U.S. Dumped 47,800 Radioactive Waste Containers in Pacific, Many Off-Target

For nearly a quarter century during the Cold War, the United States and several European nations treated the ocean floor as a solution to a problem they could not solve on land — depositing tens of thousands of containers of radioactive waste into Pacific and Atlantic waters with the confidence of an era that trusted distance as a form of safety. The drums did not disappear; they scattered, settled, and waited. Banned in 1993, the practice left behind a legacy that surveys are only now beginning to measure, raising questions that the sea has held in silence for more than fifty years.