CLF 



116 



Conservation Law Foundation 



Testimony of the Conservation Law Foundation 



Before 



Thft House. _S_ub-CO.mmj.ttee on Environment and Natural Rasourcps 



October 18, 1993 



Dear Chairman Scudds and members of the Subcommittee : 



We appreciate this opportunity to discuss with you the 

 reactions of the Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) to the 

 Endangered Species Act consultation between the Environmental 

 Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Marine Fisheries Service 

 (NMFS) on the Boston Harbor outfall. It was ten years ago this 

 year that CLF filed the lawsuit against the Metropolitan District 

 Commission that ultimately produced the court order that is now 

 driving the cleanup of Boston Harbor. A huge new treatment plant 

 is being constructed on Deer Island and a 9.5 mile outfall pipe - 

 - the subject of this hearing --is being built. CLF remains 

 intensely interested in the progress of this cleanup and 

 committed to seeing that cleaning up Boston Harbor does not 

 simply cause new environmental problems elsewhere. 



Thus we welcomed the consultation between EPA and NMFS on 

 the question of whether discharge from the new outfall location 

 would jeopardize any threatened or endangered animals. Careful 

 consideration of technical inf orrr.aticn from a variety of 

 disciplines was needed tc arrive at a good judgement of whether 

 significant adverse effects or. these animals were li)cely. 



We fi-d both EFA' s biological assessment and NWFS's 

 biological opinion to be well researched and well considered, and 

 we believe that the conclusion of no li)<ely jeopardy for any 

 endangered or threatened species is appropriate and responsible 

 civen the currently available .scientific information . Emphasis 

 on this last phrase is important, because there are many 

 inadequacies in our understanding of the physical, chemical and 

 biological processes in Massachusetts and Cape Cod Bays. 

 Consequently, the predictive abilities of the various marine 

 sciences are low. Undesirable scenarios that are today judged to 

 be unliJcely may in fact occur in the future. 



For example, harbor porpoises and right whales may turn out 

 to frequent the area around the outfall: the survey effort there 

 to date ha.s been inadequate. Alternatively, enhanced 

 productivity near the outfall resulting from increased nutrients 

 ■may attract these and other species of whales. In either case, 

 their exposure to toxic contaminants could be higher than 

 expected. The deposition pattern for particulates from the new 



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