power utility to use solid waste for generating steam. We are not oblivious to the other experimental projects, particularly the one in north Boston. We have a good program under way, but I have pointed out our lack of space which is dramatized by the fact that when it comes to solid waste, where we are behind the eight ball, too, we are building mountains. We do not have a lot of space upon which we could simply distribute the sludge that is now being disposed of at sea.

Mr. HUGHES. Philadelphia does not have a lot of space. They have some of the same political problems that you describe. The city of Boston does not have a lot of space. Los Angeles and San Francisco do not have a lot of space; but these communities have managed within the constraints that you have described, to better address their sludge and solid waste problems. I do not want to get into any particular project or particular technology dealing with the water content at any great length. I know it is one of the big problems. Resources Conservaton Co. has a program where they go into communities, apparently for a charge of something like $25,000 to bring their facility in and actually prove to the community that they can not only do water, the sludge, but make it a useful product. They can tell you what your kind of sludge is best for. Whether it is usable as a fertilizer or best for composting. Are you familiar with their particular program?

Mr. Low. I am not.

Mr. Rivlin tells me he is not.

However, I would say to you that our sludge after secondary treatment is about 3 percent solids, and dewatering would be a giant problem.

Mr. HUGHES. I am not saying that the Resources Conservation Co. technique is the answer. There are many other approaches. Mr. Low. We would be happy to look at it, Mr. Congressman. Mr. HUGHES. R.C.C. is not the only one, but it is one of the ones that I am familiar with, and they are actually promoting it to the point where they will go into a community for a certain amount and prove to the community that they can come out with an end product that is marketable in some fashion. In fact, some of the areas in the Far West, apparently, that have a lot of pulp manufacturing have now found that some technologies will not only dispose of their waste material but in fact create another profitable end product.

I know that there are a lot of other technologies around and I just get the impression in listening to you describe what New York has done that you really have not done very much of anything. Mr. Low. Well, we have made the attempt; and I think the only response I could make to you is twofold:

No. 1: New York, too, is a coastal State. I do not know whether our coast line is as long or longer than that of New Jersey, but the counties of Nassau and Suffolk, with their recreational facilities and beaches are concerned, as you are in your area. We are equally desirous about ending ocean dumping.

The study that was made with Federal funds is so replete with conditions, questions, and equivocations that the city simply could not go forward with anything based on this study. Therefore, we had to undertake a new study, and that is the problem.

I think that Resources Conservation Co. has something; we certainly want to look at it, and maybe some of the people in our R. & D. unit are familiar with it. Mr. Rivlin and I may not be the last word on the city's knowledge of the subject.

Mr. HUGHES. I want you to look at all of the technologies and see which is best for New York City. I have no connection with them; I asked Resources Conservation Co. to come in to tell me a little bit more about their program because I am very interested in learning more about land-based alternatives to sludge dumping.

You cannot talk about ending ocean dumping unless you have some practical alternative. I do not agree with your assessment when you say at present there are no proven practical means of disposing of the city's huge quantities-105,000 tons of dry sewage on land.

I do not believe that there are not practical alternatives when we have metropolitan areas around this country that have the very same problem New York has, maybe not on the same scale; but they manage to address those problems. I just have a feeling that New York City has not yet decided that EPA really means 1981. Mr. Low. Let me say this, sir.

We are now in a consent decree with the Federal EPA under which we have agreed to end ocean disposal by 1981. If I may take exception, the professional people in our organization are really determined to meet the deadline. Public officials do not relish being sued and held in contempt, fined, and so on, and they, too, are eager to obey.

We do not need a penalty on top of it, which will be counterproductive to the interests of the city right now. I can point out to you, sir, that the department which I head has lost 20 percent of its personnel in 32 years, yet we are obligated not only to run the treatment plants and to dispose of the sludge, but to maintain the water supply system and the hydrants out in the streets. We are down there on the firing line with life-support services and, despite that, we are giving this matter very high priority.

