I assume since we want to comply with our international obligations that we would have to restrict this provisional suggestion to areas in which we do not now have obligations.

Mr. CORBETT. Well, the provisional agreement certainly would be limited in the beginning and would not cover everything, certainly, and other agreements would hold in force, I think.

Mr. HEYWARD. Until the new treaty actually was ratified and in place?

Mr. CORBETT. That would be what I would contemplate, but I am not sure that would occur.

If there were some agreement made that would be in conflict with current agreements in force, and then ratification took place quite quickly then, of course, the new agreement would take precedence.

Mr. HEYWARD. The ratification of the new treaty by the same parties to an old treaty would supercede it?

Mr. CORBETT. Yes.

Mr. HEYWARD. But this provisional interim effectiveness it seems to me would have to be limited to areas where we did not have contrary commitments, if that is true.

Mr. CORBETT. I am not sure whether it is true or not.

Mr. HEYWARD. I understand we have a potential difference of opinion, but assuming this is true and this provision will apply only to the seabed and not to other conventions we have signed, do you not think it is significant that our delegation has singled out this particular problem area as one that should be handled on a rapid basis in order to protect the technology which has already been developed?

Mr. CORBETT. I would hope we could move as rapidly as possible. Mr. HEYWARD. Thank you.

Mr. DOWNING. Mr. Sharood?

Mr. SHAROOD. No questions.

Mr. DOWNING. Thank you very much, Doctor Corbett. We appreciate your appearing here this morning.

The committee has just received a communication from the U.S. Department of Justice, a departmental report and they say they have no additional comment other than that propounded to the committee by Mr. Brower and Mr. Latimer.

The committee will now adjourn, to meet April 3, at 10 o'clock. [Whereupon, at 12:30 p.m., the subcommittee adjourned, to reconvene at 10 a.m., Tuesday, April 3, 1973.]

DEEP SEABED HARD MINERALS

TUESDAY, APRIL 3, 1973

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON OCEANOGRAPHY OF THE

COMMITTEE ON MERCHANT MARINE AND FISHERIES,

Washington, D.C. The subcommittee met at 10:10 o'clock in room 1334, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Thomas M. Downing, chairman of the subcommittee, presiding.

Mr. DOWNING. The subcommittee will please come to order.

This morning, the committee will resume its hearings on H.R. 9, the Deep Seabed Hard Mineral Resources Act.

Our first witness is Dr. Oswald A. Roels, chairman, biological oceanography, Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory of Columbia University and professor, City Institute of Oceanography. Doctor, we are delighted to have you with us this morning. Please take your place at the witness stand.

STATEMENT OF DR. OSWALD A. ROELS, CHAIRMAN, BIOLOGICAL OCEANOGRAPHY, LAMONT-DOHERTY GEOLOGICAL OBSERVATORY OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, AND PROFESSOR, CITY INSTITUTE OF OCEANOGRAPHY

Mr. ROELS. Yes, I shall, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. DOWNING. Dr., you have supplied the committee with a booklet containing your testimony and backup material. We deeply appreciate that.

Mr. ROELS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. DOWNING. You may proceed, but remember the 20-minute

rule.

Mr. ROELS. Yes, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, my name is Oswald A. Roels.

I am chairman of the biological oceanography department of Lamont-Doherty Geological Observatory, and professor at the City University Institute of Oceanography in New York.

I thank you for this opportunity to testify in favor of H.R. 9. particularly in favor of the condition that for every license issued, the Secretary of the Interior must impose requirements necessary to protect the environment.

I believe that the legislation which you are now considering, Mr. Chairman, provides us with a unique opportunity to consider the environmental impact of deeep sea mining, and to formulate ra

tional, national and international regulations under which deep sea mining should operate, to protect the environment, before such large-scale operations have been undertaken.

I think it is a unique opportunity to do this prior to the start of mining, whereas in the past we frequently have tried to bring about remedial action, and to look at the environmental issues after the damage has been done.

We now have an opportunity to look at the environmental issues before any large-scale operation has begun.

The presence of extensive manganese nodule deposits over much of the deep ocean basins and the increasing need for metals contained within these nodules has recently led to international commercial interest in mining these deposits. The prospect of extensive deep sea mining requires serious consideration of the environmental impact of these activities. Such mining could affect the benthic and pelagic environments. It becomes essential, therefore, that the environmental implications of deep sea manganese nodule mining be thoroughly understood and evaluated before such mining is attempted on a large scale.

Our group has been actively involved in some of the initial environmental impact studies concerning deep sea nodule mining. To date, we have completed a literature review of all compiled data concerning deep ocean manganese nodule areas-especially in the siliceous ooze province of the North Pacific.

We have specifically achieved, so far, three major projects. One project was a complete survey of all the existing literature concerning the water column and the deep sea floor in oceanic areas where manganese nodules occur.

We have given special attention to siliceous ooze areas in the Pacific Ocean which are the richest from a mining point of view. We found, in going over the literature, that although many individual data do exist, we do know a number of individual parameters, but there are no general comprehensive surveys existing, describing the entire environment in the water column and on the sea floor in these manganese nodule areas.

We then also undertook a baseline study, a comprehensive baseline study of all the physical, chemical, and biological parameters of a manganese nodule area in the Atlantic Ocean situated on the Bermuda Rise. We did that in the summer of 1972, Mr. Chairman. Our findings of that baseline were as follows.

