Radioactive Waste Disposal 1959 US Public Health Service; Ocean Dumping of Nuclear Waste

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Originally a public domain film from the US Public Health Service, slightly cropped to remove uneven edges, with the aspect ratio corrected, and one-pass brightness-contrast-color correction & mild video noise reduction applied.

The soundtrack was also processed with volume normalization, noise reduction, clipping reduction, and/or equalization (the resulting sound, though not perfect, is far less noisy than the original).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_disposal_of_radioactive_waste

Wikipedia license: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

From 1946 through 1993, thirteen countries (fourteen, if the USSR and Russia are considered separately) used ocean disposal or ocean dumping as a method to dispose of nuclear/radioactive waste. The waste materials included both liquids and solids housed in various containers, as well as reactor vessels, with and without spent or damaged nuclear fuel. Since 1993, ocean disposal has been banned by international treaties. (London Convention (1972), Basel Convention, MARPOL 73/78)

However, according to the United Nations, some companies have been dumping radioactive waste and other hazardous materials into the coastal waters of Somalia, taking advantage of the fact that the country had no functioning government from the early 1990s onwards. According to one official at the United Nations, this caused health problems for locals in the coastal region and posed a significant danger to Somalia's fishing industry and local marine life.

"Ocean floor disposal" (or sub-seabed disposal)—a more deliberate method of delivering radioactive waste to the ocean floor and depositing it into the seabed—was studied by the UK and Sweden, but never implemented...

History

Data are from IAEA-TECDOC-1105. page 3-4

1946 First dumping operation at Northeast Pacific Ocean (about 80 km off the coast of California)

1957 First IAEA Advisory Group Meeting on Radioactive Waste Disposal into the Sea

1958 First United Nations Conference on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS I)

1964 On the 21 April, a satellite failed carrying a SNAP-9A radiothermal generator. 17,000 Ci (630 TBq) plutonium metal fuel burned up.

1972 Adoption of the Convention on the Prevention of Marine Pollution by Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter (London Convention 1972)

1975 The London Convention 1972 entered into force (Prohibition of dumping of high level radioactive waste.)

1978 On the 24 January a satellite named Kosmos 954 failed. It was powered by a liquid sodium–potassium thermionic converter driven by a nuclear reactor containing around 50 kilograms (110 lb) of uranium-235.

1983 Moratorium on low-level waste dumping

1988 Assessing the Impact of Deep Sea Disposal of Low-level Radioactive Waste on Living Marine Resources. IAEA Technical Reports Series No. 288

1990 Estimation of Radiation Risks at Low Dose. IAEA-TECDOC-557

1993 Russia reported the dumping of high level nuclear waste including spent fuel by former USSR.

1994 Feb-20 Total prohibition of disposal at sea came into force...

The countries involved — listed in order of total contributions measured in TBq (TBq=1012 Becquerel) — were the USSR, the UK, Switzerland, the US, Belgium, France, the Netherlands, Japan, Sweden, Russia, New Zealand, Germany, Italy and South Korea. Together, they dumped a total of 85,100 TBq (85.1x1015 Bq) of radioactive waste at over 100 ocean sites, as measured in initial radioactivity at the time of dump.

For comparison:

Global fallout of nuclear weapon tests — 2,566,087x1015 Bq.

1986 Chernobyl disaster total release — 12,060x1015 Bq.

2011 Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster, estimated total 340x1015 to 780x1015 Bq, with 80% falling into the Pacific Ocean.

Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant cooling water dumped (leaked) to the sea — TEPCO estimate 4.7x1015 Bq, Japanese Nuclear Safety Commission estimate 15x1015 Bq, French Nuclear Safety Committee estimate 27x1015 Bq.

Naturally occurring Potassium 40 in all oceans — 14,000,000x1015 Bq.

One container (net 400 kg) of vitrified high-level radioactive waste has an average radioactivity of 4x1015 Bq (Max 45x1015 Bq)...

Dump sites...

North Atlantic

Dumping occurred from 1948 to 1982. Seventy-eight percent of dumping in the Atlantic was done by UK (35,088 TBq), followed by Switzerland (4,419 TBq), USA (2,924 TBq) and Belgium (2,120 TBq). Sunken USSR nuclear submarines are not included. see List of sunken nuclear submarines

There were 137,000 tonnes dumped by eight European countries. USA reported neither tonnage nor volume for 34,282 containers...