Radioactive Waste Disposal at Sea: Public Ideas ... - IMO

Changing the Global Ocean Dumping Regime 133
presented a formal anti-dumping petition, representing seventy organizations
with a total of more than 12 million members, to the Japanese Diet. 4
The Japanese government was also asked to send officials to the islands for
discussions. Encouraged by the United States, Japanese scientists and politicians
toured the region, trying to persuade governments that the dumping
was safe. The campaign failed, however, and the Foreign Minister of New
Guinea subsequently told the UN General Assembly that the long-term
effects of dumping could be catastrophic (Callick 1980, p. 40). In October
of 1980, the governors of Hawaii, Guam, American Samoa, and the
Northern Mariana Islands issued a statement opposing the dumping of
radioactive waste planned by Japan and the United States and declared that
their organization, the Pacific Basin Development Council, “totally opposes
the dumping of radioactive nuclear waste in any part of the Pacific Basin”
(Trumbull 1980). 5
In February of 1981 the Japanese government indicated that, in response
to the protests, it had put off its plans to begin experimental dumping later
the same year (Kamm 1981). 6 A complex combination of government considerations
and domestic opposition apparently led to that decision. 7
Instead, Japan hoped to allay the fears of the Oceanian and Southeast Asian
countries and then to dump small amounts of radioactive waste; only if that
proved safe (as was expected) would full-scale dumping begin, probably in
1987 or later (Ishihara 1982, pp. 469–470). In August of 1984, however,
officials of the Japanese Science and Technology Agency reportedly admitted
that they were prepared to break their 1980 assurance not to dump
without the consent of the Pacific nations (Dibblin 1985a, pp. 18–19). 8
After yet another uproar, representatives of the same agency assured that
dumping would happen only “with the understanding” of the Pacific
nations (Dibblin 1985b, p. 21).
There also existed a real possibility that the United States, after a pause
of almost 20 years, would resume ocean dumping of some forms of radioactive
waste. Toward the end of the 1970s, the United States’ regulation of
ocean dumping—the essentially precautionary and prohibitory Marine
Protection, Research, and Sanctuaries Act of 1972, examined in chapters 4
and 5—came under some attack. There were indications that existent stringent
ocean dumping regulation would be relaxed as Congress and the
courts became painfully aware of some of the realities of strict regulation,
namely considerable pollution control costs and insufficient alternatives.