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highly contaminated with the chemicals, sewage, oil and grease, 
and microorganisms which can be found in abundance in most of 
our urban-industrial rivers and harbors. Although this 
contaminated material can pose significant hazards to sea life 
and human health--and although ocean dumping of dredged material 
accounts for 90% of all ocean dumping and implicates 90% of all 
ocean dumpsites--few if any instances can be found of permission 
to ocean dump having ever been denied (or even significantly 
delayed) for even the most toxic dredge spoils in the entire 
10-year period of statutory controls on ocean dumping. 
5. EPA is in the process of drafting weakening revisions 
to its nationwide ocean dumping regulations, which would turn 
the clock back at least 6 years on the effective regulation of 
ocean dumping. 
6. Concurrently, the Administration has proposed to reduce 
NOAA's marine pollution research budget by nearly $7 million, 
virtually cutting in half already modest FY '82 funding levels. 
This reflects the "proposed phase-out of NOAA's research on 
waste disposal in the marine environment." At a time when 
EPA is seeking to scrap its reliance on predictive screening 
to prevent harmful wastes from getting into the ocean, in favor 
of heavy reliance on after-the-fact monitoring of material 
allowed into the ocean much more freely, it seems disingenuous 
in the extreme to so significantly reduce the federal capability 
to research and monitor the short-term impacts of ocean dumping. 
7. On the plus side, ocean dumpine of harmful industrial 
wastes has been significantly reduced, although growing 
quantities of less harmful industrial wastes have been ocean-dumped 
since 1978. 
