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site Designation Issues 



A multldlscipllnary technical staff of over 20 scientists prepared these 

 comprehensive comment documents which address the suitability of the 12-, 

 60-, and 106-Mile Sites for the ocean disposal of sewage sludge. These 

 documents are a synthesis of over a thousand technical papers and 

 reports. We believe the documents provide a strong technical case to 

 support designation of the three sites under consideration. 



Copies of the full technical summaries of the three comment documents are 

 attached as appendices to this testimony and I would like to ask that 

 they appear in full in the record. I would like to summarize some of the 

 key findings of our site designation studies which I feel are of interest 

 to this Committee, with particular emphasis on the 12-Mile Site which is 

 located in the New York Bight apex (Figure 1). 



Sewage sludge disposal contributes only a minor portion of the 

 contaminants entering the New York Bight apex from all sources. The 

 contaminants mercury, cadmium, PC3s, and fecal collform bacteria are of 

 particular regulatory interest. Sewage sludge disposal is estimated to 

 contribute only 3 percent of the mercury, 8 percent of the cadmium, 3 

 percent of the PCBs, and two-tenths of one percent of the fecal collform 

 bacteria to the Bight apex (Figure 2). 



EPA's (1978) prediction that sewage sludge disposal in 

 the Bight would increase by 140 percent by 1981 was a significant over- 

 estimate. Between 1973 and 1981, sewage sludge volumes increased only 46 

 percent. More importantly, the quantity of total solids disposed at the 

 12-Mile Site increased only 5 percent over the same period. The 

 difference in these volumes is simply water. 



Although volumes of sewage sludge have increased, our estimates 

 show the quantities of most of the toxic metals disposed have decreased, 

 some significantly. For example, compared to NCAA estimates using 1973 



