POLICY AND BACKGROUND OF CRATER AS A TEMPORARY REPOSITORY AND RELATED ENGINEERING In exploring options in the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the disposal of plutonium contaminated soil, several methods were selected for study. To insure that adequate consideration was given to a wide number of options, a range was selected for consideration. Two of the most promising - ocean dumping and crater containment - were investigated with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to determine the realm of possibility. At the time the project was. in the planning stage, the news media was full of court cases where worthwhile projects had been stopped through legal actions, principally on the basis of non compliance with procedural and administrative regulations of the National Environmental, Protection Act (NEPA). Further, at about this time the U.S. became a 1/ party to "The Ocean Dumping-Convention'' and the Congress had passed 2/ the "Marine Protection, Research and Sanctuaries Act of 1972.These were implemented in Federal Regulations. 3,4/ Based on the EPA implementation and the interpretation at that time, the dumping of all material into ocean waters is regulated through a permit system administered by EPA. of high level radioactive wastes into the ocean was prohibited. Dumping To dump low-level radioactive wastes the materials must be containerized and meet the following conditions: (1) The materials must decay to environmentally innocuous materials within the life expectancy of the containers (EPA considered that radionuclides must decay over a period of S half lives to be innocuous). TAB A 4/19/79