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the effectiveness of means to address those inputs — but not 

 the sewage sludge input, and not the effectiveness of addressing 

 that input through imposing a ban. As with the New Jersey plan, 

 we would urge that the steps to be taken by New York City and other 

 municipalities in the area should be consistent with the findings 

 of an open, balanced, and scientific assessment. 



That completes my prepared testimony. I appreciate the 

 opportunity to address the Committee once again this year on this 

 very important subject. As I indicated at the opening of my 

 testimony, I will now yield to Dr. Gift for a presentation of his 

 information on the site designation studies which we have submitted 

 to EPA and for some discussion of our ongoing work on the special 

 permit application. The technical summaries for the site designation 

 study will be submitted for the record. 



Commissioner McGough, Dr. Gift and I will be happy to answer 

 any questions you might wish to ask of us. 



Mr. D' Amours. I thank you, Ed, and I am going to be very brief 

 with my questioning recognizing the time constraints on you. 



Mayor Koch. Jim has a statement but perhaps he could forego it 

 and we could do the questioning now. If you thought his statement 

 was necessary he could make it at that time. 



Mr. D' Amours. I will let you decide whether or not you want the 

 statement made at this time. I don't want to inhibit your presenta- 

 tion of the full case. 



Mayor Koch. Let's have him sum it up. 



Mr. Gift. Let me pick up just one or two points of my testimony 

 that I think probably hit the underlying arguments. 



One point addresses not much what we found in our assessment 

 on site designation, which has been detailed in the documents that 

 we delivered to EPA, but based on those findings the question of 

 what we can expect to gain if we ban sludge dumping at the New 

 York Bight Apex. 



First, since contaminant loadings to the bight are dominated by 

 other sources which will continue even if sewage sludge disposal 

 were stopped, the benefits of removing sludge if any will be minor. 

 Current beach pollution episodes would not be reduced in number 

 and the potential for anoxic events would not measurably decrease. 



Because sewage sludge disposal does not affect beach water qual- 

 ity, banning sludge disposal in the bight would not improve Long 

 Island or New Jersey beach conditions. 



Further, it is highly unlikely that the New York Bight shellfish 

 closure would be rescinded since sewage sludge contributes only 

 two-tenths of 1 percent of the bight apex coliform bacteria load and 

 dredged material which will continue to be a large source of coli- 

 form bacteria to the same offshore area would continue. 



