Rising Mud by Dick Munson
The National Park Service soon may close the Statue of Liberty to avoid tour boats running aground. Big oil tankers already anchor near the Veranzanno-Narrows Bridge in order to lighten their loads onto barges and to rise enough in the water to proceed safely to the docks. Some container ship pilots wait for high tide before proceeding into the silted channels of the busiest port on the East Coast.
Runoff from rainfall, of course, has pulled silt into New York Harbor for centuries. But since today's sediment is contaminated with dioxin, PCBs, DDT, PAHs, and an array of other toxic acronyms, dredging and disposing safely of this contaminated muck have provoked a political stalemate.
While shippers, longshoremen, traders, environmentalists, fishermen, and beach-front owners bicker among themselves, the mud is rising, ships are scraping their hulls, and vessel owners are moving their business to deeper ports. Unless the crisis is resolved soon, fragile ecosystems will be destroyed and New York and New Jersey will lose their economic links to international markets.
If left to its natural ebb and flow, New York Harbor would be approximately 18 feet deep. Today's tankers, however, need channel depths of 40 feet, and the next generation of cargo ships will demand 45 feet. Politicians, declaring the benefits of foreign trade, long have provided taxpayer money for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to dredge the difference, allowing ships to bring Japanese cars and Saudi Arabian oil into New York/New Jersey and to take waste paper, cement, and steel plates to ports around the world.
New York Harbor may be facing the most immediate crisis, but rising sediments trouble most of this nation's 185 commercial seaports. Each year these ports are dredged of some 400 million cubic yards of mud, the equivalent of a four-lane highway, covered 20-feet deep and stretching from New York City to Los Angeles.
The Army Corps for almost 80 years dumped virtually all of the New York/New Jersey's dredged material into the open ocean. After Congress passed the Ocean Dumping Act in 1977, the Corps placed mud that passed certain tests for toxicity just six miles east of the Jersey Shore at a site known simply as the "Mud Dump." To get placed into this 2.2-square mile rectangle, samples of the dredged material first had to survive the hard-shell clam test. More accurately, hard-shell clams placed in the mud had to survive. Most of them did, and many scientists later admitted that the test was too lenient. As one environmental researcher declared, "We learned that few things kill hard-shell crabs, except perhaps a hammer blow."
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) revised the tests in December 1992, replacing the clam with more sensitive bottom-dwelling organisms. The agency forced these benthic creatures to endure stagnant as well as stirred-up mud, and it began searching for traces of additional toxic compounds, including dioxins. The results changed dramatically. Whereas less than 5 percent of the mud failed the hard-shell clam test, more than two thirds of the samples did not pass the new regimen.
More specifically, the new testing protocol classified 14 percent of the dredged mud in New York Harbor as Category I, defined as being clean enough to be dumped in the open ocean or placed on sandy beaches. Another 20 percent tested as Category II, having some contamination but which federal guidelines would allow to be placed in the ocean if covered with cleaner material. Some environmentalists - and New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman - want absolutely no ocean disposal. Category III mud, accounting for 66 percent of the harbor's sediments, must be treated or placed in confined disposal areas where it won't leach into surrounding waters or land.
The new tests, of course, result in new costs. To clear the docks around the Statue of Liberty, the National Park Service had expected to pay about $5 per cubic yard to suck up some 128,000 cubic yards of muck and drop it into the Mud Dump. (A cubic yard would hold some 200 gallons and is about the size of the box for a large television set.) The stricter requirements, however, boosted dredging and disposal estimates to more than $100 per cubic yard, raising the Park Service's bill from $640,000 to $12.8 million, a 20-fold increase. The agency, like many in New York Harbor, postponed its dredging plans. In fact, only 1.3 million cubic yards will be sucked or scooped up this year, compared to some 4.3 million cubic yards, enough to fill two football stadiums, that were dredged before the test revisions.
Critics of the revised tests abound. EPA scientists, however, argue that rejected samples poison bottom-dwelling organisms, which are eaten by other fish and animals up the food chain.
The new tests, of course, cannot be blamed entirely for the current stalemate. For more than a decade, experts have warned New Jersey and New York officials of the need for deeper dredging and more disposal sites. They pointed to the early efforts by Los Angeles and a few other ports to develop long-term storage areas for dirty mud.
Both the bi-state port authority and environmentalists, of course, would benefit by a resolution since the safe disposal of contaminated sediments would protect the marine ecosystem as well as allow increased commerce. Yet the key parties have failed to reach any agreement, and no politician has been willing to select a disposal site and endure the cries of "not in my backyard."
The now frantic search for disposal sites recently moved the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey to transport 150,000 cubic yards of dredged muck from its Howland Hook Terminal some 1,900 miles via barge to New Orleans, where it was placed on rail cars for another 1,500-mile journey to a dump in Utah. The bizarre odyssey did not proceed smoothly. Before the 13-ship flotilla left New York Harbor, authorities tried to dilute the contaminants by adding lime, but the resulting noxious odors caused New Jersey officials to declare an environmental alert. Adding to this Rube Goldberg approach was the accidental capsizing of one of the barges off the South Carolina coast. The only positive outcome of this comic episode was that the staggering transportation cost of $117 per cubic yard spurred the search for alternatives.
