[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 93 (Thursday, July 11, 2002)]
[House]
[Pages H4523-H4524]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           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.

[[Page H4524]]

  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.

                          ____________________