Message to the Congress Transmitting a Study on Ocean Pollution by the Council on Environmental Quality.

To the Congress of the United States:

The oceans, covering nearly three-quarters of the world's surface, are critical to maintaining our environment, for they contribute to the basic oxygen-carbon dioxide balance upon which human and animal life depends. Yet man does not treat the oceans well. He has assumed that their capacity to absorb wastes is infinite, and evidence is now accumulating on the damage that he has caused. Pollution is now visible even on the high seas--long believed beyond the reach of man's harmful influence. In recent months, worldwide concern has been expressed about the dangers of dumping toxic wastes in the oceans.

In view of the serious threat of ocean pollution, I am today transmitting to the Congress a study I requested from the Council on Environmental Quality. This study concludes that:

--the current level of ocean dumping is creating serious environmental damage in some areas.

--the volume of wastes dumped in the ocean is increasing rapidly.

--a vast new influx of wastes is likely to occur as municipalities and industries turn to the oceans as a convenient sink for their wastes.

--trends indicate that ocean disposal could become a major, nationwide environmental problem.

--unless we begin now to develop alternative methods of disposing of these wastes, institutional and economic obstacles will make it extremely difficult to control ocean dumping in the future.

--the nation must act now to prevent the problem from reaching unmanageable proportions.

The study recommends legislation to ban the unregulated dumping of all materials in the oceans and to prevent or rigorously limit the dumping of harmful materials. The recommended legislation would call for permits by the Administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency for the transportation and dumping of all materials in the oceans and in the Great Lakes.

I endorse the Council's recommendations and will submit specific legislative proposals to implement them to the next Congress. These recommendations will supplement legislation my Administration submitted to the Congress in November, 1969 to provide comprehensive management by the States of the land and waters of the coastal zone and in April, 1970 to control dumping of dredge spoil in the Great Lakes.

The program proposed by the Council is based on the premise that we should take action before the problem of ocean dumping becomes acute. To date, most of our energies have been spent cleaning up mistakes of the past. We have failed to recognize problems and to take corrective action before they became serious. The resulting signs of environmental decay are all around us, and remedial actions heavily tax our resources and energies.

The legislation recommended would be one of the first new authorities for the Environmental Protection Agency. I believe it is fitting that in this recommended legislation, we will be acting--rather than reacting--to prevent pollution before it begins to destroy the waters that are so critical to all living things.

RICHARD NIXON

The White House

October 7, 1970