Interview with Allyn Seymour - Synopsis

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INTERVIEW WITH ALLYN SEYMOUR - SYNOPSIS 1. Re/Measurements of fallout levels Where were they doing this biology work? It was only incidental for measuring their personal dose - put in log books but never compiled or summarized 3-volume Environmental survey - published in 1972 Any long term effects appearing? Not in mrine populations - but doesn't mean there aren't any - weak individuals are rapidly replaced in marine popclations But noted that stress would be more likely to appear in marine environment and gave reasons Note also for marine environment we talk about populations not Probably man could not survive radiation levels high enough to seriously affect marine populations Any inforktion since "Proving Ground" that would modify what Experiment with fish eggs (embryos) placed in stream bed in 6 . Columbia River Marine Program John Wolfe and Gene Wallen sponsored it

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Hanford-produced radionuclikzs in ocean What chemical changes? i.e., along way from Hanford to Zn in particulates in the river but dissociated from them in Cr-51 mostly in a diatom that the razor clams ate - and all by adsorption --find very little Cr-51 in tissues of organisms See book "Columbia River Estuary and Adjacent Ocean Waters" sponsored by AEC 7. Goldfish experiment - extension of the one at Met Lab earlier This was x-rays and goldfish not fission products as done at 8 . Gave me a long list of pertinent references with notes on N.B. - Some early work that might be called "Radioecology" re/biological effects of ionizing radiation on organisms in regions of. high concentrations of natural radionuclides9. Page-by-page comments or additions on Chapter 11 (tied to 10. "Notes" contain some items not in the transcript

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1NTERVIEI.I WITH DR. ALLYN SEYMOUR June 1, 1979 College of Fisheries, Univ. o f Washington about the actual levels and amounts of fallout at the sites and fuss now about,e.g.,St. George, Utah, and other U.S. locations and Eniwetok. Is i t just an impossible task to get together what really happened in those places? The first question is, "What can be said ina book like this What I had in mind there was that there ' sso much SEYMOUR: Well, I guess in the early days Gordon Dunning who was a person responsible for kind of pulling that sort of information together that were made for the Bravo event and for some of the other work t o look at situations at the background level of radiation in areas which we were working but never had the responsibility for accumulating A t our laboratory, we were using G.M. counters data and presenting i n summary form or making and conducting any extensive monitoring work. information for others who were doing that.but personally not any sort of firsthand information about this sort of readings. that we did carry survey meters with us, and these data were recorded in the log books that the individual workers have. I ' m sure Dr. Donaldson and Dr. Welander and others who've been out there have this Perhaps we supplied supplemental sort of information,but it was never compiled t o any great extent to calculate background radiation levels. That ' s about the only come nt I would have about the first question. STANNARD: Well,I had about decided that it was an impossible task.

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That I would have t o do an awful lot mcre than I think I have time to do to really put this down. much interest in it in AEC,Washington,and other places that maybe I got the impression th2t there ' sso a lot of people are looking atit. SEYMOUR: You mean at the present time ? STANNARD: At the present time,yes. SEYMOUR: I believe most of the responsibility rests with Lawrence Live wore Laboratory as far as current radiation measurements STANNARD: Well, I meant going back and saying, "Well, here ' s what SEYMOUR : Extrapolating from present data backward t o what i t was a t some date in the past, yes. O f course, the Liverrnore people are making use of the, current information to predict dose to the residents of,specifically,Eniwetok and all that information is in that 3-volume, Eniwetok report that they prepared based on their 1972 survey. sEyMouR: W e have copies here. You maybe interested in perusing those copies to see if there is anything of information there. The surveys of the marine environment, we assisted in obtaining information making use of in situ probes. long term effects appearing i n organisms i n test sites, particularly in the marine systems?" no direct ob ses vat ions of any morphological abnormalities or other sort Well, my second question is, "After all these years, are and around t h e several I believe that to the best of my knowledge, there have been of effects from exposure to ionized irradiation by marine populations.

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On the other hand,I believe it ' s probably not surprising that we haven ' t made the observations. It doesn ' t necessarily mean that there haven ' t been effects.Of course,the life span of some marine organisms is not all that great. moving around. And another consideration I believe is that there Some of the marine populations are mobile and appears t o be extreme population pressures,and any time any weak - individual appears,there ' s someone there to take its place. So I think it ' s extremely difficult to observe in the field anticipated effects f tom exposure to ionized irradiation. STAN'NARD: You know there was this old concern that there might b e some exquisitely sensitive step in the chain that if broken would knock the food web into a cocked hat. SEYMOUR: Yes. Now that relates I believe down t o your comment i n question five in which you say " If effects... ' ' made there. Generally i t ' s accepted that there ' s closer species dependence inthe marine environment than in the terrestrial environment There are a couple of comments perhaps to be and furthermore since the marjrne environment is more stable, the organisms living in that environment are less adapted t o change. .And for those two reasons, any stress, radiation,or whatever potentially could produce a greater impact i n an environment where conditions were less stable or species dependencewas less. the only way i n which I could see that there would b e an impact on a marine population,that brings up another point. When we talk about marine organisms, w e ' re really concerned about effects upon populations rather than upon individuals. When w e ' re talking about man, of course, But on the other hand,

