SEWAGE DISPOSAL IN NEW YORK BIGHT 



WEDNESDAY, MAY 25, 1983 



House of Representatives, Subcommittee on Oceanog- 

 raphy, AND Subcommittee on Fisheries and Wildlife 

 Conservation and the Environment, Committee on 

 Merchant Marine and Fisheries, 



Washington, D.C. 



The subcommittees met, pursuant to call, at 9:45 a.m., in room 

 1334, Longworth House Office Building, Hon. Norman E. D' Amours 

 (chairman of the Subcommittee on Oceanography) presiding. 



Present: Representatives D' Amours, Boxer, Hughes, Hutto, 

 Dyson, Carper, Ortiz, Biaggi, and Forsythe. 



Staff present: Howard Gaines, Darrell Brown, Mary Pat Barrett, 

 Tom Kitsos, Will Stelle, Susan Wade, Debbie Storey, Barbara 

 Wyman, and George Pence. 



Mr. D' Amours. The Joint Subcommittee on Oceanography and 

 Fisheries will come to order. 



I want to begin by apologizing to those people who were here on 

 time at 9:30 for my tardiness. If you were on time at 9:30, I would 

 have to say that the staff did a better job of advising you of the 

 starting time than they did of advising me. 



Today's joint hearing of the subcommittees is concerned with the 

 question of ocean dumping of municipal sewage sludge in the New 

 York Bight. This hearing has three main purposes, first, to exam- 

 ine current dumping volume, and practices in the bight; second, to 

 evaluate the environmental condition of the bight; and third, to 

 look at waste management alternatives for the bight. 



This subject isn't new to the Congress nor certainly to this sub- 

 committee. We have had an active interest in the environmental 

 condition of the bight for some time. In fact, since I became chair- 

 man in 1981, we have held 10 hearings on ocean dumping, 9 of 

 these related in some way to dumping in the bight. 



This is a very complex, somewhat technical, and often frustrat- 

 ing issue. One thing is clear, the bight is unacceptably degraded, 

 unreasonably polluted, and we cannot abide continuing the prac- 

 tices that have led to such a deplorable condition. 



Hopefully, the witnesses before us today will assist these subcom- 

 mittees to reach some consensus as to our most appropriate course 

 of future action. I welcome the witnesses. 



We look forward to receiving your testimony. 



Mr. Forsythe, the ranking minority member of this full commit- 

 tee, has been unavoidably detained and the minority staff has 

 agreed that we could start the hearings without Mr. Forsythe's 



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