Re: [PSUBS-MAILIST] The Ocean Environment

["Dan J. Rice" <dan.j.rice@sherwin.com>]

Here's one more to the point, from earlier in the month...doesn't ask for a sub,
but anything a surface vessel could do, a sub could do better.

Dan


Date: 28 Dec 1999
From: jcharlton@juno.com

 Monmouth County Friends of Clearwater is urgently seeking someone
with a boat who would be willing to take a couple of people to the
Port Authority Marine Terminal in Brooklyn in order to get photographs
and samples.

 As you may be aware, the Corps of Engineers is again issuing permits
to dump contaminated dredge muck from New York Harbor at the "Mud
Dump" site a few miles off the beaches of Sandy Hook. This in spite of
an agreement to permanently close the Mud Dump to any further dumping
and to cap it with clean material to seal off the toxic chemicals
accumulated there. They are making a mockery of the agreement by
calling the current contaminated dredgings "clean cap material" even
though it is as bad or worse than the material it is supposed to be
covering and it is made up of a very fine silt which will drift far
and wide, smothering marine life and fouling our beaches.

 We believe that if Monmouth Co. citizens could see samples of this
muck and photos of the site it would be a help toward raising public
concern and outrage. A public outcry is going to be necessary in order
to win this fight. Monmouth County friends of Clearwater is working
jointly with Clean Ocean Action and many others in opposition to this
resumption of ocean disposal of contaminated muck.

 The current permit is for only 0.5% of the total of 54 million tons
scheduled to be dumped at the site as "cover". If we fail to stop
this, and if the muck from Brooklyn is typical of the materials to be
dumped there, then we can kiss goodbye our beaches and our fishing.

 We could be available to make the trip to Brooklyn at any time, but
would prefer in favorable weather and within a week or so. The sooner
we get the results the more helpful it will be in generating
opposition to the permits. This trip would be to observe, take photos
of the piers, and collect bottom samples only. Dredging is currently
on hold until April; we do not expect the dredges to be there, and we
certainly do not expect any confrontation.

 If anyone has a boat in the water and would be willing to help us
please email to jcharlton@juno.com or call (732) 870-2232

Jack Charlton
Monmouth County Friends of Clearwater