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APPENDIX B 



60-MILE SITE 

 TECHNICAL SUMMARY 



This report is being submitted by New York City in response to a request 

 by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for comments on the possible 

 redesignation of the Alternate Sewage Sludge Dump Site in the New York 

 Sight (the oO-Mile Site) which appeared in a "Notice of petitions for 

 rulemaking and announcement of consideration of commencement of rule- 

 making" in the Federal Register on December 20, 1982 (47 FR 56665). In 

 order to redesignate the 50-Mile Site for the disposal of sewage sludges, 

 EPA must consider a number of criteria established as part of the Ocean 

 Dumping Regulations at 40 CFR 228,5 and 228.6. Each of these criteria 

 was examined by EPA in the Final Environmental Impact Statement on the 

 Ocean Dumping of Sewage Sludge in the Mew York Bight dated September 1978 

 (1978 FEIS). New York City's report provides a comprehensive update and 

 assessment of the technical information incorporated in the 1978 FEIS and 

 demonstrates that the recent data confirm that the 60-Mile Site could be 

 designated for the authorized disposal of sewage sludge, but that dumping 

 should not be transferred to this site from the existing (12-Mile) site 

 unless there was "confirmation of a possible threat" (EPA 1978, p, 4) at 

 the existing site. The 1978 FEIS (p. 206) recommended that: 



. The existing sewage sludge dump site [12-Mile Site] should 

 continue to be used. 



. The expanded monitoring program and the criteria developed to 

 determine when and if public health or environmental factors 

 warrant the phasing out or abandonment of the existing dumpsite 

 should continue. 



. An alternate dump site should be designated in the Northern Area 

 for potential use if and when the existing dump site is abandoned 

 or phased out ... This site should be a square, roughly 31 sq km 

 X^ sq n mi) with center coordinates at 72" 42' W longitude and 40° 

 12' N latitude, at a depth of 55 m (180 ft). The center of this 

 recommended site is about 61 km (33 n mi) south of Long Island, 

 about HI km (60 n mi) east of New Jersey, about 45 km (24 n mi) 

 from the Hudson Shelf Valley, and about 111 km (50 n mi) from the 

 Sandy Hook-Rockaway Point transect (EPA 1978, p. 206, emphasis 

 added). 



The technical data generated since 1978 do not significantly improve our 

 understanding, or the predictability, of any possible impacts from 

 dumping of sewage sludge at the 60-Mile Site, although the weight of 

 existing evidence indicates that such dumping would not be harmful to 

 human health or the environment of the 60-Mile Site. The inability to 

 confidently predict possible impacts at the 60-Mile Site is caused by two 

 factors. First, the effects of sewage sludge dumping at the site itself 

 have not been adequately determined because no material has ever been 

 ocean dumped at the 60-Mile Site. Second, scientific studies of the 



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