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of dredged material ocean disposed in these areas. For example, in the New York 
Harbor area, disposal under permit accounts for approximately 30 percent of the 
total annual quantity of dredged material that is disposed of in the ocean. Since 
1976, we have received an average of only 34 Section 103 permit applications annu- 
ally, with an averge of 21 permits (61 percent of total applications received) issued 
each year. The vast majority of these permits have been to Federal, state and local 
agencies. Thus, for the most part, the MPRSA has been primarily a Government- 
regulating regulation. 
Under the MPRSA, EPA is assigned lead responsibility for designating ocean dis- 
posal sites. This site designation responsibility includes approximately 130 ocean 
sites which have historically been used for the ocean disposal of dredged materials. 
Each of these sites has received at least interim designation. On an average, ap- 
proximately 50 to 60 of these sites are used annually for ocean dredged material 
disposal. 
Before each of these interim designated sites can receive final designation for con- 
tinuing use, environmental baseline studies must be conducted, and, in some cases, 
Environmental Impact Statements (EIS) must be prepared. To assist the EPA in this 
site designation process, the Corps entered into an agreement in 1978 to have EPA 
collect baseline data and prepare EIS’s for the designation of approximately 57 of 
the Corps top priority dredged material disposal sites. These sites receive, on an 
average, over 90 percent of the dredged material disposed of in ocean sites each 
year. 
To date, the total cost of this site designation effort has been approximately $17 
million, of which the Corps has provided over $11 million. We continue to place a 
high priority on the timely completion of this ocean site designation program, as we 
consider the program vital to carry out our navigation responsibilities. 
We are also working closely with EPA in assessing requirements for our remain- 
ing historically used ocean sites. We have developed a standardized sampling proce- 
dures manual, in conjunction with EPA, which will be used to develop the required 
site-specific baseline information for final designation of these remaining sites. 
We anticipate that some of these remaining sites can be designated based either 
on available site-specific data or on data obtained under EPA’s ongoing program to 
designate the Corps’ top priority sites. However, a number of the remaining sites 
will require detailed field surveys in order to adequately characterize baseline envi- 
ronmental conditions as required prior to final designation. Collection of data in the 
open ocean environment is quite expensive, and we anticipate that these remaining 
site designation efforts will have to be accomplished over a period of several years. 
In addition to these efforts, the Corps field offices have spent over $3 million 
during each of the last two years in limited monitoring of existing ocean dredged 
material disposal sites, as well as in obtaining baseline data to characterize several 
new ocean disposal sites which will be required for planned channel deepening 
projects. 
RESEARCH EFFORTS ON CONTAMINATED SEDIMENTS 
The Corps regulations for issuing ocean dumping permits, as well as permits 
issued under CWA authority, are based on criteria and guidelines developed by 
EPA, in consultation with the Corps. Therefore, the Corps must be and is actively 
involved from an applied research standpoint as well as from a direct participating 
role in criteria and guidelines development. 
We estimate that between one to ten percent of the sediment in waterways and 
harbors have become contaminated to potentially unacceptable levels due to man’s 
industrial, urban, and agricultural activities. The Corps Dredged Material Research 
Program (DMRP), which was initiated in 1973 and successfully completed in 1978, 
provided the first definitive information on the existence of contaminants in 
dredged material disposed in marsh, estuarine, freshwater, and upland areas, in- 
cluding disposal alternatives for contaminated sediments. This research has resolved 
technical issues related to short-term or acute effects of disposal and has dispelled 
many public fears expressed at the time. 
Technical conclusions from that program include the following: 
Water column impacts during disposal are minimal to nonexistent, and the effect 
is predominately aesthetic in nature. 
Leaching of toxic metals from aquatic disposal site mounds into the water column 
appears no greater than from natural sediments of similar geochemical characteris- 
tics. Chlorinated hydrocarbon release to the solution phase was not detected in the 
laboratory or field. Nutrients were released in concentrations greater than back- 
