"We are beset in these days of impact 

 assessments, environmental 

 monitoring and all, with the problem 

 of studying a complex system in some 

 way that will convince us we know 

 what is going on and that we can 

 predict the effect of our actions on 

 this system. Meetings on this subject 

 tend to fragment into lobbyists for the 

 various approaches. The Baconian 

 ideal of compiling all knowledge and 

 consigning it to the computer to tell 

 us what to think about it all is the 

 ultimate extreme on one side, and the 

 notion that one (or perhaps two) 

 numbers from a dying mussel may be 

 all we need is the other extreme of the 

 ancient problem of deducing the state 

 of off airs from diverse concepts based 

 on limited vision or perhaps no vision 

 at all, but a disconnected set of tactile 

 impressions of the elephant. Or, to 

 put it another way, how can we be 

 certain we are not still prisoners in 

 Plato's cave?" 



J. W. Hedgpeth (1978) 



1.0 INTRODUCTION 



The ports and harbors of colonial 

 New England historically were the 

 front doors of coastal settlements. 

 Since the industrial revolution, ports 

 and harbors have become the back 

 doors receiving wastes and effluents 

 from growing metropolitan areas. 

 This legacy has placed a high level of 

 management responsibility on the U.S. 

 Army Corps of Engineers New England 

 Division (NED) in terms of 

 maintaining active harbor channels 

 and berthing sites in areas that in 

 many cases have received a wide range 

 of contaminated sediments over a long 



period of time. The highly populated 

 coastal region in New England also 

 presents many potential conflicts with 

 the dredging and disposal process. All 

 of these factors require an effective 

 means of managing dredging to avoid 

 conflicts and, at the same time, 

 maintain or improve the quality of 

 New England coastal waterways. In 

 1977, NED initiated the DAMOS 

 (Disposal Area Monitoring System) 

 program to address the environmental 

 concerns associated with open-water 

 dredged material disposal. Over the 

 past 15 years, the DAMOS program has 

 evolved both in the types of sampling 

 gear used as well as the overall 

 approach or philosophy to disposal site 

 monitoring and management. 



During the past three years, 

 scientists from NED, Science 

 Applications International Corporation 

 (SAIC), and from the DAMOS 

 Technical Advisory Committee 1 (TAC) 

 have met periodically to correct some 

 of the shortcomings in the DAMOS 

 program that typically are associated 

 with most monitoring programs (e.g., 

 Boesch, 1984; Green, 1984; Segar and 

 Stamman, 1986; Bernstein and 

 Zalinski, 1986). This group's goal has 

 been to develop an integrated, tiered 

 approach to the DAMOS monitoring 

 program that is focussed on addressing 

 specific program objectives and will 

 provide useful information on which 

 management decisions can be based. 

 The ideal end-product would be (1) an 

 evolving monitoring program with an 



1 Members of the DAMOS TAC are Drs. B. 

 Bernstein, H. Bokuniewicz, I. Duedall, R. 

 Engler, and W. Pequegnat 



An Integrated, Tiered Approach to Monitoring and Management of Dredged Material Disposal Sites 



