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United States. The Corps dredges approximately 300 million cubic yards from federal 

 navigation channels. There are approximately 10 to 15 million cubic yards of sediments 

 dredged annually for navigational purposes which require special care and handling because 

 they do not meet unrestricted open water disposal criteria. 



Sediments act as records reflecting a chemical chronology of past activities, including 

 agricultural and forestry runoff, and industrial and municipal pollutant discharges. 

 Navigation channels and harbors are often located in, or near, highly industrial urban 

 centers and are subject to runoff and discharges from roads, freeways, residential 

 development, as well as commercial and industrial sources. Contaminated sediments, 

 therefore, is sometimes found near shipping berths where port authorities must dredge in 

 order to operate the port. As a result, public port authorities find themselves confronting 

 an historical problem which, quite literally, has been dumped into our harbors. 



In your invitation to today's hearing you asked AAPA to comment on "the ocean 

 disposal of contaminated sediments." The extent of the problem of contaminated sediments 

 depends ultimately on the definition of "contaminated." In other words, what level of 

 contamination concentration triggers environmental consequences. Under current law, the 

 most highly contaminated dredged material cannot be disposed of in the ocean. As I will 

 explain in more detail later in my testimony, the Ocean Dumping Act prohibits the ocean 

 disposal of dredged material that fails to meet criteria established by EPA, as well as 

 applicable state water quality criteria. Therefore, when we talk about the "ocean disposal 

 of contaminated sediments" we are talking only about low levels of contaminants and only 

 when it can be demonstrated that they can be rapidly rendered harmless through 

 appropriate management practices. 



The monitoring and management of ocean disposal sites should improve further as 

 the result of contaminated sediment provisions adopted last year by Congress, with the 

 support of the port community, in the Water Resources Development Act of 1992, that 

 amend the Ocean Dumping Act. Enormous resources are already expended by public port 

 authorities and the federal government to characterize dredged sediments and to develop 

 environmentally sound disposal solutions. In fact, the cost of regulatory compliance has 

 skyrocketed -- in some instances, testing and analytical work has become more expensive 

 than the dredging itself. These costs are reflective of the complicated testing involved. 



Much of the current concern over sediment contamination is driven by site specific 

 "hot spots" of in-place contaminants and fish advisories unrelated to harbor dredging 

 operations. Unfortunately, these legitimate concerns over the potential impacts caused by 

 a fraction of contaminated sediments has created a climate in which dredged material 

 uniformly is assumed to be "contaminated." The combination of these real and imagined 

 problems makes the removal and disposal of sediments a very serious management and 

 public perception problem for the public port community. 



