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our oceans, but the waters of the New York Bight are dead and the waters off 
the Boston Light Ship are dying. In a message to the Congress on waste dis- 
posal on April 15, 1970, President Nixon stated, “About 48 million tons of dredg- 
ing, sludge, and other materials are annually dumped off the coastlands of 
the United States.” This reckless dumping must be halted now. 
We are hearing more and more about the incredible value of our oceans. We 
hear that our food supply may eventually come in greater proportion from the 
ocean than from the land. Untapped mineral resources are within these waters. 
As a source of oxygen and through its interaction with the terrestrial ecosys- 
tems, a healthy ocean may well have critical importance for the survival of the 
human species. 
The coastline of the United States is 88,683 miles long—99,613 if you include 
the Great Lakes. Seventy-five percent of our population lives in the 30 states 
that comprise the Coastal Zone. Forty-five percent of our urban population 
lives in coastal counties. Twenty-five percent of our entire population lives 
within 50 miles of the coast. As you can see, the pollution of our oceans directly 
affects more than 150,000,000 people in this country. 
, It has been estimated that ninety percent of the ocean produces a negligible 
fraction of the present fish catch and has little potential for yielding more in 
the future. The coastal waters produce almost the entire shellfish crop and 
nearly half of the total fish crop. Recreational values, oil and mineral resources 
and mineral waste disposal areas are concentrated almost entirely in the coastal 
regions of the ocean. The Marine Science Council estimates that 8% of the 
nation’s shellfish, representing 1.2 million acres of shellfish grounds, have been 
declared unsafe for human consumption. Dumping of wastes accounts in large 
measure for this destruction. 
The National Commission on Marine Science, Engineering and Resources has 
reported that “In the past 20 years, dredging and filling have destroyed 7% 
(more than a half million acres) of the Nation’s important fish and wildlife 
estuarine habitats.” 
We obviously need legislation to stop this devastation. Our new technology 
has created new kinds and larger amounts of material which must be disposed 
of. The disposal of domestic wastes into our coastal waters has introduced 
toxic, heavy metals and organics into these waters. The result has been to 
lower the available oxygen content of the bottom water. We have a clear ex- 
ample of this in the New York Bight, which Mr. Ottinger’s bill deals with. 
It has been found that in the Bight area all of the typical forms of bottom life 
which normally inhabit similar areas have been eliminated from the damaged 
areas. The pollutants may be transported by water, or by moving sediments 
and may affect the life in a far greater area. 
During the past 30 years, we have disposed of many synthetic. chemicals 
heretofore unknown. These chemicals are foreign to organisms and natural 
pathways of biodegradation are lacking or inefficient. Thus many chemicals 
now dumped into our coastal waters enter the marine food chain and increase 
in density as they move through the chain until they become harmful to both 
marine and human life. Dr. Max Blumer, Senior Scientist at the Woods Hole 
Oceanographic Institute in Massachusetts has stated, “The marine food web 
is so involved and the biochemical processes necessary for the survival of every 
species are so complex that it is virtually impossible to foresee which species 
might be damaged by a certain persistent chemical. The award of the Nobel 
Prize to the discover of the insecticide DDT illustrates our ignorance in this 
area. Lacking sufficient foresight we need to be much more cautious in the use 
of persistent chemicals lest we disrupt inadvertently processes 1n the sea on 
which our survival may depend.” " 
Our oceans will take far longer to recover from pollution than a river or lake. 
A small lake may be restored in a few years. Lake Erie may possibly be re- 
stored within fifty years—but an ocean will remain irreversibly damaged for 
many generations. 
Dr. B. H. Ketchum of Woods Hole has pointed out “that nature has a tre- 
mendous capacity to recover from abuses of pollution, so long as the rate of 
addition does not exceed the rate of recovery of the environment. When this 
limit is exceeded, however, the deterioration of the environment is rapid and 
irreversible.” I am afraid that our present rate and manner of dumping may 
exceed that limit now. If it is allowed to continue, irreversible damage 1S 1n- 
evitable. 
