what a fishing rod we have here isn't it and we usually think of fishing as generally sport but they hednesford atomic products operation in richland washington on the bank of the columbia we do a type of fishing that i would never have dreamed  this work is done by the aquatic biology operation which is headed up by dr richard foster's we have dr foster with us now and i'd like to introduce to him he's manager of the atomic products are the the aquatic biology operation  friend i'd like to ask you a blunt in plain blank question to begin with and it's unfair to say so what is the work of your aquatic biology operations all this is really quite simple frank aquatic biology has to do with the study of life in the water and here at hanford the largest body of water which we have is the columbia river and so our work is mainly with the life in the columbia i expect your next question may be as to why should we add hanford study and life in the columbia river the answer to this is also quite simple we have a you know a unique kind of effluent problem they had heard reactors water from the columbia river first go through the reactors in order to cool them it is then returned to the columbia river some of the dissolved minerals what you're present in columbia river water because mildly radioactive and we would like to know when this material gets into the columbia river whether any of these mildly radioactive materials are picked up by the aquatic life and have so where it becomes deposited if you've given us some indication of what your work is about dr foster i know that much of it must be accomplished on the river would you tell us what kinds of aquatic life you encounter in your work on the or evers yes frank the kinds of things which you find in the river are much like those what you find on dry land we have the green plants represented in the river by algae some of this algae is present as tiny floating cells present in the river water other is other types of algae go on the rock we have many different kinds of organisms such as the snails and in the second larvae which eat on the algae on the rocks and of course may feed on these kinds of life which grow on the rocks other kinds of face feed on other kinds of space so the problem really is that to study all kinds of life and the columbia river i happen to know that as you work on effectively we do have clams present in the columbia river clams the world one used in the columbia by indians we also have crayfish and the columbia river crayfish which grow to a large dies but for some reason or other they're not a very popular food for people we have two different kinds of face a small bone head which lays in the weight at the bottom of the river to capture other face which may swim by and of course a couple of very small specimens of the sturgeon which is the largest facia in the columbia i'm sure many of our viewers that marty seen pictures of the mighty salmon which are very common and very valuable to the columbia river system dr foster it's quite easy for me for any of us do understand how you get there samples of this size the design understand it the plankton plankton are very small they're almost microscopic how do you get in those out of the rivers we have to strain these out with a net which has an extremely fine mesh these nets are made out of silk balding plot their matches so fine that they strain the majority of the organisms out of the water but some of the organisms are so small that they even go through the mesh of these kinds of  now after you do get to these plankton samples i imagine you take them back to the laboratory and do something with them this is right we're interested in the radioactive materials which are present in the plankton that also in the other forms such as the face when we get these materials back to the which is about the size of a quarter and these plates that are placed under a geiger tool we can rather accurately determine the amount of radioactive materials which are present i see now in your work on the river do you make any other tests that might be interesting and are significant in your work where course interested in the water because after all what affects the water affects the organisms and so we take samples of water sampling the water is rather a sample at the surface but when we want to sample that water back up to the service and all the situation at any particular depth we're also interested in current how fast the water goes by the organisms because they are affected by this certain ones like fast water others like slow water we can measure the a current meter which works on the same principle as the anemometer which is used by the weatherman these are only a few of the various kinds of things which we do apparently is very interesting and i've been joined and i know our viewers  enjoyed this brief resume of your work on the river i know you didn't tell us all the work and i know that you must be doing some work in your laboratory into our as scientists now are working with scientists would you tell us something about your laboratory work because well they work in the field w not mean very much without correlating with the work which we do in the lab this is because the amount of radioactive materials which are present in columbia river organisms are so low we don't really expect to see any effects mixture of effluent could be tolerated by facia in the columbia river we can also use these kinds of sage to trace the radioactive materials through the various tissues by feeding  these facial radioactive food and we can find out then how much of the material is picked up and where it is deposited so our laboratory program works in conjunction with the field survey program i see dr foster i'm going to be awfully unfair now but in fifteen seconds could you tell us the significance of your work and work in the columbia river is this the result of this we do find that these fish pick up very small amounts of radioactive material the amount which they pick up as not at all hazardous but we know that they from that angle the operation of the plant is quite safe some of the programs are also carried on by other components for the atmosphere for the soil for the drinking water that's been here and now i'd like to introduce our science student the week who is mr burke what is your first name burke doyle his senior at columbia high school and last year he where through the efforts of g e and the atomic energy commission i was able to be introduced to this idea and with their help and advice you plan to go into science as a career i understand what field well i wanted to go into the applied science as a career where i could use both physics chemistry and biology and i chose for that profession the application of forestry we have been dealing this evening with atomic energy are you interested in the topic energy at all well i think that anyone who is interested directly or indirectly with the application of science would have a definite view as to the use of atomic energy in this aspect of doyle i certainly want to congratulate you and i'm sure anyone that sees this piece of work here would on this particular piece of work and we also wish you every success in your scientific career and it was a pleasure having you with us good luck at hanford science forum is an educational feature of the general electric company and the united states atomic energy commission at