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I. Background: Past and Present U.S. Policies and Activities 
As indicated in the GAO Report, during the 40's, 50's, and 
60's, the oceans off our U.S. coastline were used as dumpsites 
for radioactive wastes. Available records indicate that approxi- 
mately 90,000 cannisters, with an estimated total activity of 
95,000 curies, were dumped at sites in the Atlantic, Pacific and 
the Gulf of Mexico -- with 99.5 percent of that amount dumped 
6/ 
prior to 1963. 
In 1970, the Council on Environmental Quality issued a 
report which concluded that ocean dumping of any radioactive 
waste ae a very serious and growing threat to the marine 
Lee ees In that report CEQ recommended that the prohibi- 
tion against dumping high-level radioactive wastes be continued, 
and that the dumping of low-level waste be prohibited, except 
in a very few cases where there exists "no alternative offering 
less harm to man or the environment .. . . [and] only when the 
8/ 
lack of alternatives has been demonstrated." 
Soon after the CEQ Report was published, the Marine Protec- 
tion, Research and Sanctuaries Act ("Ocean Dumping Act") of 1972 
9/ 
was enacted. Pursuant to Title I of the Act, no permits may 
be granted for dumping any high-level radioactive waste in the 
6/ Oceanography Miscellaneous -- Part 2: Hearings Before the 
Subcommittee on Oceanography on the House Committee on Mercnant 
Marine and Fisheries, 96th Cong., 96-53 (1980) [hereinafter cited 
as November 1980 Hearings], at 360. 
7/ Council on Environmental Quality, Ocean Dumping: A National 
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OY wlohe 92-532, OSes C37 UOVIA 33 WeSoGs Sl4HOl Se SSCiap as 
amended. 
