ABSTRACT
Oceanic responses to waste disposal should be monitored to confirm that they are as expected or, if the responses are more severe than expected, to design a revised disposal strategy. Monitoring programs should be coordinated and designed so that they satisfy the management needs of a large number of organizations, such as industries, municipal dischargers, certain local, state, and federal agencies, public and environmental organizations, and the U. S. Congress. A review of this nation's ocean pollution monitoring programs found that these are fragmented, uncoordinated, often duplicative, and are without national or regional focus. This paper provides the results of the review and discusses the efforts that are underway to correct ocean monitoring activities through changes in the monitoring strategies, agency approaches, legislation, and disposal technology.
