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analyses to do that, we would be willing to pay our fair share of 

 the cost of those analyses. And monitoring, of course. 



Beyond that a fee structure as proposed by some, that either sets 

 aside money or in fact creates in a sense a penalty for sludge 

 dumping we don't think would be appropriate. 



Mr. FoRSYTHE. We are getting a lot of testimony dealing with the 

 impact of ocean disposal of sludge throughout the bight, not just 

 the sludge dump site. 



I get the feeling everybody is working with a data base starting 

 back from 1971, and coming up with dramatically different answers 

 under different assumptions. 



Have any of you any input on how that could be? 



Mr. Gift. I would like to address that. I think you have seen a 

 great evolution in the technical data. In 1970 we had our initial de- 

 velopment of environmental regulations, we were sort of buoyed 

 with Earth Day and we went out and looked for problems. We went 

 out and looked for problems where we were releasing materials 

 into the environment. 



One of them was ocean dumping of sludges. We went out, collect- 

 ed information and very rapidly developed some conclusions that 

 went into the technical literature of substantial degradation due to 

 ocean disposal of sewage sludge. I think a lot of that type of infor- 

 mation has been put into perspective through very extensive subse- 

 quent studies where we had better controls, where we understand 

 the sources of materials and I think that whole process better. This 

 has now allowed us to come to certainly somewhat different conclu- 

 sions on the whole management process and what drives it and 

 what causes what we see out there. 



But to some extent in the whole public area some of those early 

 corps design studies still drive us as a principal perspective of what 

 is going on out there. I think we have better insights now. We are 

 not saying sewage sludge dumping has no effect, but we feel that 

 measurable effects are limited to an area around the dump site and 

 that area itself has other sources that contribute to it. Consequent- 

 ly movement of that one input to another location based on what 

 we understand now will not measurably improve the overall apex 

 area. 



Mr. FoRSYTHE. You broadened my question. I see my time is up 

 but I will be back. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 



Mr. D' Amours. The gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Hughes. 



Mr. Hughes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. 



Welcome, Mayor. 



Mayor Koch. Thank you. 



Mr. Hughes. Nice to see you. 



Mayor Koch. My pleasure. 



Mr. Hughes. I gather from your testimony that you find a lot of 

 the New Jersey initiative which is worth pursuing further, the 

 New Jersey proposal which would provide for a comprehensive in- 

 termedia-type of approach to improving water quality in the 

 region, some type of fee imposed to finance the monitoring and as- 

 sessments that would have to be done, some provision for recycling 

 some of the fee back into a fund that would enable us to develop 

 longer term solutions to the problem and to address the problem 

 comprehensively on the basis of what is best scientifically to im- 



