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Suggested Citation:"Recommendations." National Research Council. 1959. Radioactive Waste Disposal Into Atlantic and Gulf Coastal Waters; a Report From a Working Group of the Committee on Oceanography of the National Academy of Sciences-National Research Council. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/18537.
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Suggested disposed areas have been chosen in an attempt to min- imize conflict with submarine cable operation, as well as the purely mechanical problems connected with fisheries activities. RECOMMENDATIONS The panel is of the opinion that certain Atlantic and Gulf of Mexico coastal areas can be used as receiving waters for the controlled disposal of packaged, low level, radioactive wastes. Twenty-eight possible locations have been selected (figure 7, p. 34) that could, on the basis of presently available information, be used with- out limiting our other uses of coastal waters. The actual choice of dis- posal areas should be undertaken within the following limitations: 1. Prior to start of disposal operations a survey of an area must be made to determine details of local circulation and an inventory of the biota, especially of bottom-living organisms. 2. The total quantity of activity that is deposited into any one disposal area in any one year should be limited to 250 curies of Sr 90 or the equivalent of other isotopes. For the equivalent amounts of other isotopes see Table II and the accompanying discussion on page 13. 3. The total quantity of activity that is deposited in any one area during any given month should be limited to 100 curies of Sr 90 or the equivalent of other isotopes. 4. Adjacent disposal areas should be separated by at least 75 miles. 5. No 300 mile section of coast line should contain more than three disposal areas unless predominant currents, both bottom and sur- face, indicate that no exchange between areas is possible. 6. The waste container should be of such construction that no part of it or its contents will float to the surface should the container be broken. The practice of using steel drums as containers is recom- mended as giving appreciable holding time in the disposal area. 7. Periodically during use, the area should be monitored to pro- vide a measure of the spread of radioactivity throughout the region in- cluding both the biota and the bottom sediments, and to note changes that might be caused by disposal operations. The results of this moni- toring may indicate that certain of the above assumptions should be changed. THE PROBLEM The U.S. Atomic Energy Commission has asked the Committee on Oceanography of the National Academy of Sciences - National

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Radioactive Waste Disposal Into Atlantic and Gulf Coastal Waters; a Report From a Working Group of the Committee on Oceanography of the National Academy of Sciences-National Research Council Get This Book
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