much of the coast has been ... by nuclear waste
Answers
"Ploluted" with nuclear waste
Nuclear generation facilities use fission to generate electricity, but this process generates an immense amount of heat, and over time, spent fuel assemblies (best known as nuclear waste). During operation, nuclear facilities require roughly 800 gallons of water per mega-Watt hour of electricity produced - for cooling. In fact, nuclear requires more water withdrawal than most other electricity generating methods (including coal, oil, gas, biofuel, and solar thermal).[4] To use an affordable process called direct or “once through” cooling, many nuclear facilities were built on the coastline for easy access to the ocean’s vast water resources.
Waste created during fission doesn’t have anywhere to go, as the US federal government has yet to find and certify a viable permanent nuclear waste repository (originally intended to occur by 1998).[5] As such, waste generated at coastal nuclear power plants remain at coastal nuclear power plants, either in cooling pools or in dry storage, called independent spent fuel storage installations (ISFSI’s). The 31 licensed and operating ISFSI’s store a total of 33,892 radioactive spent fuel assemblies in dry storage canisters or casks on the US coastline, with 55,833 spent fuel assemblies still in cooling ponds.[6] Some ISFSI's are within 100 feet of the beach, in areas with active coastal erosion and storm exposure. That’s almost 88,300 spent nuclear fuel assemblies stored on the US coastline, with no current plan for removal or transport to inland storage.