Item 6,
RESEARCH
PLANNING
(continued)
ENVIRONMENTAL RADIATION PROGRAM - There was a
general discussion within this large area which
covered faliout monitoring, waste disposal,
meteorology, total environment and marine
biology, with particular mention of work on the
Colorado Plateau and some of the background
radiation measurements being made by the Health and Safety
Laboratory.
DR. WARREN expressed an interest in the background
measurement made by the HASL in Denver as being twice that
measured in New York.
He stated that this was important because
there have been a number of statements made that there was
little difference in background in Denver.
It was also stated
by others that statements of much higher background in Denver
have also been made.
DR. DUNHAM suggested further aid to
projects such as oceanography and marine biology as they relate
to waste disposal in the ocean.
He stated that no one else
appeared to be particularly interested in this subject but
that Dr. Libby had expressed a keen interest. The Division
had held back, however, because of the tightness of the budget.
DR. WOLFE expressed the opinion that the ecology projects
should go on regardiess of any radiological aspects.
MR. HOLLAND
expressed the opinion that it would be a mistake to discontinue
stratospheric sampling at this time.
Referring to the discussions
of oceanographic studies, DR. WARREN said that such studies
offer very little result for the amount of effort exerted.
In
answer to a question by DR. CANTRIL, DR. DUNHAM told of the
large program in waste disposal being conducted under the
Division of Reactor Development. This includes work at Brookhaven
and at Oak Ridge in an attempt to develop a method of containment.
They have not been directing their attention towards dumping
raw wastes into the ocean.
At this point DR. WARREN interrupted iliscussions to introduce MR. EDWARD
GARDNER, who had been invited to speak on the subject of the Second International Conference on the Peacetime Uses of Atomic Energy.
He said that the meeting was to be held in Geneva ef
INTERNATIONAL
ATOMS FOR PIECE
CONFERENCE
from September 1 to 13, 1958 and that the AEC had been
assigned the task of preparing technical presentations
consisting of technical papers, technical exhibits and
certain technical material and information to be distributed
to delegates.
There are also plans for a number of
films of a technical nature to be shown.
He spoke generally
of efforts being made to obtain technical papers for
presentation and for publication as well as the publicity aspects.
He
spoke particularly of the plans under the subject of biology and medicine
which would include biological effects of radiation, methods for reduction
of radiation damage, biological research with sub-headings of photosynthesis, aging, enzymes, kinetics and chromosome duplication. Another
major item is metabolism studies. There are plans to exhibit a medical