US Radioactive Waste Drums Remain Scattered Across San Francisco Seafloor
Between 1946 and 1970, the United States dumped approximately 47,800 containers of radioactive waste into the Pacific Ocean west of San Francisco. These steel drums, weighted with concrete, were not designed for long-term containment but merely to survive the descent to the seafloor. Due to poor navigation and lack of detailed record-keeping, many containers missed their designated sites, scattering across 1,400 square kilometers of seabed, much of which now lies within the Greater Farallones National Marine Sanctuary. While a 1981 review suggested the radioactivity had decayed to negligible levels, later studies found isotope signatures in local fish that differed from weapons fallout. Despite the ban on ocean dumping in 1994, no agency has proposed retrieving the drums, as the cost outweighs the measured hazard.
