21 



moves around, and, therefore, the granting of the permit and the 

 whole basis for it is totally false. I understood your statement — and 

 correct me if I am false — to say that you haven't reviewed this yet? 



Mr. Rees. No. I said the review is not complete. It is under 

 review. The district has looked at it. They have asked the Water- 

 ways Experiment Station in Vicksburg to review it, and that is in 

 progress. 



Mr. Pallone. Well, if the review hasn't been finalized yet, how 

 could the Corps approve or go out and allow this permit for the 

 dioxin to take place? In other words, you don't have to finish your 

 review and analyze that before you issue the permit to let the 

 dredging begin? 



Mr. Rees. The permit hasn't been reissued at this point. 



Mr. Pallone. So, in other words, there will be some time before 

 you allow the permit to go forward, and one thing that would have 

 to be completed first is this study and your analysis of it? That will 

 go into the process? 



Mr. Rees. I don't know at this point whether the information in 

 the SAIC report is of a nature that would preclude the permit 

 action or not, but that is certainly a matter of obvious concern. We 

 would certainly take that into consideration in reaching any deci- 

 sion on the permit. 



Mr. Pallone. Well, I would ask, you know, through the Chair- 

 man that it would be taken into consideration and that before the 

 permit is granted or the dredging is allowed to take place that we 

 would have some analysis of how that might affect the actual 

 dredging. Let me ask you another thing. I mean, I have to say that 

 as far as the Port Authority is concerned and their testing and 

 their information that they give out or have given out about this 

 permit over the last year, I don't believe any of it. You know, they 

 initially said there was a certain amount of dredge material that 

 was going to be dredged. Then the Corps or the EPA or myself 

 found out that that was not accurate, and they went back again 

 and disputed that. 



Now, I understand that the whole EPA action, Mr. Davies, is 

 based on the fact that the Port Authority did some sort of resam- 

 pling and reported to you that now the dioxin levels are less. Is 

 there any independent analysis done — in other words, let me ex- 

 plain it to you more clearly. The port, obviously, has an interest in 

 having this dredging done — a major financial interest. Yet, we 

 seem to rely on them and the consultant they hire to do the testing 

 to tell us what the levels of dioxin are. Is there any independent 

 check of their report, or do you just go based on the facts that are 

 presented to you by whatever they do or whatever their consultant 

 does? Do you believe their consultant, or do you do something inde- 

 pendently is what I am saying? 



Mr. Caspe. We did not take any independent testing. We did go 

 behind the Port Authority's information. We checked the laborato- 

 ry. We pulled the laboratory's actual worksheets, the lab reports 

 out. Actually, we had found that we had a little bit of a controver- 

 sy in the middle. A problem where there was a question of whether 

 they were wet results or dry results and exactly how the lab tests 

 were run. So we have looked behind the report into the lab data, 

 but we have not done independent lab tests. 



