Volume 148, No. 93 covering the 2nd Session of the 107th Congress (2001 - 2002) was published by the Congressional Record.
The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“RESTRICTION ON OCEAN DUMPING OFF NEW JERSEY COAST” mentioning the Environmental Protection Agency was published in the House of Representatives section on pages H4523-H4524 on July 11, 2002.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
RESTRICTION ON OCEAN DUMPING OFF NEW JERSEY COAST
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) is recognized for 5 minutes.
Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, I just wanted to mention that I just introduced H.R. 5092 along with my cosponsors, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Andrews) and the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Holt), and the purpose of this legislation is to put in place as a matter of law a restriction on ocean dumping off the coast of New Jersey, actually at a site about 6 miles off the coast of my hometown in the 6th Congressional District, where several years ago myself and the two senators from New Jersey, Mr. Torricelli played a major role in this as well, worked out an agreement with the Federal Environmental Protection Agency that ocean dumping of toxic dredge materials would cease being dumped at this site called the mud dump site off the Jersey shore and that henceforth the site would be closed and the only thing that could be placed there would be clean fill material in order to remediate the site and serve as a cap for the toxic dredge materials that had been dumped there for so many years.
I was very disappointed last week when the EPA announced they were going to allow dredging once again of toxic materials from the Earl Naval Weapons Depot in my district in Leonardo, New Jersey, to be dumped at this site, contrary to this agreement that had been worked out. The agreement specifically said that nothing could be used as remediation material and dumped at the mud dump site that exceeded what was called a standard or guideline of 113 parts per billion in terms of PCBs.
We know that PCBs are very damaging to human health, particularly when they get into the marine life, and they ultimately pass up through the food chain, and we had all agreed pursuant to this understanding several years ago that this standard or guideline of 113 would be the standard for any kind of materials that would have to be placed at the mud dump site.
Unfortunately, last week the EPA decided to give a waiver so that the Navy at Earl could dump materials that exceeded the 113 at the site, and yesterday, pursuant to a court action that was taken by U.S. Gypsum Company, the Federal court in New York ruled that because the EPA had not properly promulgated the 113 standard, that it could not be applied any more for ocean dumping, and now there is some concern about whether U.S. Gypsum and other companies would be able to dump again off the coast of New Jersey.
So this legislation is necessary in order to guarantee that ocean dumping does not continue. Myself, the two Senators from New Jersey and other Members of Congress have called upon the administrator of the EPA, Mrs. Whitman, our former governor, to put the 113 standard into regulation as a matter of law, and hopefully she will do that, but at the same time, in order to back that up, I think it is necessary for us to introduce legislation in the House that would accomplish the same goal, and that is what this legislation would attempt to do.
Mr. Speaker, I do not have to tell my colleagues how important it is that we not continue to dump any kind of toxic material off the coast of New Jersey or anywhere else in the country. New Jersey's number one industry is tourism, and particularly now in July, after the July 4 holiday, there are so many people using the beaches, coming down to the Jersey Shore, both from New Jersey as well as New York and the State of Pennsylvania and even other States. If people do not feel or do not have the guarantee that the ocean water will be clean, obviously they are not going to swim and they should not swim.
The issue of ocean dumping does not just affect bathers. It affects marine life. It affects people who eat fish. It affects so many things along the coast of New Jersey and around the country, and I think it really is imperative that we stick to this standard of 113 parts per billion to make sure that human health is safeguarded and that we do not go back into the trend that we had so many years ago of continuing to dump everything in the ocean with the theory that somehow nobody would know about it and it would not make a difference.
It does make a difference. We have to have clean water, and this legislation hopefully will move quickly.
It is being sponsored and introduced in the Senate today by Senators Torricelli and Corzine from New Jersey, and hopefully we will get a lot more support for it and we can move it quickly so that it becomes law.
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