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Proposed section 104(b)(2) provides the first component of a sig- 
nificantly revised user fee system. It provides that the Administra- 
tor may prescribe site designation fees to users of that site, exclu- 
sive of Federal users. As you know, site designation is extremely 
expensive. A contract to study and conduct surveys of 32 ocean 
dumping areas and prepare 29 environmental impact statements 
on those areas required the expenditure of about $17 million. 
Thus, the Federal Government is incurring substantial costs in 
site designation. While we agree that a site designation fee is justi- 
fiable, we do not think that this provision is workable in its present 
form. 
A major concern with this subsection is the degree to which the 
Agency will be constrained in recouping site designation costs for 
new sites, that is, those sites which currently do not have any users 
or permit applicants. This is a real situation today. For example, 
the Agency will soon propose to designate a “burn” site for inciner- 
ation at sea in the North Atlantic. Although no permit applications 
have been filed, the Agency has received expressions of interest 
from three potential users for a North Atlantic site and a Pacific 
site. 
The Agency sees a responsibility in anticipating the use of this 
technique, given the viability of incineration at sea as a means of 
waste management. The process of site designation can take sever- 
al years. If EPA does not anticipate the need for new sites, appli- 
cants may experience serious delays. Such delays might not only be 
very costly, but could result in the use of less desirable disposal 
options. 
Nonetheless, if the Agency is restricted by this amendment to 
only recoup costs from current users, a disincentive will exist for 
the Agency to provide a “new’’ site. 
There may be environmental advantages to engaging in other 
site designation activity for projected needs, to determine in ad- 
vance the best sites for particular types of wastes and to provide 
adequate leadtime for full scientific investigations. It may be pref- 
erable to designate a very few sites which multiple permittees 
would use rather than simply rely on permit-by-permit site desig- 
nations. 
For these reasons, the Agency has several concerns related to the 
assessment of user fees which we believe the amendments do not 
address. Is the Agency expected to recoup its costs from the first 
permittee or are we to assume that a number of permittees will 
eventually be identified and assess costs proportionately? Are we to 
recoup the administrative costs of site designation within a single 
year or assess costs annually over a multiyear timespan? These 
points should be clarified in the context of any user system. 
Proposed section 104(b)(3)(A) prescribes that the Administrator 
should collect a special fee, apportioned among users of specific 
sites, to recoup the costs of periodic monitoring of the site. Site 
monitoring can be an expensive proposition depending on the 
extent of monitoring conducted. The municipalities dumping 
sewage sludge at the 12-mile site spend approximately $370,000 an- 
nually on simple compliance monitoring. Monitoring deepwater 
sites is significantly more costly than monitoring SEO sites such 
as the 12-mile site. 
