16 



have actual empirical evidence based upon the actual dredging op- 

 eration that occurs. 



The disposal activity that would take place out at the Mud Dump 

 is appropriately the responsibility of the EPA and the Corps of En- 

 gineers, but I assure you that we are watching that activity very 

 closely to determine and to ascertain that there would be no ad- 

 verse effects on New Jersey's economic or environmental health as 

 a consequence of those actions. 



I too, like my predecessors here, have a written statement which 

 we have entered into the record, and, again, I thank you for the 

 opportunity to present this testimony. 



[The prepared statement of Mr. Sinding can be found at the end 

 of the hearing.] 



Mr. Ortiz. Thank you all for your testimony. I would like to 

 open the floor for members to see if they have any questions or 

 comments. Additionally, the members of the committee and I will 

 submit questions for the record, and I would appreciate it very 

 much if you could respond to these questions in writing. I would 

 like to yield to Mr. Weldon. 



Mr. Weldon. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I was just checking on 

 the status of our Armed Services hearing, and it is temporarily on 

 hold. Thank you for your testimony, and there are a number of 

 issues that I think we want to raise. I would like to ask unanimous 

 consent to submit a list of questions for the record. There are a few 

 things that I would like to focus on verbally during my allotted 

 time here. 



First of all, for Morgan Rees of the Army Corps, in testimony 

 that we are going to hear later on today from Sarah Clark of EDF, 

 it is stated that the Corps does not have to respond to public com- 

 ment. If that is true, I would like to know why this is the case? 

 Specifically referring to her testimony, she states that the permit 

 process pays lip service to public comment in one section, and then 

 goes on to say the ACOE is not required to respond to public com- 

 ments. She discusses very specific incidents where there were 15 

 separate comments submitted on 15 different private and Federal 

 projects in the New York/New Jersey Harbor region. Only three 

 responded in writing directly to EDF. It then goes on to say that an 

 internal memoranda had to be requested through the Freedom of 

 Information Act. 



Mr. Rees. Well, as I said in my oral remarks, and I am not sure 

 of the extent to which we went into detail in the written testimony, 

 but the intent of the program is for full and complete public in- 

 volvement and certainly not to require people to have to submit 

 Freedom of Information Act requests for information related to 

 any activities of the Corps including disposal of dredged material. 

 Now, it is true that there is not an absolute requirement for the 

 Corps to respond to all comments, and the background of that is 

 that on many permit applications for Corps dredging projects they 

 get literally hundreds and hundreds of comment letters. It is a 

 matter of program efficiency where you have to make a judgment 

 about when you respond individually or when you respond en mass 

 by some statement. Perhaps there are some judgmental differences 

 about when things should be responded to individually or not. But 

 certainly the philosophy behind the program is to err on the side of 



