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Society (24) of .1 ppt. At least 25 to 30% of the PCBs 

 comes from sewage diimping (2). Thus, the Bight Apex should 

 be placed under Impact Category I. 



While the status of the Bight and portions of it 

 clearly fall under the status of Impact Category I, the 

 regulations require these impacts to be "reasonably attributed 

 to ocean diomping activities." Direct cause and effect is 

 usually difficult to determine in ocean ecosystems even in 

 simple cases, let alone in the more complex case of the 

 New York Bight. One can posit several sources as being 

 reasonably responsible for some or all of the input which 

 would cause portions of the Bight Apex near the sewage sludge 

 dumpsite to be placed under Impact Category I. However, 

 the dumping of sewage sludge is a significant input of 

 material which could reasonably cause the impacts seen. These 

 impacts are close to the dumpsite and often tend to minimize 

 as one moves shoreward. Therefore, we must conclude that 

 it is not unreasonable to attribute a significant portion of 

 the Impact Category I status to ocean dumping of sewage sludge. 



PCBs 



A study panel convened by the U.S. Department of Commerce 

 (1) concluded that of the halogenated hydrocarbons evaluated, 

 PCBs appear to be the class of compounds of greatest present 

 concern in the ecosystem of the New York Bight. Twenty-five 

 to thirty percent of the total input of PCBs in the Bight Apex 

 comes from sewage sludge dumping (2) . Studies report that the 



