IV-180 



uses only the harmful extent of such uses must be stopped or 

 restricted. For example, sanitary wastes discharged from ships 

 may be a harmful side effect of shipping that must be curtailed. 

 There is no need to conclude, however, that shipping must be 

 stopped. Similarly, water skiing or boat racing may be harmful 

 to sport fishing. However, a simple zoning of certain areas for 

 use of sport fishermen and not for high speed boating or water 

 skiing allows the use of an estuary for all these pursuits. 



At the present time, the major uses of estuaries, in terms of gross 

 monetary return are: military use, shipping, and industrial 

 activities. These uses are, of course, historical and do not 

 necessarily reflect the uses that would be made of the estuary 

 under today's conditions or future conditions, if each use were to 

 compete for the water use at the same time. In other words, 

 historical use has brought about the present use imbalance in many 

 estuarine systems. However, given the opportunity to develop, 

 other uses might attain equal importance economically while contri- 

 buting important social benefits. 



Estuaries at the present time represent underdeveloped natural 

 resources that are important to the social as well as the economic 

 well-being of the Nation. Although lack of understanding of the 

 dynamics of an estuary and the inability to foresee the coming of 

 age of an industrial economy, with its resultant increase in 

 leisure time, may have combined to allow undesirable exploitation 