First of all the benthic fauna was generally found to be very sparse. It averaged only about 9 milligrams per 10 square foot of bottom area, and 9 milligrams is a very small weight, indeed. Mining in such an area would, therefore, affect a small quantity of animals in absolute terms, although its relative impact may be important.

We showed that phytoplankton growth in the water column would be directly dependent on the degree of bottom water enrichment of the surface zone. If a mining operation would occur in this area in the Atlantic, and would discharge bottom water at the surface, then the phytoplankton growth, the increase of life in the near surface zone would be directly dependent on the concentration

of bottom water in the resulting mixture of bottom and surface

water.

We also found that in the sediments, among the manganese nodules, spores of phytoplankton organisms occur which, when brought to the surface, would begin to multiply again, because light is present there.

We have thus documented the baseline information about a manganese nodule area in the Atlantic Ocean.

We also have the third part of our written testimony, which we have submitted monitored two pilot manganese nodule mining operations, one in the Atlantic in 1970, and one in the Pacific in

1972.

In the test on the Blake Plateau in the Atlantic held in August of 1970 we found that there was no problem at all with oxygen depletion resulting from the discharge of bottom sediments and deep water at the surface.

The test we monitored there was an airlife pumping operation, a technique whereby air injection is used to pump a slurry of sediment and nodules and bottom water to the surface.

The nodules are then sifted out on the surface vessel and the fine sediment and bottom waters are discharged.

We found that there was no effect on oxygen depletion. If anything, oxygen enrichment occurred as a result of phytoplankton brought up from spores on the bottom.

We also found that the bottom water, when discharged at the surface under the conditions of this particular mining test, stayed at the surface.

We did this with a dye tracer added to the bottom water discharged. We found that the increase, if any, of phytoplankton growth at the surface was very small indeed, if measurable at all. The last part of our written testimony then refers to the results which we obtained when we monitored another mining test in August and September of 1972, of a continuous line bucket dredge mining system in the siliceous ooze province in the North Pacific Ocean.

We had a separate research vessel available to follow the mining ship as the dredge line was tested.

We tried to determine what effect occurred both in the water column and as a result of the bottom disturbance by the dredge line and the dredge buckets, that is whether any sediment would be discharged and would be measurable, and remain in the water column after the test. We also tried to determine what effect the dredge line would have on the sediments themselves, particularly on the fauna, on the epibenthic fauna, living on the bottom in that

area.

Although we went out there in collaboration with the mining vessel and we were in continuous communication with them, we were not certain at all whether we had been able to see any effect of the dredge line on the bottom.

As a matter of fact, out of a series of more than 600 bottom photographs we made in the path of the dredge line, there is only one which shows a possible scar caused by a dredge bucket, and we cannot be certain that it was a dredge bucket which caused the scar.

A careful examination of the photographs revealed an average of one organism visible at the surface of the sediment per 500 square feet of the ocean floor.

Two box cores taken also in that area did not reveal any organism either on the surface, nor in the sediment.

In summary then, Mr. Chairman, from a 3-year study on the environmental impact of deep sea mining we believe that the effect of mining on the deep sea floor will be minimal.

Our studies of the effect of sediment and deep water discharge on the water column also indicates a minimal effect to date.

However, these studies are quite incomplete, and should be considerably expanded. A more significant environmental hazard could conceivably be created by ore processing effluent discharged into the sea. However, in this area we have no experimental evidence to date.

I would like, therefore, to ask your committee to request that the appropriate agencies of our Government stimulate research with the following overall objectives:

(i) The establishment of physical, chemical and biological baseline environmental conditions in potential mining areas;

(ii) The documentation of changes induced in benthic and pelagic ecosystems by deep sea mining;

(iii) The elucidation of their underlying mechanisms and implications in relation to current and potential marne resources;

(iv) The formulation of guidelines for future mining operations which will minimize harmful environmental effects while enhancing the development of potentially beneficial by-products, and; (v) The determination of the properties which should be monitored during deep sea mining to provide the information needed to evaluate the environmental impact of specific mining methods and to devise mitigating measures, if necessary.

The information generated by such a program should prove invaluable in the formulation of both national and international regulations under which deep sea mining should operate to minimize harmful environmental effects while enhancing the development of potentially beneficial by-products. Any legislation governing deep sea manganese nodule mining should, therefore, be directed toward both the environmental evaluations as well as actual mining aspects.

I would like to ask you, Mr. Chairman, if it would be possible to have my written testimony included in the report of the committee meetings.

Mr. DOWNING. Without objection, your entire statement will be put into the record at this point.

[The full prepared statement of Dr. Oswald A. Roels follows:]

STATEMENT OF DR. OSWALD A. ROELS, CHAIRMAN, BIOLOGICAL OCEANOGRAPHY, LAMONT-DOHERTY GEOLOGICAL OBSERVATORY, AND PROFFESSOR, CITY UNIVERSITY INSTITUTE OF OCEANOGRAPHY

Mr. Chairman, my name is Oswald A. Roels.

I am chairman of the Biological Oceanography Department of LamontDoherty Geological Observatory, and professor at the City University Institute of Oceanography in New York.

I thank you for this opportunity to testify in favor of H.R. 9, particularly