513 
tion; transportation; or the integrity of ecosystems which I argue 
we must hand down to future generations. 
We are using a renewable resource of the oceans through the dis- 
charge of any waste to the ocean system, such as sewage sludge. In 
the case of the southern California Bight waste disposal, we are 
not, on the basis of the assemblage of scientists at the Crystal 
Mountain workshop held in 1979, losing any renewable resource. 
On the basis of the conventional wisdom available to this group, 
there were no renewable resources being lost to the citizenry of the 
east coast of the United States by the sewage sludge disposal there. 
I want to address one problem that was brought up by Congress- 
man Hughes about mercury, cadmium, and PCB’s. I was involved 
in an examination of the one serious PCB episode in the United 
States, the New Bedford Harbor problem. I am unaware that there 
is an established challenge to human health by the levels of PCB’s 
in the New York Bight. 
I am also unaware that there is a demonstrable challenge to the 
public health by the mercury and the cadmium levels in the New 
York Bight, The insults to human health, through mercury dis- 
charges to the ocean occurred, to my knowledge, only in Japan, at 
Minamata Bay and Niigata. I know of no situation in the United 
States where mercury is a marine pollutant of concern. 
The only cadmium poisoning occurred in Japan, but in fresh 
waters, not in marine waters, through the discharge of industrial 
waste. 
I do have concerns that present scientific knowledge is not being 
effectively translated today into monitoring activities of our coastal 
waters. The mussel watch did define important problems in coastal 
pollution, yet it is to be abandoned by EPA at its Narragansett 
Laboratory. 
There are some concerns about coastal discharges of sewage 
sludge. They should be assessed. I would not be concerned with 
mercury, cadmium, or PCB’s as much as I would with copper, for 
example. My colleague at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 
Francois Morel, says that doubling the copper levels in coastal 
waters can alter the reproduction capabilities of the small plants, 
the diatoms, which are the base of the marine food chain. Other 
colleagues and I are concerned about a pesticide toxaphene which 
may be the most important single synthetic set of organic com- 
pounds polluting the Earth today. It is the most used biocide in the 
United States today, more than methyl parathion. 
We have a continuing problem with the application of scientific 
discoveries into monitoring and control activities. The marine sci- 
entific community continuously alerts Federal agencies as well as 
public officials about what it considers first order problems today 
that should be assessed. Yesterday’s facts may be today’s irrelevan- 
cies. The concerns about the mercury, cadmium, and PCB’s of yes- 
ery should be replaced by concerns about copper and the toxa- 
phene. 
I am a marine scientist, perhaps a most provincial marine scien- 
tist. I want to protect the oceans, but I also want to protect the 
land resources. The resources we protect in the ocean, the basis for 
decisions about the discharge of materials: public health, integrity 
