DECLASSIFIED r r i UNITED STATES Tl ATOMIC ENERGY COMMISSION WASHINGTON D C 20545 October 23 1963 NOTE ON ENCLOSURE Enclosed is a set of notes summarizing the information presented at the recent one-day AIBS Symposium on Some Approaches to the Effects of Nuclear Catastrophes on Ecological Systems Although the notes were prepared by Dr Lord all of the staff members of the Technical Analysis Branch reviewed them for completeness and accuracy It is our hope that the notes will be help- ful We are not sure whether AIBS plans to issue formal proceedings Some comment is included with the summary and should be regarded as personal Opiniono Hal Hollister Chief Technical Analysis Branch Division of Biology and Medicine sulmxeamms4 a 4 OCT 1953 6427 4 DECLASSIFIED Authorityfg H7 8k id Summary of Information Presented at the TAB RDIord AIBS SYMPOSIUM ON APPROACHES TO THE EFFECTS 10 10 63 7 OF NUCLEAR CATASTROPHES ON ECOLOGICAL Introduction On August 28 1963 during the meetings of the American Institute of Biological Sciences in Amherst Massachusetts a one-day symposium was held on Some Approaches to the Effects of Nuclear Catastrophes on Eco- logical Systems Six papers were presented four by individuals receiving research support from the Atomic Energy Commission and there was informal summarization by E P Odum at the end of the day George Mo Woodwell Brookhaven National Laboratory was chairman A summary and partial critique of the six papers follows Miller Carl F Types of CatastrOphes and Their Physical Preportions The purpose of this paper was principally to provide background for subsequent papers The majority of the audience was presumed to be un- familiar with the dimensions of possible attacks and the immediate effects and the paper indicated in a general way what the physical results of an attack of large megatonnage might be More Specifically the speaker proposed the following points 1 That an external gamma infinity dose approximated by a 2% year dose of 100 or less implies a situation of notcontrol required over pe0ple including no requirement for sheltering He labeled this criterion as conservative compared with NCRP Handbook 29 2 As a rough empirical estimate of the maximum external gamma dose rate to be encountered at a point from local fallout when the estimate is to be made before this peak is measured the rule is Imax %g for 5 20 MT surface shots A 3 The 50% lethality contour at Nagasaki occurred in approximate coincidence with the 5 psi contour 4 An attack on the U0 S of as high as 20 000 MT surface burst might result in areas of 50 000 r hr or higher standard intensity for 100% fission yield ratioo This prediction in turn implies an infinity dose of about 200 000 or more Maximum weapon size assumed is 20 MT 5 The following is a list of the major fission products likely to get into biological systems Sr-89 Sr-90 Ru-106 Cs l37 Ba-140 and 1 131 6 Re foliar contamination a 2nweek half-life would apply approxi- mately for removal of particles from foliage in the absence of rain -1- DECLASSIFIED o y I For fra ional retention values given were 0 1 to 10% for from fallout 3 to 15% for UK Operation Buffalo experimental Spraying of foliage with liquids gives higher values Auerbach S I Behavior of Radionuclides in Ecosystems It was proposed in this paper that decay of the fission products was of such a nature that only Sr-90 and Cs-l37 were of principal im- portance as nuclides which would be cycled in the ecosystem The White-Oak Lake bed site was described including the bed's use for the production of crops meat and milk Estimates of the uptake of certain nuclides were presented based upon certain assumptions given belowo These assumptions were labeled as conservative to maximize the hazardq The assumptions of the model were 20 lbso dry weight of forage is consumed per day per cow Garner 400 gm m2 is the mass of vegetation Auerbach 1957 1933 105 gm m2 soil contaminated to a depth of74 inches 0 16% daily intake per liter milk a steady state is reached immediately 1 liter per day milk consumption with no radioactive decay The results obtained from the model were Sr 90 Man gets 1 1 10'3Jnc per liter or 1100 pro day intake from milk ll vr vv 275 other dairy products 53 beef 1430 total diet Cs-137 Man gets 8 103 yrs day from milk 1 03 1 04 ppc day from beef 1 83 104 ch day fromltotal diet Ru-106 Man gets 36 4 lOe npc day from milk total The conclusion was then made that in the case of a nuclear attack the situation would be worse Broido Abraham Effects of Fire on Major Ecosystemsu The basic thesis of this paper was that non-urban fires ignited as a result of nuclear war are not likely to be different in effect than normal-peacetime fires However it was pointed out that certain aspects - 2 DECLASSIFIED d A xi - 1 of these fires were expected to differ First these fires were likely to start simultaneously in many places and second they were not likely to be fought by man if they occurred in wildlands The coalescence of several fires was not considered to be important because for every fire there is always in effect a finite amount of fuel to be burned the only difference might be the duration and intensity of the fires Whether fires would Spread is dependent on the same factors which result in peacetime fire seasons Whether a fire would start is dependent on the amount and condition of the available fuel The thermal pulse from the weapons would be short and while it might start surface flames on solid fuels it often cannot raise the temperature sufficiently to result in continued burning A comparison was made with a match The match was considered the more critical test of the ignitability of a fuel A 20 000 MT attack delivered as high air bursts can furnish a thermal pulse sufficient to ignite 2 times the area of the United States if the proper fuel is availableo There is obviously very little fuel to ignite on a desert or a snow covered area and other ignitable areas are not all simultaneously in an optimum burnable condition One of the likely events of the simultaneous ignition of many fires in wildlands is spreading to burn large areaso In the past some of the larger fires have been as follows 4 million acres at Peshtigo Wisconsin 3 million acres in northern Idaho in 1910 and 2 million acres at Fort Yukon Alaska in 1950 The ecological consequences of the fires were pictured to be possible replacement of plant species promotion of better conditions for repeated fires and a change in animal species to be