Pollution can be defined as any process which alters the quality of the environment or interferes with some beneficial use of an area. One form of water pollution is ocean dumping. The variety of potentially harmful materials which can be dumped into the world's oceans is vast and diverse. They include bulk material, phosphates and other chemicals, heavy metals, petroleum, and chlorinated hydrocarbons. Furthermore, some of these pollutants may be radioactive and, thus, have enhanced potential for causing harm.
Even by the 1970s, more than 100 million tons of waste was being dumped into the oceans by the United States alone. In addition, billions of gallons of municipal sewage is also discharged into coastal waters each day. Sand and mud at the mouths of harbors often act as sponges for this discharge. When ports require dredging, it is often found that a percentage of the dredge spoil is contaminated. In fact, 80% of all ocean dumping consists of dredge spoil removed from polluted harbors.
The history of government interventions towards the protection of ocean environments has been a sporadic one. In 1890, the Rivers and Harbors Act barred dumping of garbage. The law, however, pertains only to solid waste.
It wasn't until the 1960s, that ocean dumping was reexamined. A study commissioned by President Nixon's Council on Environmental Quality resulted in The Marine Protection, Research, and Sanctuaries Act of 1972, also known as the Ocean Dumping Act. Then, in 1973, the governments of 52 nations signed a similar treaty at the London Dumping Convention.
Since the 1970s, there have been calls for an ban on the dumping of all sewage sludge. Political pressures, however, imposed by authorities in the cities of New York and Philadelphia have defeated such bans. More recently, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has set forth a philosophy of creating policy based on their understanding of...