awe he mee che a Se tigen St t #. £05 oe feat weer yeLRete eee . awae “Lets - _ i ‘a te ee = *% - a oe . s gically Contaminated | SUBJECT: Meeting to DiscussDisposal ‘Methods for Radiolo and Non-contaminated Materials -+ Enewetak Atoll(Cleanup | . | _ =eeEPA|- 24. Feb ci . ‘dilutionof “ESDr: ‘Mills ‘of ‘EPA: pointed «out‘that on the cther hand this be as well might ation circul by lagoon the plutonium contanination within ed entomb te concre the from e Yeakap great or greater than any addition due to : McCraw cited the . material pkaced in thecrater... Both Mr. Soule and Mr. being as g dumpin ocean on ines guidel International Atomic Energy Agency draft the U.S. more lenient than the EPA criteria. Dr. Rowe responded by saying . . problem EC ERDA/A the, law predated the IAEA criteria and he saw U.S. the in nt inhere as ’ , with the ocean dumping limitations discussed by EPA rather ion pollut ting - statutes which were written with the philosophy of preven a ing n from result inatio than promoting the cleanup of radiological contam inated contam the past event. He stated that everyone agreed that to leave material where it is now is the worst of all the possible solutions, and EPA’ saw the crater entombment as an acceptable solution, assuming that a permit for crater entombment was not required by the Ocean Dumping Act. On the other hand Dr.Rowe saw several serious barriers to DNA obtaining a permit for ocean dumping, gave repeated assurance that EPA would help in obtaining a permit wherever it could be done legally. . EB Mr.“Soule ‘of ERDA. in departing voiced his opinion that the problem was magnified by-the application of preventive concepts to an existing situation. He added, that as a matter of policy, ERDA had no intention of going into sea disposal of contaminated wastes despite the fact that they had custody of all . the “old corpses" and hoped some day to begin decommissioning and decontaminatior of some of their sites. He viewed entombment of such radioactive material ' dn the Runit craters as another corpse which would plague AEC for a more permanent and safe disposal in the future. He’‘thought the Micronesian people would want a statement as to whowill, do -something to monitor and cope with any ‘4ncreased contamination resultingfrom the crater method of disposal if it proved ‘unsuccessful. . Everyone agreed the final EIS should state who would have responsibility for monitoring the ‘effectiveness of the disposal method adopted. or . -_ Tt , — h. In summing up, Dr. Rowe again expressed reservations about ocean dumping and said even if all the environmental considerations are satisfied, and our proposal is met with sufficiently adverse public reaction, this :could result in denial of a permit. a Lo , oe ae Findings. cae ve “TR on Oe. - me _’ .@+ While there was some apparent relaxation on the design criteria per- | taining to life expectancy of containers, the policies and procedures given by EPA representatives were not significantly different from those provided in our meeting at EPA on 8 August 1974.*..The relaxation was ‘that ‘EPA instead of requiring an effective life expectancy of 5 half lives in the container design, would now consider not only the characteristics of the radioactive matcrial but also the biological and physical characteristics of the particular area into which disposal was made. Fhe del ". aTAg as ee 4 ta Ter: eg eee AS eyyee pe aes RR Ena Dadeesend Se ie Se Se