Committee cn the Effects of Atomic Radiation, Oceanography
and Pisheries ~- Chairman, Roger Revelle, Scripps Institute of Oceanography —
This group viewed the past record of this country with
respect to pollution of streams, waterways and harbors with ex-
treme repugnance,
They point out that 71% of the earth’s surface
is ocean and that eventually everything gets into the ocsang,
They note that the sea as compared to the land is relatively non-radioactive, Natural radioactivity of the seas is 1/100
that of igneous rocks,
the following:
As 4 result cf weapons tests they report
two days after Operation Castle was over in the
spring of 1954 there was a millionfold increase in radioactivity
of the surface waters rear Bikini; that after four months 1500
miles away it was three times the normal amount and that at 13
months the area of surface water contamination had spread over a
million square miles, and that at a distance of 3500 miles from
Bikini the "artificial" radicactivity was 1/5 the natural,
They concluded that tc date there has probably been no
damage to life in the sea exsept that at the test site proper,
They call attention to concentration of radioactivity by plant
forms in the sea and warn repeatedly against indiscriminate dumping of radicective wastes into the sea, They discuss the "flushing time” of the Black Sea 2500 years as compared with perhaps
100. or 200 years for the shelf=deeps cf the Atlantic and Caribbean,
They stress they need to know much moreabout the ccean depths and
their movements,
(The Internaticnal Geophysical Year has a very
large-scale study of the depths planned for 1957-58).
This com
mittee would apparently permit "controlled" sea disposal especially
of short-lived radioactive materials,
They recommend that "Indus-
trial agencies formulate conventions for the safe disposal of
atomic. wastes at sea, based on existing knowledge." This would
seem to be a very logical and necessary move, To date, except for
small amounts of short-lived material, the U.S, has not dumped any
wastes in tarks,
We are still storing all process
NAS
They further recommend collaborative studies of the
oceans and their organisms and though a beginning has been made
urge a greater effort, Finally, they contend that in ten or
twenty years certain radiotracer experiments will not be possible
because of widespread low level contamination of the seas, This
may well be- true,
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radioactive wastes in the sea,