148 



Mr. Weldon. Thank you, Dr. Edmond, for your statement and 

 for your comments. We look forward to a dialog among the wit- 

 nesses as we get to questions. 



Dr. Grassle, we welcome you from beautiful New Jersey, my 

 neighboring State, my summer home State. 



STATEMENT OF DR. FRED GRASSLE, DIRECTOR, INSTITUTE OF 

 MARINE AND COASTAL SCIENCES, RUTGERS UNIVERSITY 



Dr. Grassle. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I thank you and the 

 distinguished members of the subcommittees for the opportunity to 

 discuss the potential use of the deep ocean environment as a repos- 

 itory for certain types of waste, particularly contaminated dredge 

 material. 



With support from the NOAA National Undersea Research Pro- 

 gram, I have led several deep diving submersible expeditions to 

 study the fate and effects of municipal sludge at the 106-mile deep 

 water site, a depth of about 1.5 miles on the continental rise off of 

 New York and New Jersey. Our institute at Rutgers has also 

 played a role in issues associated with dredging and management 

 of contaminated sediments in the New York-New Jersey Harbor 

 Estuary and we have held three conferences for the port authority 

 of New York and New Jersey on sediment remediation and dredg- 

 ing technologies. 



Marine scientists have only recently appreciated the richness of 

 life found in the deep ocean. Indeed, the dark, cold, and inhos- 

 pitable environment of the deep sea has previously been thought of 

 as a desert-like habitat that is largely devoid of any life. Very few 

 individuals have had the opportunity to observe the diversity of 

 deep sea life that Dr. Edmond referred to and even fewer have the 

 knowledge to identify deep sea life forms so that they can be enu- 

 merated and compared from one part of the ocean to another. Re- 

 cent estimates indicate a richness of species in the deep ocean as 

 high as from any environment on earth. 



The importance of our studies of deep ocean municipal sludge 

 disposal at the 106-mile site is to predict the probable effects of the 

 gradual buildup of pollutants that is occurring from other sources. 

 Surface disposal of sludge over an approximately 75-nautical- 

 square-mile area at the surface contaminated over 1,400 nautical 

 square miles of deep sea floor. 



A reexamination of the site in 1994 suggested that as a result 

 of cessation of sludge dumping in 1992, measurable recovery of the 

 environment has started. If the National Undersea Research Pro- 

 gram continues to be able to support this research, we expect to 

 study the site again this coming summer. Our objective is to meas- 

 ure the progress toward recovery of the site and ideally predict the 

 time to complete recovery. 



I also chaired an international working group on biological effects 

 of deep ocean disposal in 1991 held at Woods Hole. We concluded 

 that deep ocean marine disposal should only be considered where 

 alternative disposal methods are inadequate, either now or in the 

 foreseeable future. We further recommended that all risks needed 

 to be assessed and an environmental cost-benefit audit be con- 

 ducted before adopting new technology. 



