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

28 Chapter 2
mainly disposed of in three sites in the Atlantic (off New Jersey and
Massachusetts) and one site in the Pacific (off San Francisco). These four
sites received more than 90 percent of all the radioactive waste containers
and 95 percent of the estimated radioactivity dumped.
The largest quantity of radioactive waste was dumped in the period
1946–1962. In 1960, because of increasingly strong public opposition to
ocean disposal, the AEC imposed a moratorium on the issuance of new
licenses for dumping (Mazuzan and Walker 1985, pp. 344–372). The AEC
turned instead to land burial, which also entailed relatively lower costs
compared to ocean disposal. Contributing to the high costs were containers,
transportation to the dock, and transportation to disposal point in the
ocean (Straub 1964, p. 326). By 1963 most ocean dumping had been
phased out. About 350 containers (with an estimated activity of 230 Ci)
were dumped into the ocean between 1963 and 1970 when radwaste disposal
was terminated (Holcomb 1982, p. 189). 23
International Ocean Disposal after 1973
Representatives from 92 states, meeting in a highly publicized UN-sponsored
conference held in London from October 30 to November 13, 1972,
agreed for the first time to establish a global environmental regime controlling
the disposal of wastes in the oceans, radioactive wastes included. All
the Western European maritime and nonmaritime states participated, as
did the Soviet Union, the United States, Canada, Japan, Australia, and New
Zealand. A large number of developing countries were also represented. 24
This truly global environmental regime prohibits ocean dumping of highlevel
radioactive waste while allowing medium-level and low-level radioactive
waste to be dumped when the dumping is done in essentially a
controlled way.
The global ocean dumping regime prohibits dumping without a permit.
Governments are responsible for issuing permits to dumpers under
their jurisdiction and for seeing that any required conditions are fulfilled.
Members must report the quantity and the nature of the material dumped
to a secretariat, which then reports this information to the other members
of the regime. The successful implementation of the London Convention
depends on the development of an effective enforcement mechanism by