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ANNUAL REPORT TO CONGRESS ON OCEAN DUMPING
Citation:
ANNUAL REPORT TO CONGRESS ON OCEAN DUMPING. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, D.C.
Description:
This Report to Congress covers calendar years 1987 through Fiscal Year 1990 Activities covered include EPA’s implementation of the Marine Protection, Research, and Sanctuaries Act (MPRSA) and the 1988 amendment, the Ocean Dumping Ban Act (ODBA). ODBA makes the dumping of municipal sewage sludge and industrial waste unlawful after December 31, 1991. During this period, EPA made significant progress in administrating ODBA. By September 1988, all industrial waste dumping had ceased. EPA worked with the Sattes of New York and New Jersey to negotiate enforcement agreements to end sewage sludge dumping by August 1989. The last 9 sewerage authorities that were still ocean dumping entered into enforcement agreements for implementing land-based alternatives, reporting and monitoring requirements, and provision for payment of ocean dumping fees and penalties. In support of these activities, EPA also entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with the U.S. Coast Guard and the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration and developed a joint strategy for research, monitoring, and surveillance of the dumping activities under ODBA. A Workshop on ODBA implementation was held in Ocean City, New Jersey, that included parties to the MOU and the State and local officials, sewerage authorities, fishermen, policy experts, and representatives of environmental interest groups. For ocean dumping of dredged material, EPA compelted 34 dredged material site designations, and 10 were dedesignated. A revised draft of the Testing Manual for dredged material was completed and released for public comment in April 1990. EPA suspended the incineration-at-sea program in February 1988. The last designated site for incineration-at-sea was dedesignated Feb. 19, 1991. Enforcement activitites included administrative complaints relating to ODBA, and one in 1988 against a port authority and dredging contractor for improper disposal of dredged material. This report also contains tables of the major legislative provisions of MPRSA and ODBA. Maps of dredged material sites, a graph of the history of sewage sludge dumping between 1973 and 1989, and the tracks of satellite-tracking buoys released at the 106-Mile Site during the sewage sludge dumping events are also included in this report. One hundred and twenty monitoring surveys were completed by the OSV Anderson in the time period covered by this report. The Anderson monitoring data contributed to management decisions concerning several sites off the Eastern Seaboard and the Gulf of Mexico. Follow-up monitoring concluded at the Tampa, FL, site,. Monitoring activities also included collection of information on a proposed new site off Norfolk, VA, sewage sludge effluents in Massachusetts Bay, the extent, types, and impacts of marine debris collected in harbor areas, and participated in monitoring surveys in support of the MOU on ODBA. In addition, she also provided support for an emergency response to an oil spill in Delaware Bay. This issue was dedicated to the memory of Thaddeus Allen Wastler, who was the manager of EPA’s ocean dumping program, and served as EPA’s technical representative to the London Dumping Convention, and Chairman of its Scientific Group for many years.