Mr. HUGHES. Well, first, let me say to you-and my time is up, I know-but I know that New York has a myriad of problems aside from the sludge problem. That has been rather obvious, particularly in the last several years; and I know that sometimes the problems seem to be beyond solution; but I do not see in the expenditures of only $280,000 the kind of commitment that assures me that New York really is doing all it can to get out of the ocean. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. BREAUX. Thank you, Mr. Hughes.

Mr. Forsythe?

Mr. FORSYTHE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

First, thank you for being here. Let me go to one of your points that you have made in your testimony about the "practical and environmentally less harmful" criteria that is in the bill on page 3 of the committee print. A permit may only be issued if the administrator finds that such a person has no alternative to dispose of such material which can be immediately implemented and which is environmentally less harmful by dumping it in the ocean.

So that is there and it was your recommendation that put it there. So we do try to react responsibly to our witnesses. I would

like to definitely clear up the record on this $3.6 million which, again, appears on page 3 of your statement. You say the minimum penalty would be involved, would you not receive 872 percent Federal funds against that, so that we are talking about $450,000 of city funds in that kind of a situation?

Mr. Low. The question of which are operating funds and which are capital funds was really not dealt with in my brief statement, but the meaning of the language of the amendment would seem to include funds from whatever source; that is, that they would have to be spent by the city, whether it is for construction or operation. I did not really address myself to that.

During the first year, we would have to be building the facility and, as I indicated, even as a short-term alternative, if we wanted to dispose of the sludge on a landfill, we would have to construct several facilities. We would have to build a dewatering plant and also docking and pumping facilities, to get the sludge from our vessel to the landfill. So we would need capital funds.

Mr. FORSYTHE. Those are the very funds that you would be most able to get from reimbursement from capital funds in this area. Mr. Low. The question I raise, Mr. Congressman, is whether under Public Law 92-500 funds would be available for this method of disposal. It is something that we certainly ought to be sure about, because it may be that this alternative would be preferable to, let us say, pyrolysis.

Mr. FORSYTHE. I really want to avoid getting into that discussion, as to preferable, but I am sure that they are available. As a matter of fact, in composting, for instance, I know the city of Camden received Federal funds to construct their composting operation and the one that is going to be in operation before the end of 1977; granted, to compare the problems of Camden with New York is a very ridiculous comparison, but it is not in the mechanics that are involved or in the types of funding that are involved, and really I hope none of us are talking about pumping sludge on the landfills because that I think is not an environmentally better solution than composting, or pyrolysis; and I share your concerns because I looked into this and I am equally as concerned as the rest of the members on this committee to be talking about viable alternatives, not wild goose chases or crash programs that are going to embar

rass us.

So we are looking at those areas.

Mr. Low. On that point, Mr. Rivlin reminds me, of course, that in that first year we would be spending primarily on design, but there is no way that such huge sums could be spent entirely on design contracts.

Mr. FORSYTHE. I would concede that this is an area we ought to be looking at, because I agree with the chairman that we should not be making a penalty that actually is not spendable funds in the area; but I think the intent does tie those two together.

Now, whether the legislation is clear on that or not is something that we are anxious to look at; because we are not just trying toagain, to fund it. We are trying to give you better reasons to go to your taxpayers to fund what you say you want to do and what you know we must do. I think that is where we come down on this thing; and I know that the discussion as to whether this is viable,

that is, using this process between levels of government has been brought out; but here we are 5 years down the road in this legislation and these numbers are confusing, but I understand actually city expenditures in the 5 years prior to this study that you are now just getting underway were $210,000 over 5 years on studies dealing with alternatives.

Your answer was, I think, there were none until you started to contribute to this new study.

I do not think New York has been active-when I say New York, I include the New Jersey operations.

I think Philadelphia has.

They point out that their current operation would not be affected by this legislation because they are already spending adequate funds.

So in a sense, I think we are really talking about New York's metropolitan area.

Mr. Low. On the question of cost, Mr. Forsythe, of land-based alternatives, there was a question whether funds would be available for the acquisition of the land. Composting, for example, is land intensive, at least in the experiments that I saw at Beltsville.

