California IN BRIEF : SAN FRANCISCO : Farallones Hit by Radioactive Waste

The Gulf of the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary is threatened by a large radioactive waste dump piled high with corroded barrels leaking plutonium and cesium, according to a new federal report. A copyright story by the San Francisco Examiner in today’s edition says the report reveals that 55-gallon barrels dumped between 1946 and 1970 in the West Coast’s richest wildlife sanctuary are corroding and many of them have burst from water pressure. Yet more than 20 years after the government acknowledged that at least 47,500 barrels of U.S. atomic lab and industrial wastes lie in or adjacent to the sanctuary, the site remains virtually unstudied for its effects on marine life, said the report by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The report urges further study of possible radioactive contamination of commercial fisheries of Pacific herring, Dover sole, rockfish, sablefish and Dungeness crab.