16 

 Mr. Scott Kraus of the New England Aquarium. Mr. Kraus. 



SCOTT KRAUS, NEW ENGLAND AQUARIUM 



Mr. Kraus. Thank you. I appreciate the opportunity to testify. I 

 am speaking today on behalf of myself, John Prescott and the 

 Aquarium. We have been following the MWRA studies and consult- 

 ing with them over time. In general, we concur with the NMFS bio- 

 logical opinion that the proposed outfall may affect but will not 

 jeopardize the continued existence of any endangered or threatened 

 marine mammal species in Massachusetts Bay. 



My expertise is in right whales and, to a lesser extent, on the 

 harbor porpoise. I will confine my comments today primarily about 

 right whales. With regard to right whales, we believe that the lim- 

 ited information available is consistent with this opinion, but that 

 there are significant gaps in the data which we trust. These gaps, 

 at this point, are not enough, at least in our opinion, to be consid- 

 ered significantly reservations to continuing with the outfall. They 

 do represent what we would consider the best information avail- 

 able, which in a couple of cases is pretty poor. 



First of all, the distributional data on all whale species, but par- 

 ticularly right whales around the outfall site is very poorly known 

 outside the whale watching season, which extends really from May 

 to the end of October or middle of October. Between November and 

 May, a period when right whales are known to be inhabitants of 

 nearby Cape Cod Bay, no systematic surveys for marine mammals 

 have been conducted in the outfall area. There are platform of op- 

 portunities records, people who have been hired to be on boats and 

 keep an eye out, but systematic surveys of the region have not 

 been done. 



The early CeTAP survey done between 1979 and 1982 actually 

 only had six aerial survey tracts over the region. They did not see 

 anything. They missed, in fact, the right whale distribution in Cape 

 Cod Bay that cannot be considered systematic. Therefore, the po- 

 tential for direct contact between endangered whales and outfall 

 effluent is unknown. Statements indicating that the whales are not 

 common in the near-field or the proposed outfall, which is in the 

 NMFS biological opinion, or that there is a low probability of these 

 species encountering high levels of nutrients and contaminants 

 from the new outfall because the endangered species are not 

 known to frequent this particular area of Massachusetts Bay, 

 which is an EPA assessment, are both overstated. 



The bottom line is that neither the EPA or NMFS have any sci- 

 entific basis for making those statements and the lack of knowl- 

 edge about winter whale distribution in the region is a bit unset- 

 tling. 



Secondly, the question of cumulative impacts or effects is not 

 well-addressed. It is not anybody's fault that it is not well-ad- 

 dressed, it is just that it is almost impossible to address it. There 

 are other significant problems for right whales in the region, in- 

 cluding collisions with ships and entanglements with fixed fishing 

 gear. Really, of more concern in this regard, is the cumulative 

 impact of urban and industrial outfalls along the East Coast of the 

 United States. 



