iterative feedback linked to both (2) 

 disposal site management decisions 

 and (3) the initial dredged material 

 permit screening guidelines; each of 

 these three items would change over 

 time in reaction to results, actions or 

 standards from the other two items. 



Ever since the National 

 Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) was 

 passed in 1970 which required that an 

 Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) 

 be prepared for all proposed 

 legislation and all major Federal 

 actions that could affect the quality of 

 the human environment, the past two 

 decades have witnessed the rapid 

 proliferation and quiet death of 

 countless consulting companies, 

 monitoring programs, and voluminous 

 reports produced in response to 

 perceived or actual short-term 

 environmental "crises". Unfortunately, 

 there has been a pattern established of 

 poor program design (often the fault of 

 poor legislation; see below) which 

 history has proved is very hard to 

 break. Most monitoring programs 

 (with very few exceptions) have 

 suffered from a lack of focus on clear 

 questions and testable hypotheses, 

 degenerating into a descriptive data 

 collection exercise where exhaustive 

 inventories are produced rather than 

 issue-oriented results (Dayton, 1982; 

 Bernstein and Zalinski, 1986); another 

 specific criticism often cited is a lack 

 of statistical rigor, including poor 

 sampling design and an inability to 

 detect changes (Hurlbert, 1984; 

 Bernstein and Zalinski, 1986; Fredette 

 et al., 1986). 



The DAMOS program, being one of 

 the few long-term monitoring 



programs initiated during the heyday 

 of environmental legislation and 

 persisting to the present, has been no 

 exception to the above oft-cited 

 criticisms. With the advantage of 20-20 

 hindsight, it is easy to explain why 

 these shortcomings have existed in this 

 monitoring program's structure. The 

 vague guidance for environmental 

 quality or monitoring criteria provided 

 in existing legislation can be cited for 

 contributing to a large degree to the 

 "lack of focus" in this and many other 

 monitoring programs. For example, 

 the references to environmental 

 quality found in the 1977 EPA Ocean 

 Dumping Act regulations are typical of 

 the general language found in most 

 legislation; disposal "will not 

 unreasonably degrade or endanger 

 human health, welfare, or amenities, 

 or the marine environment, ecological 

 systems, or economic potentialities", or 

 present "no unacceptable adverse 

 effect on the marine ecosystem". As 

 Fredette et al. (1986) have pointed out, 

 these are noble concepts, but they are 

 not quantifiable in any precise 

 manner. Also, the purpose, 

 monitoring tasks, and objectives of the 

 DAMOS program have evolved and 

 changed quite a bit since 1977, when 

 the program was first initiated. While 

 one can argue justifiably that this 

 constantly changing nature of the 

 program was responsible to a great 

 extent for the present appearance of 

 what appears to be largely a massive 

 inventory of data, one cannot ignore 

 earlier recommendations made by 

 both the 1979 Scientific Advisory 

 Board formed for the monitoring 

 program design of the original 

 Stamford-New Haven capping project 

 (SAIC, unpub.) and the general public 



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



