40 



answers and applications. Somehow we need to come up with a 

 system — to come up with a process where this concurrent progress 

 of the project as a whole, both in terms of what needs to be there 

 commercially, what needs to be there from the engineering stand- 

 point so it makes engineering sense, solves the problem in an eco- 

 nomical and cost-effective way, and how that needs to be assessed 

 and evaluated from its environmental impact standpoint so that all 

 those issues can be addressed concurrently and in a cooperative 

 sort of fashion rather than in a sequential and, "OK. Now that I 

 have seen that you have progressed this far, now I would like to 

 see this additional analysis, to look at this particular problem," 

 which becomes a whole new issue that had not been even contem- 

 plated before. 



Mr. Ortiz. Now, I think, Mr. Pallone, you have five minutes if 

 you have any questions. 



Mr. Pallone. Thank you. Hopefully I won't take the five min- 

 utes, Mr. Chairman. I wanted to ask Sarah Clark — we mentioned 

 before — I think you were here — in the first panel about this three 

 or four point standard, and I guess it was Rich Caspe made refer- 

 ence to minks, and I was a little confused because it seemed to me 

 that we were saying that there was a tougher standard for mink 

 than there was for humans, and the way I understood it basically 

 they were saying a mink eats more fish and people don't eat as 

 much fish, but if an individual happens to eat as much fish, you 

 know, it seems to me that they might be subject to the same prob- 

 lem as a mink. And I am just wondering, you know, if you wanted 

 to comment on that because it was very confusing to me. 



Ms. Clark. Sure. Well, I think you have a very good point in 

 that the criterion do depend upon the amount of a substance or a 

 contaminant that is ingested and consumed, so consumption rates 

 are very important to consider when designing a criteria. And it 

 may be that minks consume largely so much more fish that the cri- 

 teria set for their protection may be more protective than that for 

 humans, but it depends upon what assumptions went into the crite- 

 ria to begin with. 



But another point is that when we originally found out about the 

 dioxin bioaccumulation criteria that was being contemplated by the 

 Corps of Engineers in the permit process, we very clearly stated, 

 "Doesn't this kind of criteria have to account for impacts on wild- 

 life? Isn't that the end point that really should be considered here 

 since the law under which these permits are being granted is 

 partly designed to address impacts on the marine environment and 

 wildlife and fisheries, and shouldn't bioaccumulation criteria be set 

 to protect the most sensitive wildlife species that may potentially 

 be impacted by this activity?" And in our analysis, the most sensi- 

 tive end point would be a bird that consumes only fish. 



Mr. Pallone. Right. 



Ms. Clark. When we went and looked to see what kind of crite- 

 ria might be out there besides fish consumption criteria for human 

 health protection, we did find a New York State wildlife criteria 

 that was our understanding was set for protection of piscivirous 

 birds, which are birds that only consume fish. And I will go back 

 and look at that information and communicate that directly to the 

 committee because it was our contention that the criteria should be 



