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clean, especially with regard to dioxin and the managed ocean disposal 

 of sediments containing traces of dioxin. EPA fails to evaluate the 

 proposed action and uses generic or global impacts to evaluate dioxin- 

 contaminated sediments for ocean disposal. The use of the New York 

 State Department of Health's parts per trillion regulatory level for 

 fish consumption is not appropriate for a capping level limit. 



The Port Authority retained an independent, nationally 

 recognized consul tant--Dr . Richard Peddicord of EA Engineering, Science 

 & Technology — to evaluate risks associated with the permit action, the 

 management and ocean disposal of dioxin-contaminated dredged material. 

 Dr. Peddicord's recommendations, as far as we know, is the only study 

 of its kind that deals specifically with this issue. The criteria 

 values generated by our consultant are greater, i.e. less stringent, 

 than EPA's interim guidance values. 



There is obviously a need to segregate policy making from 

 scientific understanding. For example, when speed limits are set for 

 highways, it is implicit that there is an "acceptable risk" of certain 

 numbers of fatalities (approximately 45,000 per year) and many more 

 injuries. Yet, with ocean disposal of dredged material, it appears 

 that society will only accept zero risk. Such a requirement is onerous 

 and places the United States at a competitive disadvantage with other 

 nations. Within the scientific community there is a doubt, justifiably 

 so, regarding cancer risk. This doubt is over whether EPA's use of a 

 linear risk model based on radiation is appropriate, versus the 

 consideration that there are threshold limits to exposure. 

 Nevertheless, although there is some uncertainty, there is a need for 

 policy makers to set reasonable and supportable risk levels for dioxin 

 and other chemicals. 



7. Do you feel that standards for ocean disposal of sediments exceed 

 the requirements for land-based disposal of similar materials? Do you 

 feel that the testing and standards for land-based disposal are 

 comparable to that required for ocean disposal? 



Definitely so, ocean disposal requirements are much more 

 stringent than land-based requirements. In particular, for dioxin, the 

 standard for land-based actions is one part per billion ( ppb ) , while 

 for an ocean disposal permit, we are required to test for dioxin in 

 sediments to a detection limit of one part per trillion ( ppt ) . That is 

 a thousand times greater. 



The EPA set interim criteria of one ppt through ten ppt and 

 requiring capping. Material showing a dioxin bioaccumulat ion of 

 greater than 10 ppt cannot be ocean disposed. Ten ppt is one hundredth 

 of a ppb. Under Superfund, cleanups are site specific and risk levels 

 selected may be in the order of 1 in 10,000, and up to 1 in 1 million 

 risk of cancer in a lifetime. Our consultant, using EPA's risk 

 assessment guidance, was able to develop criteria numbers for dredged 

 material containing dioxin for ocean disposal at the Hud Dump site. 

 There were two criteria values; (1) for unrestricted ocean disposal, 

 the value is up to 11 ppt, and (2) for material that requires capping, 

 the values are greater than 11 and up to 128 ppt. The above values are 



