Programming Pla nning and 0 e had lost confidence that the original AEC guidelines could becited as ‘ative. They had been challenged by some at AEC-NV. Ocean : guthoritallve. mping continued to be proposed by some in AEC. There were demands ne t the craters be lined with thick walls of concrete andsteel liners. With " apparent lack of consensus within the Government, the engineering . andfiscal feasibility were becoming more and more doubtful. 160 The new proposals were both time-consuming and expensive. With inflation at 10 percent per year, the additional time and effort required to authorize and accomplish ocean dumping could cost an additional $1l million. The Director estimated that, if the complete cleanup demanded by MLSC were adopted, the project would cost between $200 and $300 million. The Congress had opposed a $40 million price for the project. LTG Johnson was beginning to believe that he might be compelled to recommend to the DODthatthe project was economically andtechnically infeasible. He felt very strongly, however, that the Government had a moral obligation to do everything within reason to accomplish the cleanup. Therefore, he proposed to reject the more stringent and expensive proposals and to publish the final EIS essentially as it appeared in the draft. If opposition to that proposal were sufficiently strong, then he mustfind some acceptable lesser alternative, such as returning the dri-Enewetak to the southern islands only, or conclude that the project was infeasible. !6t LTG Johnson received the support he sought. MG Gravesadvised that he saw no problem with crater disposal. ERDA hadfelt all along that, if it were not for the law, deep-ocean dumping would be preferable. However, they believed crater entombment was acceptable provided it was done carefully. MG Graves mentioned the possibility of the crater leaking and added that the effectiveness of crater containment could be a problem. All those present seemedto realize that radioactive material was leaking out of the crater even then and would continue to do so.!62 However, the discussion raised the question, ‘‘If this crater containment breaks up in time, who is responsible to right this wrong?’” LTG Johnson quickly answered that it was not DNA’s responsibility after the cleanup was finished; it would be the responsibility of the United States. It was assumedthat by the United States he meant ERDA.!63 LTG Johnsonaskedif there wasstill a consensus on the AECstandards. His question was evoked by remarksattributed to an ERDA-NVofficial that the standards adopted by the AEC Task Group might not stand up. MG Gravesassured him that there wasstill a consensus at ERDA andthat ERDA would support DNA onthe standards. !64 Dr.W. A. Mills, EPA, stated that entombment was the way to go in disposing of the radioactive debris for two reasons: (1) it would be recoverable from thecrater, if the need or desire ever arose to do so; and (2) EPA was generally not in favor of ocean dumping.!65 After further