199 
harmful environmental impact of disposing of such materials on 
land. 
As was pointed out by your colleague, Mr. Forsythe, you have to 
worry about the pine barrens; you have to worry about Norman 
Lent’s situation in Long Island, where there is a single aquifer. I 
think there are only eight such instances in the whole country. 
They are the sole source of drinking water for the communities 
they serve. Shall we put these materials on the acquifer, as op- 
posed to in the ocean? It would not make any sense, since we be- 
lieve the impact is far more deleterious to do this than to dispose of 
these wastes where we currently are disposing of them. 
I remember coming before the committee last year or perhaps 2 
years ago. At that time, I said, “There is this deadline of December 
31, 1981, and I do not know what I am going to do. What am I 
going to do? Take this sludge home with me and keep it in my 
apartment?” There has to be a place to put it until we find some 
other way to deal with it that is better. So we are working on it, as 
you are working on it, as the people around the country are. Until 
that better way is found, we do not think you should require us to 
take it from where we are currently putting it and put it some- 
place else where it will do equal or greater damage. 
Second, the amendments proposed would ban any ocean dumping 
at sites within the New York Bight apex, in the face of a mass of 
scientific data which indicate that no significant adverse impact 
will be caused by continued dumping at those existing sites. The 
reason we do not want to move from that site, Mr. Chairman and 
members of the committee, is that we do not believe if would im- 
prove the environment by doing so. Further, we know that this will 
increase our disposal costs with no significant environmental gains. 
If we are required to compost on land, our operating costs would 
be about $45 million, as opposed to operating costs at the 12-mile 
site of $4.09 million. There are construction costs for the compost- 
ing facility, of which the Federal Government pays 75 percent, 
which would have a total cost of $335 million, this represents a sig- 
nificant investment, but will not get you anything for your money. 
If New York City had to move its disposal operations to the sug- 
gested 106-mile site, our operating costs would go up to about $27 
million. The capital costs for upgrading the vessels would equal an- 
other $50 million, I submit we would not be getting anything for 
our money—and when I say “our money,” I mean local tax-levied 
dollars. 
We consider Federal money to be as sacred a trust as local tax- 
levied dollars. We are simply saying to you that when you, the 
Congress, spend the money, you want to get something for it. If you 
require New York City to compost our sludge, you will get nothing 
meaningful in return; you will just have an expenditure of over 
one-quarter of a million dollars. If you require New York City to 
move its disposal site to 106 miles, and spend additional local tax- 
levied dollars, there will be no significant benefits, just an expendi- 
ture. 
We are already suffering a reduction in Federal assistance of 
close to $1 billion over the last 2 years in our operating budget. 
This has caused us to spend additional tax-levied dollars to make 
up for these funds which we desperately need for cops, firemen, 
