As an example of the political, economic, and management difficulties of this issue, the 
MWRA recently discussed increasing its enforcement and monitoring efforts in the 
pretreatment program. In reaction this week, the Associated Industries of Massachusetts, 
a group of the major industries in the state, held a meeting where they cried that pre¬ 
treatment is too costly, is unnecesary, is not scientifically justified, is not technically 
justified, and is going to hurt business in Massachusetts. We are again caught in that 
conflict between the quality of the environment and the health of the economy. None of 
these decisions are easy. 
The sludge decision, which will be a fourth component of our strategy and on 
which we have been working diligently in recent years, will involve major policy decisions, 
all of which will require sound technical advice. We are hoping to be able to create a 
composting operation with the sludge; yet that has some technical difficulties. Another 
option is to incinerate the sludge, which is one of the standard procedures, but one that 
creates air pollution and may threaten our health and the citizens of Massachusetts. A 
third option would be to dispose of the sludge in the ocean, which has a possible negative 
ramification in terms of the food chain and the quality of our waters. What we have been 
talking about and hoping to pursue with some of our scientific expertise in the state is a 
true multi-media assessment of the impacts of these options so we can use a good data 
base to make public policy decisions. 
Another use of Boston Harbor is the fisheries: shellfishing, finfishing, and 
lobstering. It has been part of our history and part of our heritage to look to the Harbor 
for that kind of a use over the years. Unfortunately, at this point we literally have 
millions of dollars of unharvested shellfish in Boston Harbor and elsewhere in the adjacent 
waters; but, because of the contamination, an economic resource that is going untapped. 
Fishing is a great economic and natural resource that needs support and is 
under tremendous pressure from pollution. Another kind of pressure, an economic and 
management pressure on the industry, is that the piers and docks vital to sustaining this 
industry are in a state of disrepair in Boston Harbor. The uses of that shorefront and 
those docks as lobster or fisheries landing facilities are being changed to non-water 
related uses, such as office buildings on the waterfront. 
As you can see, a tremendous user conflict has to be resolved. Our preference 
is to maintain the water-dependent, water-related use for the fishermen. The state is 
working to find ways to support the industry through grants to local towns to rebuild those 
piers and set aside property for the fishing industry. We have a situation right now where 
the Governor, the Cardinal, the Mayor, and everybody else is involved in trying to find a 
place for the lobstermen to land their lobsters because they have been recently evicted 
from their current pier. It is a major concern and another major use that needs some very 
careful management. 
A third and related use of the Harbor relates more to the shoreline uses. As I 
mentioned just a minute ago, the concern is to use this very unique piece of property for 
activities related to the waterfront. We made our first attempt at managing this when we 
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