Atomic Radiation and Oceanography and Fisheries 



edge of radiation effects on marine organisms is, 

 however, inadequate for firm conclusions. 



Pollution in general 



The introduction of atomic wastes into the 

 aquatic environment is but one aspect of the 

 general problem of pollution. 



Man's record with respect to pollution of 

 lakes, streams, and parts of the sea by sewage 

 and industrial wastes has not been good. In 

 many places, the waters have been ruined for 

 recreation and useful living resources have been 

 destroyed or made unfit for human consumption. 

 This unhappy record results from two factors: 

 (1) the insidious nature of pollution of the 

 aquatic environment, and (2) the fact that the 

 waters and most of their resources are not pri- 

 vate property, but are the common property of 

 a large community (in the case of the high seas, 

 the whole world) ; what is everyone's business 

 often becomes no one's business. 



The ruin of an aquatic resource by pollution 

 seldom has been rapid. Quantities of waste 

 products, at first very small, increase year by 

 year until finally the concentrations become so 

 large as to have obvious deleterious eflfects. For 

 example, in the depletion of oxygen by organic 

 wastes, sharp critical levels of tolerance of low 

 oxygen content exist for some of the living re- 

 sources, so that there is little adverse effect until 

 a critical concentration of pollutant is reached, 

 whereupon catastrophic mortality occurs. In 

 other cases, the effects are more or less propor- 

 tional to the concentrations. The destruction of 

 a resource may then proceed gradually and it 

 may not even be clear whether the pollutant 

 has, indeed, been the cause rather than some 

 other environmental change. For these reasons, 

 it is necessary that the introduction of waste 

 materials of any kind into the aquatic environ- 

 ment be carefully monitored, so that the effects 

 may be detected before they become serious. 

 Unfortunately, such monitoring is seldom the 

 concern of those who produce the pollutants. 



The record of the control and monitoring of 

 the disposal of atomic pollutants has, so far, 

 been excellent. We are, however, at the thresh- 

 old of a tremendous growth of the atomic energy 

 industry, and it behooves mankind to make sure 

 that as much caution is exercised in the future 

 as in the past. 



Ordinary pollutants in sewage and industrial 

 wastes are rapidly neutralized by the chemical 



and biological processes in the sea, and when 

 effects of pollution are detected they can be 

 rather quickly reversed by the cessation of intro- 

 duction of the waste. A number of the radio 

 isotopes, on the other hand, are very long-lived. 

 Having reached harmful concentrations in the 

 sea, they will diminish only by very slow decay, 

 so that the effect of any serious pollution is not 

 reversible. For this reason, the prevention of 

 atomic pollution is of paramount importance. 



URGENCY OF THE PROBLEM 



Estimates of the rate of economic develop- 

 ment of nuclear power vary widely. This 

 source of power is already competitive with 

 conventional sources in some places, and re- 

 search on reactor development with consequent 

 reductions in cost is proceeding rapidly. Thus, 

 we can expect that very large quantities of nu- 

 clear power will be generated in the quite near 

 future, even though the relative urgency of 

 nuclear power requirements differs greatly in 

 different countries. In countries with high costs 

 from conventional (fossil) fuels there is en- 

 couragement to proceed immediately with the 

 commercial construction of reactors of proved 

 design. In such countries as the United States, 

 where conventional power costs are low, major 

 efforts are being devoted to experimental con- 

 struction of new types of reactors that hold 

 promise of economical operation in the future. 



One megawatt-year of heat produced by a 

 nuclear reactor results in 365 grams of fission 

 products. The Committee on Disposal and Dis- 

 persal of Radioactive Wastes, also a part of the 

 National Academy of Sciences' study of the bio- 

 logical effects of atomic radiation (1956), es- 

 timates that by 1965 the United States will be 

 generating about 11,000 megawatts of reactor 

 heat, some 20 per cent of which will be for 

 naval vessels. This will result in the produc- 

 tion of about 4 tons per year of fission products. 

 According to recent statements of government 

 officials, reported in Nucleonics (1957), the 

 United Kingdom has a 1965 target of 6,000 

 megawatts of electricity from Calder Hall-type 

 reactors; "Euratom" has a goal of 15,000 mega- 

 watts by 1967, and Japan will produce 1,000 

 megawatts by 1965 and 10,000 megawatts by 

 1975. If the reactors are of 25 per cent ef- 

 ficiency in conversion of heat to electricity (the 

 Calder Hall reactor has a net thermal efficiency 

 of 21.5 per cent. Nucleonics 1956), for each 



