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

188 Chapter 10
In order to avoid transferring harm to other environmental sectors, the decision
whether or not to dispose of at sea should, therefore, include a comparison
with harm from using other disposal options.
The London Convention says, in its Annex 3, that the competent national
agency should compare the risks from ocean disposal with the risks from
land-based disposal methods before issuing a dumping permit. But such
comparative risk assessments have not been carried out systematically. As
was documented in chapters 8 and 9, the risks from land-based methods of
disposal of low-level radioactive waste were not systematically taken into
account when it was decided to ban radwaste disposal. The ban was largely
based on the perceived risks to humans and the marine environment from
ocean disposal.
Marine scientists agree that the ocean in principle has an assimilative
capacity, and a consensus definition—“the amount of material that could
be contained within a body of seawater without producing an unacceptable
biological impact” (Stebbing 1992, p. 288)—was reached in 1979. 22
From this definition it follows that pollution is an unacceptable change to
the environment but that change in itself does not constitute pollution.
GESAMP and the Advisory Committee on Marine Pollution (ACMP) have
endorsed the concept of assimilative capacity and thus distinguish between
acceptable and unacceptable change to the marine environment. 23 In accordance
with the Stockholm strategy, they stress that so-called holistic considerations
should be made in all cases, radwaste disposal included (Bewers
and Garrett 1987, p. 119). This, furthermore, would minimize the total
harm inflicted on the environment.
As I discussed in chapter 9, GESAMP was greatly concerned over the ban
on radwaste disposal. GESAMP viewed the ban as an expression of a lack
of confidence in regulatory decision making concerned with issues characterized
by scientific uncertain as well as a forerunner of the more recent
trend within international environmental forums to adopt the precautionary
principle. GESAMP also criticized the regulatory approach taken by
most international marine pollution arrangements because “the occurrence
or risk of pollution becomes the major criterion for regulatory action”
(GESAMP 1991, p. 25). In its view, this is a conceptually flawed approach
and it leads to haphazard regulation. GESAMP and ACMP instead stressed
the need to distinguish between contamination and pollution and the