During March and April of 1973, FIDLER surveys, location staking, and the collection of hundreds of samples in Area 5 (GMX) was accomplished. This surge of activity caused new areas of liaison to be required. Coordination was needed between the personnel who were developing new techniques for preparing soil and vegetation samples for analysis and the NAEG investigators respon- sible for the ongoing studies. Methods for instrumental and chemical analysis of the new sample matrix had to be developed. This expanded the scope of the In addition to interelating the ongoing work of the coordination effort. statistician, engineers, radiological monitor teams, sample preparation personnel, and evaluation personnel, the radiochemists were introduced into the ecological study effort and liaison was again expanded to include their activities. By the end of 1973, hundreds of Tonopah Test Range samples had been collected, prepared for analysis, and shipped to radiochemical laboratories. There were, by that time, thousands of samples from Area 5 and the Tonopah Test Range NAEG intensive study areas, in various stages of collection, preparation, and radiochemical analysis. Also, cattle grazing and soil resuspension studies were under way. The advent of these activities produced an avalanche of sample information and analytical data. The manual methods being used to handle this increased data volume were inadequate. Either the data control and evaluation staff would have to be increased to the size of a small army with green eyeshades and quill pens, or the manual NAEG data base would need to be converted to a computerized data base. Before data could be handled by a computer system, it had to be organized. Therefore, meetings were held to discuss the problems involved. It was discovered that eight different methods had been used for selecting sample locations in the field. Different analytical methods were being used by the analytical laboratories. Arguments had long since developed concerning the most accurate formulas for calculating error terms for analytical result units. No agreement had been reached on which result units should be used throughout the NAEG system. As a result, in February of 1974, a meeting of all NAEG persons involved with these problems was held in Los Alamos, New Mexico, to discuss procedures being used and attempt to determine standard methods, especially concerning radiochemical techniques and resulting data. The need for a central, computerized data bank became obvious. By June of 1974, initial groundwork had been laid for establishing a computerized NAEG/ REECo data base. This resulted in the need for additional coordination efforts. REECo volunteered to take on the challenge of developing a computerized system capable of satisfying the myriad of ideas and requests inherent in the research effort. Coordination was employed in bringing together the investigators and their problems with the computer and data evaluation personnel, who hopefully had some answers. The data handling philosophy, at that time, was to try to anticipate the needs of each investigative study. As a result, meetings were held with investigators and data processing personnel to attempt to define the categories of data expected to result from each study. This approach did not bear much fruit; however, it did produce valuable information which was used in developing general data processing plans. A new philosophy for processing NAEG data developed. The new philosophy required that input data to the NAEG 299