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In the period fiscal year 1980-82, our activities in ocean dumping dealt primarily 
with the effects of dumping and its relationship to other pollutant sources, with the 
intent of achieving a comprehensive view of the problem. These efforts encompassed 
studies and sewage sludge, industrial waste, and dredged material dumpsites, and 
work on living marine resources in the immediate vicinity of those dumpsites. 
Our sewage sludge dumping studies included work at the active New York Bight 
site and the discontinued Philadelphia site. In the New York Bight, some of our ef- 
forts were focussed on synthesizing the conclusions and findings of previous re- 
search at the 12-mile sewage sludge site. Our current findings continue to show that 
sludge dumping alters benthic communities in an area some 240km? around the 
dumpsite, has a detectable contribution to poor water quality only over small time 
and space scales, and is not responsible for swimming-associated illness at coastal 
beaches. We have, however, found that a significant fraction of the bacteria, proto- 
zoa, and viruses reaching the sediments of the inner Bight is probably derived from 
sewage sludge 
Use of tie “Philadelphia dumpsite was discontinued in late 1980. Our data show 
that rock crabs no longer show evidence of gill blackening, and fecal coliform counts 
in sediments have declined to zero. However, longer-lived pathogenic amoebae and 
human intestinal viruses were found in sediments some six months after dumping 
stopped. 
We continued major efforts to analyze industrial waste dumping at the 106-mile 
site and at a site north of Puerto Rico, emphasizing long-range dilution and disper- 
sion characteristics and studies of low-level and chronic effects. Evaluation reports 
were issued on disposal at the 106-mile site and at a discontinued site in the Gulf of 
Mexico reporting on work in earlier years. 
With regard to deepwater dumpsites, our findings are that wastes are dispersed 
over wide areas, do not accumulate on the seafloor, and do not harm planktonic or- 
ganisms, except within an area of about 50km? for the first day following a dump- 
ing event. One still unanswered question is whether disposal could be increased, pos- 
sibly by a large amount, and still continue to have minimal effects. 
Our studies of dredged material disposal emphasized basic questions of how to 
minimize impacts. Such disposal in the marine environment will continue in U.S. 
coastal regions for the foreseeable future. We examined mechanisms by which con- 
taminants could be transferred over long periods of time from sediments to water 
and organisms, and how this could be minimized or prevented. We are paying spe- 
cial attention to the New York Bight, where the sediments are particularly contami- 
nated. We are investigating the feasibility, for example, of putting contaminated 
material into borrow pits and capping the material with clean sand. 
In fiscal year 1983, studies of processes affecting particle settling rates will 
expand to include consideration of discharges of concentrated suspensions which 
would be the result of sewage sludge dewatering and of pipeline discharges of 
sludge. We also will be working to develop methods for detecting contaminant af- 
fected plankton communities. Philadelphia sludge dumpsite studies will analyze sev- 
eral years’ worth of EPA data on sediment chemistry. Dredged material investiga- 
tions will focus on abiotic release of chemicals to the water column. No further 
work will be conducted off Puerto Rico because the current waste dumping there 
will be replaced by a nearshore pipeline discharge. 
Funding for the Ocean Dumping Program is included in the NOAA budget line 
item Regional Projects and Ocean Dumping Research, which is among the reduc- 
tions proposed in the Administration’s fiscal year 1983 budget. Nevertheless, we 
plan to continue with the more critical elements of the program using funds availa- 
ble from the Section 202 program (discribed next) and funds the agency has availa- 
ble to implement Section 6 (Financial Assistance Program) of the National Ocean 
Pollution Planning Act (Public Law 95-273). Inasmuch as the Federal Plan for 
Ocean Pollution assigns high priority to continued research on ocean dumping, sup- 
port of our Ocean Dumping Program from these sources would be quite appropriate 
and certainly within the intent of the legislation. 
The Long-Range Effects Research Program was established in 1979 to carry out 
the mandate of Section 202 of the Act, which is that NOAA have a comprehensive 
and continuing program of research on the possible longer-term impacts of man’s 
activities on the oceans. The current funding for this program is $4,835,000 and con- 
sists of an in-house segment and an extramural grants program. Investigations are 
focusssed on five general problem areas: synthetic organic substances, processed pe- 
troleum products, metals, the role of organic particulates, and ecosystm dynamics. 
In-house, we have four Fisheries Service laboratories and three Environmental Re- 
search Laboratories examining such things as: the role of organics in the transport 
of pollutants in the ocean; the long-term effects of oil on marine organisms; the cy- 
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