132 
al protection in relation to human health impacts as compared to 
ocean disposal. 
The Ocean Dumping Act, as well as the Clean Water Act, require 
the Corps to assess long-term effects of dredged material disposal in 
Federal and non-Federal projects. However, due to the relatively 
short timeframe of the DMRP, all questions related to long-term ef- 
fects of dredged material disposal were not addressed. Although the 
corps and EPA have developed first-generation predictive proce- 
dures to evaluate long-term effects, differences in interpretation of 
these procedures between regulatory agencies continue. 
Our present research efforts, which are being conducted in close 
cooperation with EPA, are concentrating on providing new or im- 
proved technology to predict long-term, including cumulative, envi- 
ronmental impacts of dredging operations and to address methods 
of minimizing any adverse effects. 
The London Dumping Convention has developed a set of broad 
exclusions which exempt dredged material from the mandatory bio- 
logical and chemical testing for prohibited materials that are re- 
quired for other waste materials proposed for ocean disposal. 
In a recent session, Representatives to the London Dumping Con- 
vention expressed significant interest in innovative aquatic dispos- 
al site management techniques, such as capping, as a means of rap- 
idly rendering harmless, which is convention language, the con- 
taminants associated with dredged material. However, the consen- 
sus of delegates was that these efforts should continue at present 
as experimental efforts and be fully researched and monitored. The 
delegates also felt that these techniques were within the legal man- 
date of the London Dumping Convention. The corps is presently 
evaluating these and other experimental approaches to aquatic dis- 
posal of contaminated materials at several sites within the North- 
eastern United States. 
Navigation improvements to a number of our port facilities to ac- 
commodate deep draft navigation will involve the removal of large 
volumes of dredged material, and in turn, consideration of the asso- 
ciated disposal problems. As an example, we estimate that for the 
existing coal ports of Norfolk, Baltimore, Mobile, and New Orleans, 
planned channel deepening to accommodate deep draft navigation, 
so-called super colliers, involves the dredging and disposal of over 
460 million cubic yards of dredged material. 
Recent reports have identified other U.S. ports as having a po- 
tential for serving increased exports of steam coal. Because these 
materials would originate from new dredging, we do not anticipate 
problems with contaminated sediments. However, the extremely 
large volumes of sediments involved would necessitate careful con- 
sideration of all reasonable disposal alternatives, including innova- 
tive approaches to the disposal of dredged material. This is particu- 
larly critical considering the growing shortage of traditional inland 
disposal alternatives for many of our coastal projects. 
Available scientific evidence indicates that, in contrast to inland 
disposal alternatives, the ocean has a significant assimilative ca- 
pacity for dredged sediments. Therefore, the ocean may, in many 
cases, provide the best available alternative for minimizing envi- 
aa impacts of disposal of these large volumes of dredge ma- 
terials. 
