The Turn Toward the Coast 



Americans are turning toward the coasts. The 1970 census showed that 

 nearly 170 million Americans (about 83 percent of our people) live in our 

 coastal States, and the population trend is increasing in this direction. Many 

 of the environmental and resources problems facing the Nation flow from 

 this concentration. Demands for work, housing, power, transportation, 

 recreation, and other human activities proliferate in the coastal zone. Pol- 

 lutants and wastes from these activities threaten valuable areas and natural 

 resources. 



New emphasis must be given to management of our lands and waters, a 

 program which was proposed by the President in the National Land Use 

 Policy legislation introduced in Congress and pending at the close of 1971. 

 But to make that or any other land and water use management program^ 

 effective, the problems of the coastal zone have to be clearly defined. 



The greatest knowledge requirement is to quantify what thus far has 

 been a virtual abstraction — that is, to be able to say that action A will be 

 followed by consequence B, penalty C, benefit D, and so forth. Much of 

 the Federal effort related to coastal zone activities has this as a short-term 

 goal. All Federal programs share the longer range goal of intelligent com- 

 bination of use and preservation of this national resource and its life forms. 

 It is an effort that has barely begun and which has far to go. 



In 1971, the Federal Ocean Program moved forward in estuarine model- 

 ing to simulate environmental conditions and processes; studies of specific 

 estuaries, including Chesapeake, Delaware, Galveston, and San Francisco 

 Bays; environmental impact studies of fossil-fuel and nuclear reactor power- 

 plant siting; studies aimed at defining legal problems in the coastal zone; 

 investigations of pollution abatement and control to improve criteria and 

 standards of water quality, to prevent or contain oil spills, and to enforce 

 water quality laws and regulations; and studies of relations between living 

 and nonliving resources. 



Internationally, the United States ratified the 1969 Inter-Governmental 

 Maritime Consultative Organization (IMCO) convention governing inter- 

 vention by a coastal nation in case of oil pollution casualties such as resulted 

 from the Torrey Canyon breakup and ratified the 1969 amendments to the 

 1954 IMCO Oil Pollution Convention. Negotiations were completed on an 

 international convention on the establishment of an international compen- 

 sation fund to pay for the damages and costs of cleanup of oil spills. The 

 United States also proposed a draft international convention to regulate 

 ocean dumping. A United States-Canada ministerial meeting on Great 

 Lakes pollution in June 1971 resulted in a decision to work toward com- 

 mon water quality objectives; a formal agreement between the two coun- 

 tries was signed by President Nixon and Prime Minister Trudeau on 

 April 15, 1972. 



IVIonitoringy Predicting, and Mapping 



Whether using the oceans as a highway, a laboratory, or as fishing grounds, 

 the describing and predicting of conditions in and above them are essential 

 to their safe use. Marine weather and climate, sea conditions, navigable 



