491 
PREPARED STATEMENT OF FRED HARPER, CHAIRMAN, CONFERENCE OF COASTAL 
AGENCIES 
INTRODUCTION 
My name is Fred Harper, and I am the General Manager of 
the County Sanitation Districts of Orange County, California. 
I am also the Chairman of the Conference of Coastal Agencies (CCA), 
a group of 16 coastal sewerage agencies operating as a committee 
of the Association of Metropolitan Sewerage Agencies (AMSA). 
I am speaking today on behalf of the sewerage agencies that 
comprise CCA: Anchorange, Alaska; East Bay Municipal Utility 
Districts, the City of Los Angeles, Orange County Sanitation 
Districts, the City of San Diego, the City and County of San 
Francisco, and Encina, California; Anne Arundel County and the 
City of Baltimore, Maryland; South Essex Sewerage District, 
Massachusetts; Middlesex County Utilities Authority and Passaic 
Valley Sewerage Commissioners, New Jersey; Nassau County and 
New York City, New York; Hampton Roads, Virginia; and Tacoma, 
Washington. 
Although our parent organization, AMSA, has had a policy 
supporting an ocean option for sewage sludge disposal for a 
number of years, we formed CCA less than a year ago to make 
the case to the public in general, the citizens in the areas we 
serve, the Congress and the Executive Branch that the ocean is 
one possible method of handling sludge that should be carefully 
explored in the same fashion that we examine the use of sludge 
on land for fertilizing purposes and disposal in landfills, 
as well as incineration. 
No one can say with certainty that the use of the ocean 
is acceptable or is the best alternative. Rather, what we hope 
to establish is a well conceived program for independently 
assessing what is the proper type of sludge, if any, that can 
safely be disposed of in the ocean. We have a great deal to 
learn about. the effects of tidal action, depth and temperature 
of the receiving water, and other physical factors that in our 
view will help us as a nation determine the usefulness and 
acceptability of the ocean for handling sludge. There is a 
recent shift in scientific thought that strongly makes the 
case that our earlier reaction to the use of the ocean for hand- 
ling sludge was primarily instinctive or emotional. We believe 
that a matter of this consequence should instead rest on a solid 
scientific and technological base and that is our primary goal. 
We believe there are some substantial misperceptions re- 
garding ocean disposal of sewage sludge that merit attention 
and correction. First, this is a national problem -- it is 
not a "New York City" problem. I represent 16 agencies from 
eight different states in this hearing. Second, we want to 
emphasize that we are not espousing a return to pre-1972 
practices of indiscriminate ocean waste disposal. Our member 
agencies are public bodies whose principal function is to pro- 
tect public health and the environment. It is our position 
that sewage sludge, an inescapable residue that has to go 
somewhere, should be disposed of in the medium, and in the manner, 
