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What does the Navy's Report Recommend? 



The Report ranks different dumping concepts. It's number one choice is the "Surface 

 Emplacement Concept. " In this instance, a barge would sail out to one of 400 dumpsites. Off 

 the Atlantic coast, the waste-loaded barge would have to sail from over 630 miles to over 1,250 

 miles to reach the dumpsite. For the Pacific, the barge would travel from 275 miles to nearly 

 2300 miles from px)rt to dumpsite. For the Gulf of Mexico, the barge would have to sail from 

 250 to 712 miles from port to dumpsite. The dumpsites would be located off such heavily 

 populated cities as Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Seattle, San Francisco, Los 

 Angeles, San Diego, Tampa, and Galveston. 



Each barge would carry 25,000 metric tons of wastes that are currently illegal to dump 

 in the ocean. That translates into more than 55 million pounds of waste, per barge. The wastes 

 would be put into 50 bags. So barges travelling hundreds if not thousands of miles out to sea - 

 - subject to storms, hurricanes, and nor'easters - would be loaded up with 55 million pounds 

 of waste. 



Once the dumpsite was reached, the barge would dump bags of incinerator ash, 

 contaminated dredged sediments, or sewage sludge into the ocean. The bags would be dropped 

 from the bottom of the barge to sink through roughly 20.000 feet of water. This is a depth of 

 over three-and-a-half miles. 



The 50 bags containing a total of 55 million pounds of waste would be dropped on a 

 dumpsite measuring 500 meters by 500 meters. This translates into roughly 2.7 million square 

 feet - making the dumpsite an area the size of nearly 100 football fields. The bags would be 

 dropped through water over three-and-a-half miles deep, from a sight far out in the high seas 

 subject to storm conditions and currents, to cover an ocean area the size of nearly 100 football 

 fields. 



In the Report, an estimate of roughly 20 million metric tons of dredged material is listed 

 as "suitable" for deep ocean disposal every year . This translates into 40 trillion pounds of 

 dredged sediments annually. 



The Report estimates that the per-port capacity is 2.5 million metric tons, which means 

 that presumably eight ports would be ports-of-call for the dumping barges. To dump 20 million 

 metric tons of waste in the ocean, 800 trips would have to be made at the rate of 25,000 metric 

 tons per trip. 



Therefore, the Report must envision the use of several barges to service the eight ports- 

 of-call to make the 800 trips necessary to dump 40 trillion pounds of dredged sediments in the 

 ocean. 



