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gallons/day - east of Boston in a weak current which sweeps south into southern 

 Massachusetts and Cape Cod Bays. On the one hand, the proposal cleans up Boston Harbor 

 and improves the treatment of the sewage. On the other hand we are confronted by an 

 effluent which, although it appears to be better "paclcaged", Is placed in a location and at a 

 depth which are considerably different from that which presently exists. My concern is not 

 that the construction and engineering plans are faulted, on the contrary, they appear to be an 

 effective - if ultimately temporary - solution to a sewage disposal problem which has 

 overwhelmed a productive coastal habitat. The problem which we must confront for the sake 

 of the right whales and for our own well being is that the certainty of engineers, scientists, 

 and planners today will likely dissolve tomorrow. Boston Harbor's sorry state is itself an 

 example of this problem. We can imagine that in the past century Boston sought to solve a 

 pollution problem which threatened the city and its habitat. The best solution at that time 

 was for the sewage to be piped into the coastal waters where it was predicted that tides would 

 sweep the toxins out and dilute them in what speared to be an infinite sea. Some objected, 

 saying that we did not then understand the ocean or the resources well enough to predict the 

 consequences of near-shore disposal of that quantity of noxious material. But need and 

 assurance prevailed' and the outfalls in Boston Harbor were built. I propose to you that we 

 do know much more about the sea and the coastal environment and that we, to this day, view 



the sea not as our garden but as our dump and to this day, we do not understand the 



powerful yet delicately balanced forces which shape the ocean system that support our 

 fisheries, our recreation, and the last of the right whales. So today: we can know something 

 of the movement of the effluent southward, but not the effects of variable overturns on the 

 productive surface of the sea; we understand how sewage nutrients influence the growth of 

 plants but we cannot predict which microscopic plants will grow and how they will affect the 

 zooplankton at the base of the food web; we know that the present secondary treatment will 

 reduce the total pollution load in the Bays but we do not know how the injection of the 

 effluent into a potential feeding area of the last right whales will effect the deep layers of 

 food. 



Some things have not changed much in the past century. We continue, with few alternatives, 

 to consider the sea our dumping ground, yet it remains clear that we cannot accurately 

 predict the consequences of many of our actions in the ocean environment just as we could 

 not when outfalls were first constructed in Boston Harbor. Unfortunately, the right whales 

 have declined while their needs remain a mystery. In the simplest terms we know now why 

 they come to the Bays and we sense how pivotal are our decisions in their future. But we do 

 not know how the zooplankton patches form, or exactly where they come from, or how the 

 whales feed beneath the surface, or, even, what would happen to the last 330 or so right 

 whales of the North Atlantic if the Bays were disrupted in unexpected ways by the relocation 

 and treatment of the Boston effluent. Uncertainty is still the dominant theme of our 

 management efforts in the sea. 



