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

Chapter 8
Notes to pp. 131–134 221
1. For the situation of those four nations at the time, see table 2.3.
2. Pro-dumping and anti-dumping governments had later been unable to reach an
agreement at a 1966 meeting held in Lisbon. See van Weers et al. 1982, p. 451.
3. These shipments and the subsequent storage of plutonium in Japan caused (and
still cause) considerable domestic and international controversy. See O’Neill 1999.
4. “Mariana Islanders Protest Plans By Japan to Dump Atomic Waste,” New York
Times, August 3, 1980; Van Dyke et al. 1984, p. 742; Branch 1984, pp. 329–330.
5. Plans by the United States will be discussed below.
6. See also “Japan: Seabed Dumping Delayed as Other Nations Object,” Nuclear
News 24, March 1981, 61–62.
7. Japan’s desire to act in a responsible way internationally motivated this and later
decisions on the issue (interview, Takao Kuramochi, August 30, 1991). This consideration
might have been given some weight by Japanese governments as the
United States had urged Japan to join, or even provide international leadership
behind, efforts to protect the environment; see, e.g., Friedman 1991. In 1980, however,
Japanese fishermen, fearing adverse effects from dumping on the fish stocks
that constituted their livelihood, threatened to use their boats to hinder dumping;
see Trumbull 1980; see also Junkerman 1981, p. 32. At the same time, the government
of the Commonwealth of the Northern Marianas reportedly warned that
Japanese vessels would be excluded from its fishing zone should dumping operations
be commenced; see Finn 1983b, p. 216. The following considerations have
also been suggested to explain Japan’s decision not to dump: “Japan has been cultivating
an image of peace and conciliation in an effort to live down its prewar reputation
as the Pacific Basin’s strong-arm bully; [and] it has made substantial
investments in the island nations and territories, and wants to make more.” (Carter
1987, p. 364)
8. In 1980, officials of the Japanese Science and Technology Agency noted it was
still “not necessary to get approval of foreign governments” (Kirk 1980, p. 4). In
1981, a leading official of the same agency reportedly (Kamm 1981) said: “We will
continue to have a plan to dump. We did not give up the plan.”
9. See also Bakalian 1984.
10. See also Shabecoff 1982.
11. In 1982, the Department of Energy estimated that land disposal of 60,000 metric
tons of slightly radioactive soil would cost well over $100 million, but ocean disposal
less than $10 million. See Roberts 1982, p. 774. In 1984, it was estimated
that dumping nine retired submarines would cost about $5.2 million, whereas burying
them on land would cost $13.3 million (Trupp 1984, p. 34). Both of the Navy’s
cost estimates (which did not include the costs of monitoring over a period of several
hundred years, and which presented scientific documentation claiming that no
harm would be inflicted on the marine environment and human health) were criticized
by U.S. groups opposing the Navy’s plans. See “Joint Comments of Environmental
and Other Citizen Organizations in Response to the Department of Navy’s