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Mr. Carney. I can appreciate that. It is a very difficult problem 
to try to come up with the solutions too. However, keeping that in 
mind, before us today we have a piece of legislation. I was just won- 
dering, what do you think we, as a Congress, should do with this 
legislation, now knowing that we are probably 1 year to 2 years 
away from having some reasonable scientific data to give this Con- 
gress a better direction? 
Ms. Hurp. Well, we believe that the existing law is quite suffi- 
cient. We believe that concurrently with developing the work that 
is ongoing we also can work with New York to evaluate, and that 
can be sort of a prototype of the various options that they have. 
We concurrently have a number of research projects within our 
agency dealing with ocean disposal. 
Mr. Carney. Do you feel that you have the necessary resources, 
primarily the money, to do the in-depth research necessary to come 
up with the answers in that time frame? 
Ms. Hurp. The first cut, yes. There has been a tremendous 
amount of work done. This has been going on for some time. There 
are stacks of reports of work that has been done on land and air 
and it is taking that information and going back and looking at a 
lot of these assumptions, the safety factors, the health effects work, 
and putting it together for some decisions. 
Mr. Carney. I fully appreciate the problem that you are faced 
with and you can be assured that if you make a quick decision and 
that is the wrong decision, someone from EPA will be sitting in 
that same desk 5 years from now, and we will be telling him why 
are you so dumb. But, we will be putting pressure on you to make 
a decision. 
Ms. Hurp. I think it is very important for you to do that, sir. 
Mr. CARNEY. In a time frame that we can live with. 
Going to another area, if I might. I would like to know how much 
information and how much research is being conducted on the 
ocean incineration technology? 
Mr. ScHatzow. I cannot speak to the specifics of the research. 
We have an ongoing program in terms of ocean incineration where 
we have standards for an ocean incineration that require both de- 
struction and combustion efficiency. When we grant a permit appli- 
cation for ocean incineration, we inspect the vessel, certify the 
vessel and the adequacy of the incineration. 
Our experience in the past is that we have had both combustion 
and destruction efficiencies of over 99.99 percent. We had a test 
burn recently in the gulf, I guess it works out to about 220 miles 
offshore, where we have got the results from the ship in terms of 
that we had two observers on board and, again, the combustion ef- 
ficiency was over 99.99 percent. 
Mr. Carney. Will this technology be incorporated in the study 
that we talked about before, looking at all the various methods? 
Mr. ScHatzow. It will be to some extent. Clearly the ocean incin- 
eration is an economically feasible alternative only for small 
amounts of concentrated waste. I do not believe that we will be 
looking seriously at ocean incineration as an alternative for large 
volumes of less toxic wastes such as sewage sludge. I do not believe 
we will be looking at that. 
