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to completely abate. 



In 1991, I participated in a workshop at the Woods Hole 

 Oceanographic Institution sponsored by the Sloan Foundation on "The 

 Abyssal Ocean Option for Future Waste Disposal." I chaired a 

 working group of participants from France, Germany, Norway, the 

 United Kingdom and the U.S.A., which considered the biological 

 effects of deep-ocean disposal. We concluded that: 



"marine disposal should only be considered where alternative 

 disposal methods are inadequate either now or in the 

 forseeable future." 



We recommended: 



"that all risks needed to be assessed and an environmental 

 cost/benefit audit be conducted before adopting new 

 technology. " 



Because of the limited knowledge of the deep oceans we recommended 

 against ocean disposal of highly toxic wastes, but in favor of a 

 large-scale experiment on the mass disposal of a relatively benign, 

 high- volume waste, such as sludge, and its impact on abyssal 

 ecosystems. Such an experiment should include replicated 

 experimental treatments and should be designed to maximize its 

 usefulness in predicting future changes in oceanic ecosystems. 



Such a deep-sea, disposal experiment should have the following 

 features : 



disposal should not proceed until a quantitative assessment of 



the species normally occurring in the environment has been 



conducted, 



in addition to direct effects on deep-sea life, attention must 



also be given to the possibility of contaminants reaching 



commercial fish species through food web transfer, 



analyses should not make assumptions about effects on the 



organisms living on or in the abyssal sea bed without direct 



measurements, 



the rate of lateral transport across the seafloor over decades 



should be studied, especially if the material is not capped or 



otherwise contained. 



