31 



mental Defense Fund, Clean Ocean Action, Ocean Advocates, Coast 

 Alliance, and the American Littoral Society, and for the record, I 

 would like to say that the American Littoral Society has endorsed 

 our written testimony as well. 



The crisis being witnessed today in the New York/ New Jersey 

 Harbor should sound a warning. As tougher dredge material test- 

 ing gets enacted within this year, more areas around the country 

 are going to find themselves in the same position of the New York- 

 New Jersey harbor in having an increased volume of contaminated 

 dredge material and a need for new disposal alternatives. We must 

 act if we are going to avert a major confrontation between the need 

 to manage properly contaminated dredge material with the need to 

 maintain navigation channels. This confrontation must be recon- 

 ciled as soon as possible to protect the public health and to pre- 

 serve the many jobs that depend upon safe and open harbors and 

 the commercial and recreational fishing industries that depend 

 upon clean waters. At the heart of the many issues that we are 

 raising today and have raised throughout this entire permit proc- 

 ess and in our recommendations is that good science should be 

 driving permit monitoring and management decisions. Currently, 

 ocean disposal of dredge material is supposed to be permitted only 

 if unreasonable degradation doesn't occur. But a careful review of 

 the ocean disposal program, as implemented in the New York Dis- 

 trict of the Army Corps of Engineers and in tandem with informa- 

 tion about problems elsewhere in the country, shows that the feder- 

 al ocean disposal program is not meeting its goals. 



It suffers from a combination of little oversight, scattered moni- 

 toring that is never acted upon, and a cumbersome relationship be- 

 tween two agencies, the Corps and EPA, that are responsible for 

 various portions of the same program. The ocean disposal regula- 

 tory program has not served the environment well up to now, and 

 it is not prepared to meet the new challenges that face it. In our 

 opinion, it really needs an overhaul. 



A review of the Mud Dump Site in the New York Bight Apex is 

 a good case study of the program's implementation. What little 

 monitoring undertaken has revealed that sediments and worms in 

 and around the Mud Dump Site are contaminated with a panoply 

 of contaminants including dioxin. And although the vast majority 

 of dredge material thus far dumped at the Mud Dump Site has 

 passed ocean dumping criteria, monitoring has revealed that toxic 

 contaminants have nevertheless accumulated in the sediments and 

 biota to levels of concern. 



Secondly, contaminated dredge material, those that do not pass 

 ocean dumping criteria, have thus far been handled by the Corps 

 and EPA by capping, at least in the New York District. And we 

 disagree with the Corps and EPA's premise that contaminated 

 dredge materials can be dumped safely in the ocean with capping. 

 We disagree for a number of reasons, but one of which is the 

 impact of storms that can have on capping. The impact of storms 

 has been verified by a series of bathymetric surveys of the lower 

 third of the Mud Dump Site conducted by the Corps to ascertain 

 what impact the December Northeaster had on the Mud Dump Site 

 in anticipation of placing dredge material from the Port Authori- 

 ty's facilities. 



