60 



Senator Hollings. Thank you both very much for coming all this 

 way. We are going to leave this record open for some of our other 

 colleagues who may have questions to submit to you by letter. 



Thank you veiy much. 



[The statement follows:] 



Conditions Contboltno Coastal Pot.lution Suggested by Studies of Extremely 

 Small Tbaces of Radioactivity Near Baja, Calif., by T. R. Folmom, Soledad 

 Mountain Laboratory, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, 

 Calif. 



introduction 



Many of us who live on the Pacific Coast are uneasy about the gigantic popula- 

 tions that are expected. Large amounts of power will be required and large 

 amounts of wastes will be generated. Traditionally, along any sea coast, wastes 

 go into the sea unles>» strong objections are raised. In recent years, many people 

 have given serious consideration to means for controlling wastes so that the 

 best possible use may be made of the coastal environment. The oceanographer is 

 often asked how the ocean might respond to increased burdens of wastes. Each 

 specialist has his own manner of attacking this general problem ; there are some 

 of us at the Scripps Institution who have specialized in methods for following 

 radioactive traces in moving water masses and in living marine organisms. 

 Some of the specialized procedures are extremely sensitive, detecting minute 

 amounts of radioactive materials. This sensitivity, of course, may be used for 

 giving warning, at the earliest possible moment, that a new radioactive con- 

 stituent has entered the environment, or that a familiar one has increased in 

 concentration. 



Radiometric methods have been used for surveying coastal and oceanic regions 

 for many purposes. Inspection of local areas near nuclear power plants for 

 radioactive contaminations is a well-recognized routine. But it is not widely 

 known how much becomes involved when surveys of this sort are pushed to 

 their extremes so as to derive information as to what may happen in the future 

 over wide areas. It is the purpose of this paper to list a few of the problems that 

 must be faced, to describe some of the controlling features of the oceans that 

 must be recognized, and also to describe some of the behavior of its organisms 

 that must be considered whenever coastal environmental conditions are to be 

 explored with thoroughness for radioactive anomalies. It is hoped that this will 

 suggest new means for studying the basic behavior of, and for making preparation 

 for the control of, other pollutants besides those that can come from nuclear 

 power plants. 



In order to recognize any change we must first know the background. Over 

 most of the earth, a radioactive background from remanents of global fallout 

 now must be expected. On land this has been fairly well documented. However, 

 for carrying out an oceanic or coastal radiological survey, we must take advantage 

 of all availbale oceanographic records and methods if we are to gain even the 

 slightest insight into what background conditions might have prevailed at any 

 period prior to these measurements. 



THE PACIFIC viewed FROM THE SOUTHWEST CORNER OF CALIFORNIA 



In this instance, attention will be given to coastal areas of Southern California 

 and Baja California and to some oceanic waters lying just beyond. First, it is 

 well to form a concept of the behavior of the whole ocean lying westward and 

 northward. From the S.W. corner of the United States we may choose to vis- 

 ualize the N. Pacific moving m-ijestically toward us bringing masses of cold, 

 rain-diluted water from the North. Some of this has also traveled more than 6000 

 miles from the .lapanese coastal regions, mostly along latitudes near 40° X. 



However, one must not expect too much from the deeper masses. Far too much 

 emphasis has been given to the great size and great depth of the Pacific. Really, 

 it is much better described as an extremely thin film of water moving slowly 

 across one-third of tlie earth's surface. 



To understand this, we may reflect upon the dimensions of a typical hydro- 

 graphic office chart of the I'acific Ocean. It is about ,3 feet by 3 feet across? and 

 its paper is about 4/lOOOth of an inch thick. Its scale is so large (~20 million :1) 

 that the average depth of the Pacific (~4000 meters) would have to be repre- 

 sented by only 1/2 of the thickness of the chart paper. It is still more startling 



