International Activity
on Water Pollution
at EPA
Covering over 70 percent of the earth's surface, the
oceans are essential to life on this planet. They contain
all but a tiny fraction of the world's water, occupying
the most important part of the water cycle and con-
trolling weather and climate for all land-based life. Most
of civilization's goods and many of its people depend on
ocean transport. Healthy oceans replenish oxygen, sup-
ply protein, and provide recreation opportunities.
Unfortunately, the oceans have a limited capacity to
absorb the waste products of industrial civilization, and
that capacity is being severely taxed. Up to three million
tons of oil enter the sea each year from routine tanker
operations, and another quarter of a million tons are
spilled in tanker accidents. The March, 1978 grounding
of the Amoco Cadiz off Brittany, France was a grim
reminder of the vulnerability of resource-rich coastal
areas to an environmental catastrophe. Off the coast of
California, canisters leak radioactive waste. A cargo of
toxic tetraethyl lead was recently removed with great
difficulty from a sunken freighter near Otranto, Italy.
The international community has started to take steps
to prevent problems such as these, as well as equally
serious problems of marine pollution originating from
land.
EPA representatives serve on U.S. delegations to in-
ternational conferences on controlling marine pollution.
EPA participated in the U. N. Conference on the Law of
the Sea, and is playing a major role in implementing the
1972 Convention on the Prevention of Pollution by the
Dumping of Wastes and Other Matter. The Agency is
helping secure ratification of the 1973 Convention of the
Prevention of Pollution from Ships, which was negoti-
ated within the U.N.'s International Maritime Consulta-
tive Organization. EPA is involved in carrying out the
1959 Antarctic Treaty.
EPA has conducted studies on major oil spills around
the globe, seeking methods to prevent such accidents,
to gather data on their effects, and to repair damage.
EPA investigators have performed studies of the Amoco
Cadiz accident, as well as the spill of 50,000 tons of oil
from the supertanker Metula in the Strait of Magellan in
1974, and a spill of 4,500 tons of oil from a tanker in
Malacca Strait near Singapore in 1977.
The United States and Canada are cooperating to
control pollution in shared waters, particularly the Great
Lakes. EPA works on implementing the Great Lakes
Water Quality Agreement signed by the two countries
in 1972, and renewed in 1978. Government and industry
of both countries are spending billions of dollars to halt
pollution of the lakes and to restore their waters.
The United States and Mexico have a number of
mechanisms for dealing with water pollution problems
along their border, including a Memorandum of Under-
standing signed by EPA Administrator Douglas M.
Costle and his Mexican counterpart in 1978. Progress is
being made on border sanitation and water-quality
problems along the international boundary.
The United States shares information and technology
with other nations on water pollution problems. EPA
conducts joint research, and information and tech-
nology exchanges with Japan, the USSR, Yugoslavia,
Egypt, and Poland. It also contributes data to projects
within multilateral international organizations dealing
with water pollution, such as the Earthwatch program
of the United Nations Environment Program.
v>EPA
United States
Environmental Protection
Agency
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