338 



practice of dredging harbors, either for maintenance or improvement, 

 and disposing of the silt by hauling it to designated dumping grounds 

 in deep open waters. 



This long-standing practice has been challenged, on the grounds 

 that silt from centers of population tends to be highly polluted and 

 that its transfer to open waters would present a new source of pollu- 

 tion. In most cases the actual risk is debatable, since the handling proc- 

 ess may very well tend to minimize the pollutants and transfer from 

 one point to another may not really affect the total situation. Never- 

 theless, the environmental viewpoint has prevailed and the placement 

 of this kind of spoil into designated containment areas has become 

 widespread practice in the last several years. A growing number of 

 approaches have been carefully worked out as between the Corps of 

 Engineers and local authorities on a plamied basis. These approaches 

 involve designated containment areas tied in as before stated with 

 area development planning and soils management techniques. 



It seems obvious to us who are directly dealing with the problem 

 that contaminated spoil, where it exists, is a result rather than a cause. 

 The approach, therefore, should be, and is, a careful technological 

 cooperation employing Federal and local expertise on an economic 

 base. Current regulatory safeguards and permitting procedures are 

 more than adequate, and we do not approve of the intrusion of yet 

 another permitting agency in the spoil disposal program. 



We would hope that such an agency would be directed to concentrate 

 its efforts upon causatii^e effects, such as sewage outfall and industrial 

 effluents. Development of adequate treatment or recycling, in which 

 the Federal Government should play a positive role, would greatly 

 simplify spoil disposal, eventually, in heavily populated areas. Man's 

 overlay would be eliminated, leaving us to deal only with mud, clay, 

 rock and sand. 



Mr. Chairman, if I may, I would like to read a short supplement. 



SUPPLEMENTARY AAPA STATEMENT 



We would like to compliment Chairman Edward Garmatz of the 

 House Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries for his very 

 perceptive plea, as these hearings opened, for balanced consideration 

 of all of the factors. We share the Chairman's concern that bills such 

 as H.R. 4723 as now drafted could seriously impede future port devel- 

 opment and therefore adversely affect the entire maritime industry 

 and, indeed, the Nation. 



We join wholeheartedly in the Chairman's recognition of the corps' 

 role in environmental protection, and, even further, would suggest 

 that the Nation's environmental interests would be better served in 

 retaining spoil disposal permitting authority with the Corps of Engi- 

 neers. Our statement presented here points to the complexity of spoil 

 disposal as an engineering and planning function requiring careful 

 coordination at Federal and local levels. 



The Congress has recognized that complexity as recently as Decem- 

 ber 31, 1970 in Public Law 91-611, River and Harbor Act of 1970, 

 which states (sec. 123 (i) A) : 



Tlie Chief of Engineers, under the direction of the Secretary of the Army, ii? 

 hereby authorized to extend to all navigable waters, connecting channels, tribu- 



