1981 
261 
The Role of the Ocean in a Waste Management Strategy, 
A Special Report to the President and the Congress, 
National Advisory Committee on Oceans and Atmospheres 
(January, 1981). 
Summary: 
* National Environmental Policy Act (1970) established 
the procedural framework by which the United States 
sought to prevent or eliminate damage to the environment. 
The act was designed to force Federal agencies to consider 
the environmental impacts of their proposed activities. 
Five additional acts of a substantive nature were sub- 
sequently passed to address the management of society's 
waste disposal (Clean Air Act, Clean Water Act, Ocean 
Dumping Act, Safe Water Drinking Act and Resource Con- 
servation and Recovery Act) 
* The implementation of each of the substantive acts 
shifted the burden of receiving society's waste products 
to the medium that was least regulated at the moment. 
* The medium-by-medium approach has lead to the prom- 
ulgation of regulations which neither consider the impact 
on other mediums nor reflect an overall management plan 
for the disposal of society's waste materials. 
* Disposal of dredged material physically buries benthic 
(bottom dwelling) organisms and creates mounds of material. 
The ecological effects of toxic materials are difficult 
to assess, however scientific evidence indicates that 
Marine organisms are relatively unaffected by heavy metals, 
that benthic organisms recolonize in a very short period 
of time and marine food chains do not biomagnify either 
heavy metals (mercury excepted) or synthetic organics. 
* The quantity of dredged material -- the sediment 
dredged from rivers, estuaries, harbors, and other water- 
ways -- dumped into the ocean is larger than any other 
type of waste material. The quantity varies in relation 
to the number and type of dredging projects in any given 
year. 
However, in comparison to the overall amount of 
sediment naturally deposited in the ocean, dredged material 
is a small fraction. 
* The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers believes that no more 
than 5 percent of all dredged materials ocean dumped today 
fail to pass the stringent bioassay testing procedures. 
