3. Low level radioactive wastes generated within private facilities. 
Several industrial concerns and research laboratories licensed by 
AEC to use radioactive materials have either conducted their uwn waste 
disposal operations or have contracted with licensed marine disposal 
companies to have the wastes carried to sea. The areas in which low 
level radioactive wastes have been dumped at sea by these operations 
are the unlettered areas in figure 1. Approximately 25 curies have 
been disposed of through these channels, most of it several hundred 
miles off shore. 
In all, something less than 6000 curies were added to the water °* 
off the Atlantic coast of the U.S. between 1951 and 1958. The exact 
composition of this waste material is uncertain; that is, it is impossible 
to determine the quantities of various radioisotopes, and in many cases 
the total activity associated with a disposal container is uncertain. By 
far the greatest bulk of this material has been deposited into water 
1000 fathoms or more deep, and in containers that will provide some 
factor of safety to the environment, in that at least a part of the wastes 
will have disappeared by natural radioactive decay before being released 
to the sea. 
A survey of the area that has received most of the wastes, area 
b, figure 1, was made by the Chesapeake Bay Institute of The Johns 
Hopkins University, and the U.S. Coast and Geodetic Survey. The activ- 
ity, beta and gamma counting, of samples of bottom sediments taken 
within the disposal area was compared to the analysis of samples 
taken outside of the area. No difference could be found. Comments on 
survey methods will be made in a later section. 
The quantity of low level radioactive wastes that will, under ex- 
isting operational procedures, find its way into the Atlantic coastal 
waters is increasing. The off-shore, deep water disposal areas appear 
to be adequate to handle projected quantities of these wastes without 
limiting our other uses of these waters. Of immediate concern to the 
AEC is the increase in the quantities of radioactive materials used by 
non-governmental agencies and the increase in the numbers of com- 
mercial marine disposal concerns who are seeking licenses to handle 
and dispose of the low level radioactive wastes into shallow coastal 
areas. 
In general, marine disposal concerns are at present not equipped 
to carry the wastes several hundred miles to sea, at least not without 
a considerable increase in the cost of the service. The disposal con- 
cerns would like to deposit these wastes in existing or newly designated 
disposal areas in the relatively shallow coastal waters up to approxi- 
mately fifty miles from shore. One concern has, with AEC permission, 
disposed of limited quantities of packaged low level wastes in 50 fathoms 
of water, some twelve to fifteen miles from the coast, area e, figure l. 
