09 04 08 Marine Protected Areas For thirty years, a 365 square mile area around the Farallon Islands (27 miles outside the Golden Gate) served as the nation's primary nuclear waste dumping ground... this area is now the farallon islands national marine sanctuary... from 1945 to 1970, when nuclear dumping at sea was prohibited, an estimated 47,500 barrels of radioactive debris from nuclear labs such as lawrence livermore labs were dumped in the area... Ships irradiated in the bikini atoll nuclear bomb tests of the 1940's and '50's were sunk off the islands (including the aircraft carrier Independence), along with numerous undocumented materials... the extent of contamination in the area has not yet been fully investigated though side scan sonar from the late 90's identified close to 60,000 barrels scattered across the seafloor around the islands and near the edge of the continental shelf.... Global Radioactive Waste Radioactive waste is also dumped in the oceans and usually comes from the nuclear power process, medical use of radioisotopes, research use of radioisotopes and industrial uses. The difference between industrial waste and nuclear waste is that nuclear waste usually remains radioactive for decades. The protocol for disposing of nuclear waste involves special treatment by keeping it in concrete drums so that it doesn't spread when it hits the ocean floor. The dumping of radioactive material has reached a total of about 84,000 terabecquerels (TBq), a unit of radioactivity equal to 1012 atomic disintegrations per second or 27.027 curies. Curie (Ci) is a unit of radioactivity. One curie was originally defined as the radioactivity of one gram of pure radium. In 1953, scientists agreed that the curie would represent exactly 3.7 x 1010 atomic disintegrations per second, or 37 gigabecquerels (GBq), this being the best estimate of the activity of a gram of radium. The unit is named for Pierre and Marie Curie who discovered radium. The high point of nuclear waste dumping was in 1954 and 1962, but this nuclear waste only accounts for 1% of the total TBq that has been dumped in the ocean. The concentration of radioactive waste in the concrete drums varies as does the danger to marine life and humans. Oceans Alive - Why Are Our Oceans in Trouble? NOAA NOS - Oil and Chemical Spills EPA History - Ocean Dumping Ban Act of 1988 Environmental Protection Agency (EPA): Oceans, Coasts, and Estuaries The UN Atlas of the Oceans: Pollution and Degradation (Ocean Dumping search) WHOI Sea Grant: Publications/Pollution WHOI : Oceanus : Topics - Life in the Oceans: Pollution

Marine Sanctuaries: Protected from Offshore Oil Drilling... Senator Dianne Feinstein  082808 Thank you for writing to me to express your opposition to opening the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) to oil and gas exploration. I appreciate hearing from you on this important energy issue, and I welcome the opportunity to respond. Like you, I do not believe that we can drill our way out of these record energy prices. Congress acted to protect the federal waters off of California from oil and gas exploration in 1981 and has voted to renew that ban every year since. I believe that lifting the moratoria is a false promise and an unnecessary risk. The Department of Energy (DOE) has also projected that lifting the moratoria would not have a significant impact on domestic crude oil and natural gas production or prices before 2030. Additionally, the oil industry has access to significant oil and gas resources on federal lands and waters that they have yet to use. According to the Department of the Interior: While the number of drilling permits issued to the oil industry increased by 361 percent between 1999 and 2007, gas prices increased from $1.25 per gallon to over $4.00 per gallon during the same period; The majority of crude oil and natural gas believed to be available on the OCS - 79 percent of oil and 82 percent of natural gas - are already available for drilling through existing leases; and Nearly 64 million acres of federal land and water leased to the oil and gas industry are not being used to increase domestic production. You may also be interested to know that I am a cosponsor of the "Gulf of the Farallones and Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuaries Boundary Modification and Protection Act" (S. 2635), which prohibits oil and gas exploration in the Farallones National Marine Sanctuary and the Cordell Bank National Marine Sanctuary off the coast of Northern California. A healthy coast is vital to California's economy and our quality of life, and I am committed to protecting the coast of California from the threat of offshore drilling. I believe that the United States needs a long-term strategy to address our dependence on fossil fuels. Instead of initiating oil exploration in some of our most precious ecological resources, we must take steps to increase the use of renewable energy and maximize current supplies by supporting energy efficient technologies. I have successfully worked to advance legislation that increases fuel economy standards, requires the use of renewable energy and establishes tax incentives for green buildings. I appreciate hearing your concerns, and I will keep your thoughts in mind as I continue working with my colleagues in the Senate to strengthen our national energy policy. Again, thank you for writing. For your review, I have included an op-ed that I recently wrote for the Los Angeles Times on this issue. If you have additional comments or questions, please feel free to contact my Washington, D.C. staff at (202) 224-3841 The Distraction of Offshore Drilling By Dianne Feinstein  July 18, 2008 There is no quick fix to $4.50-a-gallon gas, no way to provide instant relief to consumers we know are hurting. Yet President Bush and others continue to push the false promise of offshore oil drilling. Just this week, the president lifted the executive order banning drilling that George H.W. Bush put in place in 1990. And he's asked Congress to lift its own moratorium on oil exploration on the outer continental shelf -- which includes coastal waters as close as three miles from shore. This would be a terrible mistake. It would put our nation's precious coastlines in jeopardy and wouldn't begin to fix the underlying energy-supply problem. And it surely wouldn't ease gas prices any time in the near future. The vast majority of the outer continental shelf is already open to oil exploration: Areas containing an estimated 82% of all of the natural gas and 79% of the oil are today available to energy companies through existing federal leases. Federal agencies are issuing drilling permits at three times the rate they were in 1999 -- but that hasn't slowed oil prices during the climb from $19 to beyond $140 a barrel. Meantime, energy companies haven't fully utilized their existing permits to drill on another 68 million acres of federal lands and waters. Exploiting these areas probably could double U.S. oil production and increase natural gas production by 75%. Opening the protected areas of the continental shelf, on the other hand, wouldn't produce a drop of oil for seven years or longer. It takes a minimum of two years to process the new leases. Industry experts tell us that there's a three- to five-year waiting list for new drilling ships and other equipment. And with any drilling, oil spills are a very real threat. Californians have learned the hard way how much damage -- environmental and economic -- can be caused by a major spill. A healthy coast is vital to California's economy and our quality of life. Ocean-dependent industry is estimated to contribute $43 billion to California each year. We cannot drill our way out of the energy problem. Our nation doesn't need smooth talk and rosy scenarios. We need a clear-eyed view of our energy situation. Oil markets are global. Economic growth around the world -- including millions of new cars in Asia -- means demand for oil is on the rise. With less than 3% of the world's oil reserves, our nation simply doesn't have enough domestic oil to dramatically lower the price. A weak U.S. dollar and instability in the Middle East exacerbate the problem. We need to forge a long-term energy strategy that takes these factors into account, moves our nation away from fossil fuels and invests in renewable energy resources. We need to promote conservation and develop clean technologies and clean fuels -- like cellulosic ethanol. We need to continue to raise fuel economy standards for vehicles and improve the energy efficiency of our buildings by 50%. It's also time to crack down on excessive speculation in critical energy markets. In May, Congress took a first step by closing the "Enron loophole," which brought more energy trading under federal oversight. Congress now needs to eliminate other loopholes and to get serious with large institutional investors who are trading energy futures with no speculation limits. Changing our nation's fuel consumption pattern is an enormous endeavor. It will take years. But this is the reality we face. And there's no time to waste. Sincerely yours, Dianne Feinstein  United States Senator Further information about my position on issues of concern to California and the Nation are available at my website http://feinstein.senate.gov/public/