107 



-17- 



conqressional review process — confined to brand-new site 

 designations (i.e., never dumped at before and not simply- 

 taking the place of a nearby historical dumpsite) — could be 

 constructive and would be worthy of support. 



. Other Desirable Measures 



There are two overriding issues regarding prospects 

 for the continued ocean dumping of sewage sludge that are 

 only partially addressed in the Hughes-Forsythe proposal. 



The first issue is whether "harmful" sewage sludge 

 should be permitted to be ocean-dumped at all, regardless 

 of the dumping location. The current state of the law, as 

 dictated by a single judge at the lowest level of the 

 federal judiciary, is that sewage sludge no matter how 

 devastating to the marine environment may not be barred from 

 ocean dumping as long as any marine environmental degradation 

 can be justified as "reasonable" based upon the higher costs 

 of land-based alternatives. While the notion of using a 

 "balancing test" to decide among alternatives is superficially 

 appealing (isn't "balance" better than extremism or 

 imbalance?) , the problem is that the ocean is usually so 

 much cheaper than any competing alternative that any analysis 

 that gives a premium to economic costs will yield a very 

 "unbalanced" result. The ocean will lose every time. 



The user fees incorporated in the Hughes-Forsythe 

 proposal represent a commendable effort to redress this 

 imbalance. But, even if a sufficiently stringent fee schedule 



