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Mr. Murrey. As you can see, Mr. Chairman, there is little room for 
doubt that New York Harbor is severely damaged. While scientists 
may argue about the degree of the damage, it must fall to us to get on 
with the vital business of preventing further damage and finding 
solutions. 
Several remedies have been advanced, and a number of them are 
the subject of amendments to the Fish and Wildlife Coordination Act. 
Similar proposals have also found their way to the Public Works 
Committee. 
Among those solutions which immediately followed publication of 
the Sandy Hook report were many which simply provided for moving 
dumping areas further out to sea. We must reject these proposals as 
patently unacceptable, and entirely too narrow in their approach. 
Prior to the use of the New York Bight, dumping was permitted in 
Raritan Bay, further up in the harbor. We are still suffering the ill 
effects of that dumping, and now we have damaged the bight. Let us 
not “solve” this latest disaster by simply moving the problem else- 
where. In this shrinking world, we are running out of carpet to sweep 
problems under. “Elsewhere” is all-too-often right next door. 
H.R. 17603, offers a comprehensive program for the ultimate solu- 
tion of the water pollution problem in New York Harbor and through- 
out the country wherever wastes are disposed of in our waters. In a 
nation in which 85 percent of the population lives in the coastal en- 
vironment, and in which 100 percent of the people depend on that 
environment, the problem is truly national in scope and deserving of 
a national solution. 
I have introduced H.R. 17603, on four occasions, with 30 cosponsors. 
The bill amends the Fish and Wildlife Coordination Act to provide 
additional protection to marine and wildlife ecology by requiring the 
designation and regulation of certain water and submerged land areas 
where the depositing of any waste material will be permitted. The bill 
establishes a mechanism for developing effective disposed standards 
within these areas, and provides that all other marine areas will be 
maintained in a “no-dumping” status, and preserved and protected as 
marine sanctuaries. 
The guiding principle is to require the Secretary of Interior or the 
new Environmental Protection Administration to identify and desig- 
nate those areas in which certain dumping can be safely accomplished. 
For example, some quantities of cellar dirt may be safely dumped 
off the Continental Shelf without damaging the ecology of the marine 
environment, if carefully controlled and regulated. Elsewhere the bot- 
tom configuration and other factors may permit disposal of certain 
chemicals or other wastes that are absorbed into the water without 
causing imbalance. 
There has never been a comprehensive program to determine what 
kinds of wastes can be safely disposed of in which waters. Previously, 
factors such as effects on navigation and distance from population cen- 
ters were considered, but specific ecological effects were generally 
ignored. 
My bill tasks the Secretary of Interior (or EPA) with studying the 
national marine environment with a view to identifying each river, 
harbor, and costal area and designating which of these areas can ac- 