We would be hard-pressed to purchase the sites for composting. We would like to think that Federal moneys would be available for composting in the same way that they would be available, let us say, for pyrolysis plants.

Mr. FORSYTHE. I think there could be debate as to the question of how land intensive, or how much land it takes for the composting operation per se. The disposal of the compost is another matter; the concept, of course, is that it goes into the parklands and other places where it is not a problem.

Dr. Epstein of the Department of Agriculture points out, his understanding is the New York metropolitan area could use all of its composted sludge on parks, highways, and landfill areas, for several years. It takes two acres to compost all of Camden's sewage. You are not talking about big areas. But it disturbs me that you come here today and do not have more familiarity with some of these things that we have found are already being done; what Philadelphia is doing; what other cities are doing and, granted, the scale of New York is massive as compared to many of the others; but I do not think that the city of New York has looked outside maybe as much as it should.

Mr. Low. I think, Mr. Congressman, you will find that these other cities did have access to or had available substantial tracts of land where sludge could be disposed of in one way or another.

The Beltsville project, as I understand it, required 5 acres of vacant land to develop 11 tons of compost. That is what I meant by a land-intensive process.

That is why I suggested that this funding would be important for congested areas like New York City.

Mr. FORSYTHE. Thank you.

Mr. BREAUX. Mr. Evans?

Mr. EVANS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Commissioner Low, I thank you for the concern that you have shown this committee and the express concern to some of us who live in coastal States such as Delaware. I realize full well that the

taxpayers in New York and Philadephia and throughout the country are overburdened, and I realize it is a difficult problem. I have great empathy for them.

But we are also suffering a penalty and suffering a burden as a result of what someone is doing upstream from us, so to speak. You are killing an ocean that puts people out of work in Delaware. We have a tourist-related industry in the southern part of the country that is dependent upon a clean ocean. We have a beach that a number of people, even from Washington, enjoy, and we would like to see them continue enjoying it.

The problem I have is that based on the fact that you have a financial problem in New York City, you say you want to do everything possible to develop on-land disposal sites and yet those are good intentions; but how can we rely on the fact that because you have a financial problem that you will place that as your top priority?

I recognize that the cities have problems in education, and crime, and housing, and police protection. But when you are doing something to someone else, I think it is incumbent upon the Congress to say to you, you must place that as your top priority.

Mr. Low. Mr. Evans, Mr. Forsythe, I believe, earlier today discussed the impact of our dumpsite on the New York Bight, and he indicated that it was not related to some of the problems that have existed, either on the beaches or in connection with the lack of oxygen or the red tide problem. I think we should put this New York dumpsite into perspective. It has been used since the midtwenties; there is no question that that part of the ocean floor does not sustain marine life.

On the other hand, I have been out there on the sludge vessels, and it is amazing, but lobster pots are all around that dumpsite, and those lobsters are eaten and sold in the New York metropolitan area.

I am not saying that I condone the use of the site indefinitely. I think we ought to get out there, but I really think we have to look at it in perspective. Sludge is an inert substance. When it is dumped from our vessels, the sea gulls, which are, I think, described as scavengers, pay no attention to that sludge. It gets to the bottom; it does not drift to our beaches.

You know, New York City has beaches that are used by 1 million people on Sunday, in the Rockaways and then down Long Beach, Fire Island, and so forth. We have no evidence that sludge is the culprit. We have to take some responsibility because there is still raw sewage coming out of the New York Bight, both from New Jersey and from New York City, and some of that unquestionably got up onto beaches.

But we have not had any good scientific evidence that it is the sludge at the dumpsite that has been the culprit for either the red tide or the problems on our beaches.

I reiterate, I am not saying that we should stay there, but I think we have to keep that in perspective. We would like to get this to a high priority in the city.

Our city budgets now are subjected to a State body called the emergency finance and control board. If we were assessed with a penalty, they would have to come up with the money, but those