SESSION III 139 DONALDSON: Yes. AYRES: Perhaps I may make a further remark about the relative importance of strontium-90 in this case as opposed ta, say, a nuclear: war. Probably it's not important in the long run on Rongelap compared with the initial dose that people had, but it might be important in the aftermath of a large number of nuclear weapons if you're talking about the region away from direct fallout. CONARD: You mean where it was involved immediately? AYRES: I'm not saying that the strontium-90 would be important when compared to the damage to the area of direct fallout, Lut where local fallout didn't fall, strontium-90 would be one of the most impore tant things with which to contend. DUNHAM: Are you talking about worldwide fallout? AYRES: Yes. CONARD: In the situation that we're talking about, if you had a nuclear war, aren't you going to have practically everybody involved aad isn't the amount of strontium going to be trivial to the problems of transportation and all of the cther problems that are going to exist? | AYRES: I think probably so. DE BOER: Wedon't have to talk about an all-out nuclear war. AYRES: The point is that people tend to worry about the most important residual effect that affects them, and in some parts of the world strontium-90 might be the most important residual effect. In other parts, not. DUNHAM: In other parts it might be something else. AYRES: Possibly. Inthe areas more directly damaged it vould be a relatively minor thing except very late again. FREMONT-SMITH: would come in again. AYRES: If people recovered from this damage, then it Yes, many years later.