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Wasfjinffton, 3B£ 20515-6230 



March 25, 1993 



BACKGROUND MEMORANDUM 



TO: Members, Subcommittee on Oceanography, Gulf of Mexico, 

 and the Outer Continental Shelf 



FROM: Subcommittee and Committee Staff 



RE: Ocean Disposal of Contaminated Sediments Under the 

 Ocean Dumping Act 



On March 30, 1993, at 2 p.m., the Subcommittee on 

 Oceanography, Gulf of Mexico, and the Outer Continental Shelf 

 will convene to hear testimony on the implementation of the Ocean 

 Dumping Act, the recent denial of a permit for disposal of 

 contaminated dredge material from Newark Bay at the Mud Dump 

 Site, and the general issue of disposal of contaminated sediments 

 and alternatives to ocean disposal of this material. 



Witnesses invited include representatives of the U.S. Army 

 Corps of Engineers (COE) , the Environmental Protection Agency 

 (EPA) , the American Association of Port Authorities, the Port 

 Authority of New York and New Jersey, the New Jersey Department 

 of Environmental Protection and Energy, the Environmental Defense 

 Fund, and the Institute of Marine and Coastal Sciences at Rutgers 

 University. 



BACKGROUND 



Ocean dumping refers to the willful, direct disposal of 

 material at sea. Since the passage of the Ocean Dumping Ban Act 

 in 1988 (Public Law 100-688), the vast majority of waste dumped 

 in U.S. ocean waters is dredge material, a term used to describe 

 sediment removed from waterways to improve navigation. Dredge 

 material is comprised of varying amounts of sand, gravel, silt, 

 clay, organic matter (such as decomposed fish) , and chemical 



'''The COE estimates that 60 million cubic yards of dredge material 

 is ocean dumped annually. 