found on the burned areas Furthermore insects and disease may increase there may be an increase in available potassium returned to the soil and repeated fires might affect the type of biome such as occurred in the oak openings on the edge of the prairie and now occurs in the long-leaf pine regions Really ex tensive burning probably would result in increased runoff with a possibility of increased erosion Additionally irradiated forests may result in in- creased fire hazard by the addition of ignitable material During the discussion the point of the increased size of the affected area following a nuclear war was made but the author declared that in his opinion the effect of scale could be ignored because the fire hazard remains the same per unit area and each fire is independent of the others Another point made during the discussion which also hinged on scale was the possible problems encountered by putting very large areas in the same stage of succession owl A Woodwell Go MD and A0 H Sparrow Effects of Ionizing Radiation on Major Ecosystems This paper was a very close parallel of Woodwell s recent paper in the Scientific American June 1963 DECLASSIFIED 4 Some points of dispute 1 He said that pines and other conifers are the dominant trees of the montane and piedmont regions and that because of the high radio sensitivity of such plants these areas may be denuded and lead to floods and erosion The statement about what is dominant is true for the West Rockies and the piedmont deep South but not for the Appalachians from Massachusetts to Georgia nor for the piedmont from Massachusetts to Virginia Foresters have begun to question whether trees are the best retainers of runoff water 2 He said that so far he has not observed an insect population which is more sensitive than its hosts The implications of this are rather sweeping Has anyone made pre- or postmirradiation papulation studies of most of the important insect herbivores found for instance in the Brookhaven pine forest It seems more likely that the statement is based on noted abundances of certain insect species following exposure of the ecosystem 36 Ht said that the insect populations reSponded to quantity ii quality and concentration of food This is the classical density-independent approach to popu- lation regulation Density dependent factors such as competition predation and disease were neglected The authors presented a table of estimated radiation exposure doses that would damage ecosystems effect but not sure of to get no able to assure recovery in System effect recovery up to 2 years City 200 200 Agricultural region 200 200 Coniferous forest 200 200 2 000 7 2 000 Deciduous forest 200 200 - 10 000 -10 000 Grassmland 2 000 2 000 20 000 7'20 000 Herbaceous successional 4 000 4 000 to 70 000 70 000 DECLASSIFIED Authorityfg 19 '4 7 a Platt R Bo Homeostasis and Succession in Disturbed Ecosystemsa The bulk of this paper was a presentation of the differential Species kill data from the Lockheed reactor site in Georgian Homeostasis and succession were hardly discussed except in a speculative way Platt pointed out that the recovery of the habitat began even before all of the dying original vegetation was dead But a second dose of radiation from the reactor confused interpretation of the results The conclusion was a plea for experiments on effects and recovery of an ecosystem treated with artificial fallout pellets MacDonald D Ra Biological Interactions Within Ecosystems This paper was probably the most well presented and received paper of the symposiumo MacDonald was speaking on a subject which has already been well reported in the literature The emphasis was placed on the results of an investigation rather than on speculation about the possible consequences of a nuclear war The paper reported on an investigative program related to a control project for the spruce bud worm and the balsam wooly aphid in New Brunswick and Maine Studies were made of the effect of insecticide spraying on the peSts and subsequent effects on other animal pOpulationsoutThe results of the spraying showed the bud worm populations to be immediately reduced but the effect on the duration of the outbreak was inconclusive because the insect p0pulations on the unsprayed reference areas declined at the same time as the populations on the sprayed areaa The effects on bird and mammal populations were also slighto An important point was that although the salmon in a particular river were killed a few years later the salmon catch in this river was the greatest in historyo The sig- nificance of this result lies in what actually amounts to a pepulation explosion of salmona In this case the abundant organism is desirable and useful to man but this need not always be true The balance of the aquatic ecosystem was upset by poisoning certain species aquatic insects were drastically affected and recovery of the ecosystem was characterized by unusual abundances of some species e ga the salmon Recovery of terrestrial ecosystems following a nuclear war could be characterized by unusual abundances of some species which may or may not be detrimental to man's interesto Conclusions As in all symposiums and all meetings among the papers presented there were some good ones some fair ones and some poor ones All the papers contributed to some extent to the increased knowledge of the audience in respect to the complexity of the problem of attempting to predict the effects of a nuclear catastr0phe on ecological systemso One of the outstanding defects of the symposium was its primary concern with radiation effects Broido Spoke on fire and MacDonald Spoke on spruce - 5 - DECLASSIFIED utontyw H7413 4 bud worm outbreaks but the other speakers were picked to speak pri marily on topics related to radiation and its effects Furthermore and possibly because of the preoccupation with radiation effects there seemed to be a lack of interest in the long-term recovery aspects of ecosystems following a nuclear catastrOphe There seemed to be general agreement that the whole problem of long-term recovery was so vast and complex and the available information which is needed for prediction so sparse that much research will be needed to permit more definitive Speculation on the ecological consequences of a nuclear war                     National Security Archive    Suite 701  Gelman Library  The George Washington University    2130 H Street  NW  Washington  D C  20037    Phone  202 994‐7000  Fax  202 994‐7005  nsarchiv@gwu edu