489 
make the case to Congress, and to anyone else who is interested, 
about the options that we believe ought to be available for the han- 
dling of sludge, including the ocean. 
Nobody knows for sure that the ocean is the best option, but con- 
versely, we have not really established that it is an option that 
should be totally barred, and as a consequence, we believe that it 
should be measured against each of the other options. 
There is nothing easy about the disposition of sludge. It is not a 
product that everybody is clamoring for and yet it has to go some- 
where. It is a product that is the result of a successful prcgram to 
clean up our Nation’s waters. And we believe that the handling of 
it should be a very serious matter and one that is based on technol- 
ogy and scientific inquiry. 
There seems to be a few misperceptions about the handling of 
sludge by some agencies, all of which are local governmental agen- 
cies. 
First, is that this is a New York City problem and I think the 
existence of our conference indicates that this is indeed a very 
widespread problem and one of great interest. 
Second, we do not believe that indiscriminate use of the ocean is 
what is called for. Rather, we believe that an effort to understand 
carefully, technically, scientifically the impacts of putting sludge in 
the ocean is what is required and our agencies are committed to 
that. 
There is a suggestion made on occasion that, left to its own de- 
vices, every agency will take the easiest or the cheapest way out 
and that happens to be the handy nearby ocean. I don’t think that 
quite does justice to the members of our group. 
They are themselves local governmental agencies. They are re- 
sponsible to the public and they have to make decisions and they 
have to weigh alternatives. Just as I don’t think it is necessary to 
have a policy that says don’t put it in the ocean because it is 
cheaper, I don’t think there ought to be a policy that says don’t put 
it in the ocean because it might be cheaper. Economics is, in our 
judgment, a legitimate factor to take into account and if we don’t, 
in Pepin all the other factors, we think a gross mistake will be 
made. 
The scientific community, on the basis of what we have ourselves 
found out through activities of our agencies and through other per- 
haps more disinterested groups, has come, we believe, to a conclu- 
sion and that is that we do not truly understand what has been 
happening in the ocean. Instinctively and intuitively and emotion- 
ally we have said do not use the ocean because it may be harmful. 
We don’t think that is a solid enough basis upon which to reach a 
national policy. That policy ought to rest on research, on tech- 
niques of analysis and monitoring and we support the monitoring 
concept completely. 
Our agencies that do presently put sludge in the ocean have per- 
mits that require monitoring and, as Mayor Koch testified here a 
couple of days ago, perhaps we are not spending enough money on 
Ou E and on analyzing the consequences of putting sludge in 
the ocean. 
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