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PREPARED STATEMENT By JAMES R. BORBERG, REPRESENTING THE CONFERENCE OF 
CoAsTAL AGENCIES 
INTRODUCTION 
My name is James Borberg, and I am the General Manager of 
the Hampton Roads Sanitation District of Virginia Beach, Virginia. 
Today I am also representing 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). 
The sewerage agencies that comprise CCA are: Anchorage, 
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, =F 
California; Anne Arundel County and the City of Baltimore, 
Maryland; South Essex Sewerage District, Massachusetts; Middle- 
sex 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 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 possi- 
ble 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. 
Last March, in testimony before two subcommittees of 
the House Committee on Merchant Marine and Fisheries, CCA set 
forth its position on the role of the oceans in a national sew- 
age sludge management strategy. I remind those who attended 
that hearing, and reiterate for the members of the Science and 
Technology Committee, what we exphasized in that earlier testi- 
mony. We stated that we are not advocating indiscriminate 
use of the ocean for sludge disposal; but that we seek a well- 
conceived program for assessing what types of sewage sludges 
can benefit the oceans and can safely be assimilated by them. 
We believe there is a great deal to be learned about the effects 
of placing sewage solids in the ocean, both from the marine 
point of view and from the point of view of the treatment plant 
operator. It is our stated objective that the beneficial ele- 
ments of sewage sludge be effectively utilized and that sludge 
be disposed of in the manner, and in the medium, in which 
environmental degradation and human health risk will be mini- 
mized. We are concerned that some groups react to the notion 
of using the ocean for this purpose in an emotional manner; 
we believe such decisions must be made based upon solid scien- 
tific information and not on emotional grounds. 
For a more thorough discussion of the options for sewage 
sludge management, the effects of sludge in the ocean, and the 
state of marine science in this area, I refer you to our March 
