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inevitably be challenged in court by the municipalities. 

 If relocation of the dumping is an appropriate step to take, 

 it serves no one's interests to have a relocation decision 

 deferred for several years, with uncertainty during the 

 interim, while a court considers the matter. If such a 

 decision is to be made, it is better to give it the force 

 of law through congressional action. 



Second, an administrative decision to relocate sludge 

 dumping to a deepwater site is likely to designate the 

 106-Mile Site for this purpose. This is undesirable because 

 combining municipal and industrial waste dximping at the 

 same site will frustrate EPA's stated objective of managing 

 dumping at the 106-Mile Site in a manner which permits 

 "further studies of the site and careful monitoring of the 

 impacts of disposal at the site" (47 Fed. Reg. 56664) . 

 Congressional action could (and should) preclude a decision 

 by EPA to allow sludge and industrial wastes to be dumped 

 at the same ocean dumpsite. (The Ocean Dumping Regulations 

 already specify that "sites designated for the ocean 

 dumping of dredged material... shall be used only for the 

 ocean dumping of dredged material ...." 40 C.F.R. § 228.4 

 (e)(3)). Secondarily, selection of a different deepwater 

 site — for example, a deepwater site which retains the present 

 equidistant relationship of the 12-Mile Site to the coasts 

 of New York and New Jersey — could alleviate the concern of 

 Maryland and Delaware residents that new wastes were being 

 introduced into the ocean off their coasts (albeit a hundred 



