PRESS RELEASE (94)50                     17 June 1994

         NATO SCIENCE PANEL MEETS IN HUNGARY

For the first time, one of the NATO Science Committee
Advisory Panels is meeting in a Cooperation Partner
country.  The panel, made up of experts drawn
from NATO nations, is charged with considering
environmental issues and the venue of its meeting is
Hungary.  Both the topic and the country reflect the
importance which the Hungarian authorities have been
attaching to cooperation with NATO in the environmental
arena and in a number of other high priority
scientific issues.  The Panel will not only review plans
for future cooperative activities but it will also
participate in a specialized NATO Workshop.

At a meeting starting in Budapest today, the Panel will
review applications for support from both NATO and
Cooperation Partner scientists.  This meeting will
be continued tomorrow in Visegrad where the Panel members
will also participate in a NATO Advanced Research
Workshop.

The NATO Workshop, under the codirection of Prof. P.
Richter of the Technical University of Budapest and Dr.
R. Herndon of Florida State University,
Tallahassee, USA, will consider low-cost remediation
technologies that might be applied to former Soviet
military installations in Central and Eastern Europe. 
The workshop will involve about 40 experts coming from
Canada, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Poland,
Romania, Slovak Republic, The Netherlands and
USA.  

Highly contaminated military sites must be cleaned up and
returned to economically productive use.  The results of
this Workshop will assist in prioritising the resources
needed for the task. 

This Workshop is one example of the activities overseen
by this NATO Advisory Panel.  Others include a study of
methodologies to assess soil and groundwater
contamination at Lithuanian military bases and a study on
how best to restore and manage the ecology of military
training areas.  The Panel does not limit its
attention to the decontamination of military sites.  It
deals also with non-military regional environmental
problems as well as natural and man-made disasters.  
Part of the conference will take place at the National
Committee for Technological Development (OMFB) in
Budapest (contact tel: 36-1-118 43 31) and the other
part will be in conjunction with the Advanced Research
Workshop at the Hotel
Sylvanus in Visegrad (contact tel: 36-26-328 311).  A
press conference has been scheduled for Monday, 20 June,
at 11:00 at the OMFB in Budapest
(Szervita Ter 8).