280 



change of information on waste management disposal practices and waste man- 

 agement research" (Annual Report 1963/64) and "progress has been made in 

 converting high activity liquid wastes into inert solids" and so forth (Annual 

 Report 1964/65), but little light is thrown in all these reports on the vital ques- 

 tion of whether the recommendations of the 1961 expert panel were in fact en- 

 dorsed by the International Atomic Energy Agency and on the extent to which 

 those recommendations have in practice been followed by the international com- 

 munity as a whole. We hope that during this debate it will be possible for my 

 delegation to obtain authoritative information on the following points : whether 

 an international register of radioactive waste disposal into the sea has in fact 

 been established and how comprehensive that register is ; whether, and how 

 many, annual reports are received by IAEA on sea-disposal sites established 

 by national authorities ; whether a comprehensive world-wide monitoring pro- 

 gramme has in fact been established and whether monitoring techniques have 

 been standardized. 



In any case. I have found no evidence that any legally binding international 

 instrument setting limits to and rules for the disposal of radioactive waste mate- 

 rials into the deep sea is in force at the present time, nor does there appear to 

 be in operation aiiy effective international system of ascertaining scientifically 

 and systematically, on a world-wide basis, damage to the marine environment 

 caused by present waste disposal practices. 



I am aware that this question has attracted some controversy. At the 1966 

 Vienna Symposium on the disposal of radioactive wastes into the seas, oceans 

 and surface waters, some of the papers presented minimized the possibility of 

 hazards, assuming, of course, appropriate disposal techniques. Among the several 

 papers that reached this conclusion, with varying qualifications however, the one 

 presented by Rodier and others was perhaps the most categorical. I shall quote 

 its conclusions. 



{Spoke in French) 



"In the course of the seven years that have elapsed, the disposal of radioactive 

 liquid waste products from the Marcoule Centre into the Rhone has been carried 

 out in very satisfactory conditions. Regulation of the amounts of radioactive ele- 

 ments to be disposed of has never been an obstacle to the operation of the produc- 

 tion installations. Moreover, no accidental or abnormal pollution of the Rhone 

 has been registered." (Proceedings of tJie Symposium on the disposal of radio- 

 active icastes into the seas, oceans and surface tvaters, A^ienna 1966, p- 722.) 



{Continued in English) 



On the contrary, however, Vdovenko, Gedeonov, Kolcsnikov and others pre- 

 sented a paper based on the observations carried out during the 1963/64 oceano- 

 graphic campaign of the research vessel Mikhail Lomonosov which concluded 

 that— 



"extremely high concentrations of strontium 90 and caesium 137 were detected in 

 the equatorial zone of the Atlantic, exceeding the mean Atlantic level by a factor 

 of 5-(5 and by a factor of 14 at a depth of 1,000 metres. This abnormal concentra- 

 tion cannot be explained by reference to the atmospheric sources of contamina- 

 tion. The established fact of a considerably increased content of strontium 90 and 

 caesium 137 in the ocean as compared to land, together with the discovery of 

 abnormally contaminated areas in the ocean, point to the possibility of other 

 sources of contamination of the Atlantic in addition to that represented by the 

 atmosphere". {Ibid., p. 42.5) 



A further paper by Belyaev and others demonstrated that strontium 90 con- 

 centrations in the Black Sea exceeded tho.se of the Atlantic Ocean, that surface 

 contamination rapidly penetrates to the bottom, and that ".solid or liquid wastes 

 even if disposed of at the bottom rapidly reach the surface". Feldt, expert of 

 the Bundes forschnungsanstalt fiir fischerei, studying radioactive contamination 

 of North Sea fish, concluded that there had been "no decrease in contamination 

 of fish since cessation of the atmospheric bomb testings and that "the processing 

 of fi.sh meat by boiling and frying has no observable effect on decontamination". 

 {Ihid., p. 751) 



Since the papers submitted show marked differences in the conclusions of ex- 

 perts as to present hazards with regard to present practices of radioactive waste 

 di.sposal into the sea, perhaps the only conclusion that a non-expect can draw 

 at this stage from the available evidence is that, although hazards to man have 

 not yet reached an acute stage, and although serious damage to the marine 

 environment can be demonstrated only in a few areas, the whole question de- 

 serves far greater and deeper consideration than it has received heretofore. 



