275 



Again, under Title I of the MPRSA, the EPA has the responsibi- 

 lity to designate ocean disposal sites and to specify the type 

 of material (e.g., industrial and acid wastes, dredged material, 

 municipal sewage sludges, etc.) which can be disposed at any 

 particular site. Although the City considers it unlikely that 

 the industrial waste generators would petition EPA to allow dis- 

 posal of their wastes at the 12-Mile Site, this decision is 

 EPA's and should be based upon the requirements of the MPRSA. 

 It should also be noted that there is a currently designated 

 acid waste disposal site within the New York Bight apex located 

 approximately 2.6 nautical miles southeast of the 12-Mile Site. 



In order to address the question of the assimilative capacit]^of 

 any ecosystem such as the New York Bight apex, it is first ne- 

 cessary to decide which effect(s) and what level of that effect 

 are to be used to define the point at which the assimilative ca- 

 pacity is exceeded. For example, the assimilative capacity end- 

 point of a City's atmosphere could be defined as the level of 

 nitrous oxides that will increase the risk of death by 5 percent 

 for sensitive individuals with respiratory disease, or the level 

 at which smog limits visibility to a certain distance on a cert- 

 ain number of days per year, or the level of PAH ' s or other com- 

 pounds that will cause a percent increase in susceptibility to 

 disease in a plant or animal species, or the level at which 

 human life is no longer possible, and so on. However, no such 

 definition exists for the New York Bight or any other ecosystem. 



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