There was plenty of anti-nuclear money floating about years ago; https://www.influencewatch.org/movement/opposition-to-nuclea... lists quite a few organisations interested in opposing nuclear power in the USA. As for the cost, surely a few weeks of boat/submersible time every few years would suffice.
> Maybe, maybe not. It would have been way more expensive.
I was coming from the radiation protection perspective; less liable to dose the denizens of the deep were they to swim next to the waste. Also in the mud is better from an immobilisation perspective.
> IMHO the nuclear folks liked to be able to dump waste from a barge. Asking them to dig the seabed...
Perhaps we are speaking cross-purposes; the digging would be for spent nuclear fuel (or the vitrified waste) where the vast majority of activity is. As for contaminated suits and the like, disposal on land is a good enough option.
> If someone lacerates the tattooed arm of someone else
It is more helpful to study what happens in industry as a whole. Industrial accidents do happen, after which investigations are performed. An intolerance of accidents isn't a viable approach, but reasonable steps must be taken to keep risk to workers low.