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Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution 



woods hole, massachusetts 02543 



Phone (617) 548-1400 

 TWX 710-346-6601 



December 16, 1980 



Hon. Gerry E. Studds, Chairman 

 Subcommittee on Oceanography 

 Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries 

 U.S. House of Representatives 

 Washington, D.C. 20515 



Dear Congressman Studds: 



I welcome the decision of your subcommittee to conduct hearings on the 

 disposal of nuclear waste in the oceans, including inter alia the emplacement 

 of high level radioactive waste under the deep sea floor. These hearings, 

 held on November 20, 1980, continue the involvement of your subcommittee in 

 the important issue of seabed emplacement, which was previously before the 

 subcommittee on May 15 and July 11, 1978. This issue has also been considered 

 in hearings conducted by the Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment of 

 the Interior and Insular Affairs Committee on July 26 - 27, 1976. 



As a result of these three sets of hearings, as well as administrative 

 developments, several federal agencies have now gone on record on various 

 occasions concerning the feasibility of seabed emplacement of high level 

 waste, its legality under domestic and international law, and the policy 

 and institutional problems presented by this concept. As your hearing on 

 November 20 indicated, the federal agencies continue to be unwilling to offer 

 determinative opinions on the legality of emplacement; in addition, the 

 statements available to date are sometimes in conflict. To an extent, the 

 reluctance of the agencies to assume legal positions is justified in terms 

 of the preliminary status of the proposal and resultant unclarity about the 

 best ways to proceed internationally. 



It is unlikely, however, that international acceptance or rejection of 

 seabed emplacement will depend on resolution of the abstract legal question 

 whether such an activity would be subject to the London Dumping Convention 

 as a form of ocean "dumping". Its acceptability to the industrial partners 

 of the United States will probably depend on the technical adequacy of the 

 proposal and the satisfactoriness of the consultations which have been conducted 

 among the OECD group. The acceptability of seabed emplacement to other nations 

 may depend on other factors as well as these. While discussions between the 

 the OECD nations and other blocs might be cast in the language of international 

 law (the obligation to avoid pollution of the global commons) and the law of 

 the sea (the common heritage in the seabed), these discussions will be 

 responsive to the means by which the industrialized nations of the West organize 



