The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has in- 

 terests along the coastline and at greater depths in the Santa Barbara 

 Channel. NASA systems to be fired from Vandenberg launch sites will 

 carry power sources fueled by radioactive materials and toxic fuels of 

 the booster, and early aborts on the pad or over the sea might create 

 hazards. The hazards are essentially the same as those described earlier 

 under Air Force objectives. Of additional concern to NASA is the possi- 

 bility of an abort and the subsequent injection of hazardous material 

 into the funnel-like Santa Barbara Channel, in which water depths exceed 

 2,000 feet. It may be that the configuration of this channel could cause 

 a concentration of the hazardous material and its possible rapid transport 

 to the beaches of the area. 



The Atomic Energy Commission and its Oak Ridge National Laboratories 

 are very interested in finding and developing beneficial uses for radio- 

 isotopes. Often this involves development of new and unique equipment 

 for accomplishing a particular task. They assist in developing the appli- 

 cation of radioisotopes to accomplish public benefit objectives of the 

 other participating agencies and concur in these objectives. 



The Department of Water Resources of the State of California has 

 expressed great interest in the program in the context of the Department's 

 awareness of the serious problems of beach erosion. The Department has 

 taken aggressive measures to ensure the orderly development and use of 

 the California shoreline areas as well as their protection and restoration. 

 The State, in cooperation with the Corps of Engineers, has been actively 

 engaged in beach-erosion control activities since 19^6. The California 

 Department of Water Resources is now conducting a comprehensive investi- 

 gation of all aspects of sediment transport from watersheds for beach 

 nourishment including the delineation of the areas where sediments are 

 being produced under present conditions and anticipated future develop- 

 ments. The Department will also determine sources and physical character- 

 istics of suitable material for artificial nourishment from inland sand 

 sources. Because the assessment of beach-eorsion problems and subsequent 

 engineering solutions are predicated upon accurate measurements of direction 

 and rate of alongshore transport, the need for the proposed tracer study and 

 for the collection and evaluation of littoral drift data is fully recognized. 



Pleasure boating is expanding rapidly in California. New facilities, 

 harbors, and harbors of refuge are required to satisfy this rapidly growing 

 interest. The isotopic tracer program would provide valuable data toward 

 the design considerations for these harbors. 



Fundamental to all of these objectives is the investigation of sediment 

 transport . Because previous effort has been expended on the long-straight 

 beach and because of the importance of "filling in" data from an unknown 

 area, investigation of the mechanics of littoral material movement near and 

 around a headland was proposed. The scientific research objectives may be 

 summarized as follows: 



a. Development of techniques to determine whether sedimentary particles 

 moving as littoral drift do or do not pass around a major headland. 



