans gen- 

 erally. This is a more substantive approach to the solution to prob- 

 lems on the long run. 



Senator Hollixgs. Unfetterd research. 



Dr. Tt^rekiax. In a general area of the problem. I don't mean you 

 take out big piles of money and give it to people and say, "Go off, and 

 whatever you come up with, you come up with." 



I would like to worry about the coastal zone, and that is to brain- 

 storm it, and not give you a bunch of numbers which you can put into 

 some sort of an environmental quality report. 