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vere concerned about effects on an individual. And in order for any levels of radiation in the marine environment t o be sufficient to affect populations,Idon ' t see how this could occur except from massive fallout, world fallout. And if this is the situation,I believe that before the contamination of the ocean could reach the level where i t could effect marine populations,it would be above the levels where man could survive. On terrestrial organisms,they're going t o be subjected to the fallout radiation that accumulates a t the earth ' s surface,whereas inthe ocean there will be dilution in mixingjand concentrations are going tobe less. And then the fact that marine organisms are generally less sensitive to radiation than man, I think,makes t h a t concern about impact on marine organisms less STANNARD: In a sense this is a red herring then. SEYMOUR: Yes, right. But there is some philosophical argument there that might say that, "Okay, you knock out one thing,the whole thing ' s going to collapse. " great resiliency and have a great capability to overcome these situations. done, but what should Isay assuming that I digest wnat's i n Proving Ground, what ' s happened since that would i n any way modify what is said i n there or add to it ? of anything specific,especially since you've had the opportunity t o talk with both Loren and Neal. I believe that there ' s little that I could add to that question. But we also know that organisms have a - Number three was essentially,I realize a lot has been Yes,I read this question some days ago and haven ' t thought

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STANfuARD: The story of the Alaska test was a total blank to me. The Alaska test, vas there much biology done? SEYMOUR : By the Alaska test, I assume you ' re referring to the SEYMOUR : There were,as you know, t h r e e underground detonations. The first one was i n 1965 (it was "Longshot"), and this was a relatively Shallow underground detonation.I believe it was something on the order of 2800 feet below the surface and the smallest of the detonations. The biology for that test was I think rather meager, not very extensive. Our laboratory was involved. Iwas asked to participate in it,and at that time I wasn ' t getting around very well.I had hip problems, and actually I've had total hip replacement. We were scheduled t o send Ralph (Dr. Polornbo) t o Arnchitka t o take care of that, and he was killed i n an automobile accident on July4, 1965. So w e called upon Roy Nakatani; Dr. Nakatani i s now here a t the University o f Washington but was employed by Bat tell e Northwest at that time and previously had worked in a laboratory on a program down at Christmas Island. he had background i n this field,and he had experience with the laboratory. He was the field party chief. investigator and so worked vith Roy i n developing the program inthe I believe I was identified as personal .field and also in preparing the report of the work that was done there. We called upon people, Dr. Willamoski at the University of British Columbia t o kind of look at the fish. Alaska Department of Fish and Game,local people, t o make sure that We called upon people from the local people were getting involved and also to call upon their expertise.

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\de also had another person here from the Fisheries Research Institute, University of Washington. the detonation and remained four to seven days after the event looking that was conducted was just an experiment in which fish eggs were placed i n some capsules,these are fertilized eggs that were undergoing embryological development. And these capsules were placed ina stream bed for the purpose of determining whether the jarring o r shaking of earth was.going to kill the fertile egg, species of trout and also the species of Pacific salmon that spawn during the fall which was the time of the test. The result of that experiment was that the capsules were disturbed from the bottom of the creek and I think moved a short distance downstream but They were sent to Amchitka about e week before The only kind of laboratory experiment the survival was high. It was something on the order of 90%. Now I ' m recalling from memory and the exact numbers and details are given - in the brief report that we prepared. In addition, samples of fish and of plants were brought back to the laboratory for radiological analysis. That was more o r less a monitoring program t o see if there was anything that escaped from the detonation. were introducing the subject o f chemical state? Would you be willing to go back t o the part where you SEYMOUR : Yes. The "Columbia River Marine Program" was developed i n 1960 with again Dr. Wolfe and Dr. Gene Wallen ofthe AEC being the people who were suggesting that this work be done. I t included not only evaluation o f the Hanford-produced radionuclides i n the ocean but also studies of what was happening chemically to these radio nuclides as they moved

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from the Hznford site to the ocean. Most of the work was done either by Oregon State University or by University of Washington, Department of Oceanography as part of the total program. the chromium,for example, changed from chrome-6 t o chrome-3 and that And they observed that in the river water,the chromium was principally in the ionic form, but as it entered the ocean,itwas more inclined to be i n the particulate form. The opposite was true for zinc-65. It was principally in the particulate form inthe river but dissociated from the particulate im the ocean about 20 kilometers from the river mouth. Ninety-five percent o f the zinc-65 dissociated from the particulates. STANNARD: That's fascinating ! Why inthe world would it do that ? SEYMOUR: Well, I guess the pH and eH of the water are some of the factors that govern the chemical states. The important thing,I think as far as biology is concerned,is t o recognize that there are changes i n chemical state which undoubtedly , and this is the important thing as far as biology i s concerned, affect availability of the radio nuclide to the organism. And inthe marine environment,although 95% of the radioactivity entering the ocean was chromium-51,we found chromium-51 only rarely in tissues of organisms. for example,on organisms that had a large capacity for adsorption. We did find chromium-51,. For example, there ' s a pelagic diatom with a scientific name o f Tytasaurus armaturn. I t ' svery abundant on the Washtngton coast. It looks like kind of a brown, rusry thing.It ' s the thing that the razor clams feed on, and i t ' s very important t o them. mucilagenous coating,and this is an organism that accumulates But ifyou ' r e looking i n the tissues of

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fish or tissues of razor clams or tissues of other marine organisms, i t ' s not available,or there ' s not a biological demand for it. Now there ' s some marine organisms that do have biological demand requirements for chromium. One of these is a plankton organism, ? ,but that wasn't present. Another is a worm. We searched for those but couldn ' tfind them,so we Couldn't determine whether the lack of ch rod um -51 inthe marine organisms was due to the un availability of chrornium-51 orthe laak of biological demand forit by the organism. All this work, not all of i t but a large amount of it,has been compiled ina book that was published by the AEC called Columbia River Estuary STANNARD: I have a copy 6f that. SEYMOUR: You've seen that. Oksy, what I ' m saying here is in that volume is work on the chemical states of radio nuclides. Not of plutonium tie-in between the work a t Argoune on goldfish and the beginning of the (This is more on the history of how they got into it. work here at the Washington College of Fisheries.) SEYMOUR : In the summer of 1945 I believe i t …