this hearing up today and my colleagues who have done so much 

 on the ocean dumping issue to prevent ocean dumping. 



I have to say though that I think this is really one of the darkest 

 days that I have seen in this Congress with the fact that the EPA 

 has very cynically, in my opinion, given its consent for the dredg- 

 ing and ocean disposal of these dioxin-laded sediments from the 

 berths at Newark Bay. I have to tell you I have no intention of 

 giving up the battle. Those who agreed to allow this permit today 

 should know that we continue to fight, and we will continue to 

 fight against them. I see that one of the witnesses today is Sarah 

 Clark from the Environmental Defense Fund. I would urge the En- 

 vironmental Defense Fund to quickly bring suit to overturn this de- 

 cision. I would certainly support their efforts in every way. 



This site is six miles off the coast of my district. I can see it from 

 my home, and I have to tell you that when they say that the effects 

 of the dioxin are something that is unknown or, you know, we are 

 not sure about, I have no doubt what the effects of the dioxin are. I 

 have seen Vietnam vets come into my office who have dioxin-laded 

 injuries to their arms and have had children who because of the 

 dioxin and the effect of Agent Orange on them that those children 

 have been born deformed — the same kinds of problems that they 

 have. So don't tell me what the effects of the dioxin are. We know 

 what they are. We have seen them from the Vietnam War. We 

 have seen them from the Agent Orange and the plant where this 

 material comes from. Don't tell me what the effect of the dioxin is 

 on the fisheries. We have seen the rot. We have seen the fish and 

 when they come back to the shore and they are rotten from the 

 diseases from the Mud Dump Site. 



This whole thing is such a farce — the committee is not a farce 

 because we are trying to get to the bottom of it — but to suggest 

 that somehow the capping is going to make a difference, what a 

 joke that is! They have in a provision in the letter that Senator 

 Saxton makes where they say that they are going to assure the 

 capping of the material will render it absolutely safe for ocean dis- 

 posal. The say that the dioxin will not affect the food chain and 

 that our fishing industry can rest secure. They would have you be- 

 lieve that capping the material from the Mud Dump Site is an ab- 

 solutely safe alternative. 



We know that the Army Corps commissioned a report by the Sci- 

 ence Applications International Corporation to explore the materi- 

 als at the Mud Dump Site after the December nor'easter that we 

 had, and much of the material has been lost at sea. The cap did not 

 contain over 250,000 cubic yards of dredged material. This is a sig- 

 nificant finding because the Corps and the EPA have maintained 

 that dredge materials do not move off-site once it lands on the 

 ocean floor. 



Here is what we know about the capping in the past. In the area 

 of the two mounds created by dredged materials from the Federal 

 Kill Van Kull deepening project, 227,000 cubic yards were lost due 

 to erosion and transport. The SAIC, the authors of the study, esti- 

 mate that 1.5 feet of material were lost from broad areas where the 

 depths range from 58 to 75 feet, and they hypothesize that the ex- 

 isting mounds focus storm-induced wave energy to cause bottom 

 currents and sediment erosion at the mounds' flanks. The report 



