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This may not have to do with the direct impingement of sludge 
and dredge spoils on the fish themselves. This is not very widely 
understood or appreciated. Most people suggest that pollutants are 
affecting the lobster or clam or striped bass. Hardshell clams, for 
instance, live very will in Raritan Bay which is terribly polluted. 
They are one of the few animals we can collect there. 
The hardshell or quahog is a very valuable clam. It almost thrives 
on pollution except that you can’t eat it. Some animals get by, but 
other forms such as the amphipods, which I mentioned earlier, and 
which are extremely important in the food chain, do not get by. How- 
ever, the average person looking at an amphipod swimming in a tank 
or environment wouldn’t even see it or know it existed. Yet if pollu- 
tion impinges upon these very small, subtle forms of marine life, it 
will affect animals way up in the food chain. I know professional 
marine biologists who don’t appreciate this phenomenon; they say, “I 
haven’t seen any fish dying lately”; but if a thorough analysis is made, 
you do find forms that have disappeared or changed, and this is fol- 
lowed concomitantly by the disappearance of fish who depend on these 
fish for food. One of the principal effects of sewer sludge and dredge 
spoil disposal is to change the sediments at the bottom of the oceans. 
Much of the bottom marine life depend upon sediments of a certain 
type, sands, silts, clays, or a mixture of these materials. By adding 
sewer sludge you mechanically change the nature of these sediments. 
They all become very similar to fine clays. I have described it as some- 
thing like black mayonnaise. If you take a sample from the dredge 
spoil area it smells exactly like petroleum or sewage. There are many 
ramifications that are not brought out in any of these hearings. 
I have mentioned to Mr. Kitzmiller it is really a shame that Con- 
gressmen don’t have marine biologists to advise them continuously 
on these matters. As Dr. Ketchum, Dr. Arons, and all of the people 
involved, I have spent a lifetime learning what we have in the marine 
environment, and vou cannot convey this in one day. The tremendous 
lack of knowledge of the marine environment is abysmal. This is not 
a cliche. It is true. We understand this environment so poorly that it 
is frequently difficult to assess the impact of pollution on marine com- 
munities. 
Mr. Divxcetu. Doctor, are you able to tell us where there are other 
areas that it would be better for the dumping to take place, or is there 
any information you can give us? 
Dr. Pearce. I have already mentioned that there is one area. 
Mr. Dincetu. You are talking about this cold water lens? 
Dr. Pearce. No, it might be a mistake to deposit sludge in the cold 
water lens. Because it is very cold throughout much of the year this 
might reduce the biological activity which would be necessary to 
break down organic sludges into their simpler components. What I 
have said is that to the east about 25 or 30 miles off the Jersey shore 
and about 25 miles off the shore of Long Island there is an area which 
consists of rather flat, monotonous sands. I am not saying that it is 
ecologically unimportant. We haven't studied it to that extent. But 
when you compare the life, that lives there with that which occurs in 
unpolluted portions of the New York Bight area, what must have oc- 
curred there prior to dumping, it is a relatively sterile area. I would 
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