Contaminated sediments are largely an unseen danger. You can't drive over the Bayonne Bridge and see toxic mud killing the fish. In fact, old-time ship pilots claim the water appears much cleaner today than it was 20 years ago, largely as a result of massive government investments in sewage treatment facilities. "The fish have returned," declared the crusty engineer on a Army Corps boat, "and the surface is no longer covered with oil or raw sewage." The engineer is no environmental pollyanna, noting that his vessel still picks up "all sorts of floating debris," including dead bodies that had been dumped in the waterways and become bloated and rise in the warm weather.
Scientists agree that the nation's waters are less obviously polluted with human waste and trash, yet they increasingly focus on polluted mud at the bottom of rivers and harbors as a major threat to all organisms. One study found that more than 90 percent of the ongoing PCB contamination of sport fish caught in waters near Green Bay, Wisconsin, resulted from contaminated sediments. Shell fish and other bottom-dwelling creatures wallow in the muck or swim through it when the water is stirred up by boat propellers or storms, and when these small creatures are eaten by larger ones the toxic substances move up the food chain. In fact, since larger fish, wildlife, and humans do not efficiently flush toxins out of their systems, the pollution often accumulates in them in higher concentrations.
Deformities likely attributable to contaminated muck are striking. The Sierra Club's Brett Hulsey, an advocate of controls and cleanups, often displays photographs of a young tern from Green Bay whose beak is crossed, of English Sole from the Duwamish Waterway near Seattle whose fins have eroded, and of a turtle from Hamilton Harbor, Ontario, who lacks a tail and has a deformed pelvis. Each of these creatures was born into waterways contaminated with toxic mud.
Contamination's effects are not limited to birds and fish. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), "Exposure can also impact wildlife and human health via the bioaccumulation of toxic substances through the food chain." States and communities across the country issue advisories regularly, warning fishermen and consumers to avoid certain fish. New Jersey authorities, for instance, caution against eating striped bass, American eels, and bluefish.
Dirty sediments are distinct in many ways from soils at hazardous waste dumps. Most obviously, the harbor-bottom muck is wet. While its volume is high, the concentration of contaminants within the mud also tends to be relatively low in comparison to Superfund soils. In fact, EPA would define most of the sediments as harmless - if they were placed on land, away from sensitive marine creatures. Yet the agency also admits, "The overall magnitude of the problem in terms of areal extent and severity has not been assessed. The potential, however, is staggering."
A port's ability to dredge safely will be the key factor to its future capability, but port authorities also must invest heavily in modern dock-side equipment if they are to maintain an efficient and attractive operation. More and larger cranes are needed to unload the next generation of container vessels. Computerized cargo identifications and improved communications systems must track truck drivers and their loads. On-dock rail terminals would speed the flow of goods between the port and land-locked cities and companies. More warehouses and distribution centers also will be needed to process the additional traffic.
It's ironic that contaminated sediments are their primary concern since port authorities are the unwitting recipient of pollution. No doubt dock-side spills and releases occur, but virtually all of New York Harbor's serious contamination arrives with the runoff from factories, farms, and urban streets along the Hudson, Hackensack, Passaic, and Raritan rivers. Since no factory manager, farmer, or mayor is volunteering to clean up the harbor, that task falls to Tom Wakeman, New York/New Jersey's dredging manager. A bright, low-key fellow, Wakeman is the man on the hot seat, the one tasked with trying to find disposal sites for the region's dirty mud.
Wakeman should be well suited to the task, having managed the dredging and revitalization of San Francisco Harbor. Yet the New York challenge seems greater, in part because the sediments are fouler. The harbor ranks among the nation's 20 most contaminated estuaries. Its levels of lead, mercury, and zinc are the highest in the country. While the top layer of contaminants is not unusual, those pollutants deposited before the federal Clean Water Act of 1972 are, in the words of Wakeman, "downright noxious." Included in the potpourri of chemicals and toxic metals are the runoffs from numerous petroleum refineries and the dumpings of a Diamond-Shamrock chemical factory just up New Jersey's Passaic River that produced Agent Orange, the dioxin-laden herbicide used during the Vietnam War.
The New York dredging stalemate, according to Wakeman, also has much to do with the region's "attitude." "When I first arrived from San Francisco," he says, "someone cut me off as I was about to board the subway. Cooperation is not a natural instinct of this area's residents."
Wakeman has been able to advance a few short-term solutions. He's contracted with dredging companies to smooth out the mud along some channels, eliminating peaks that ships were hitting. He convinced the Corps to shift some mud to unused berths. He even obtained permission to insert dirty muck into previously-mined burrow pits in Newark Bay, but that operation cost more than expected (some $22 per cubic yard) and will hold only six-months' dredging volume.
The region's environmentalists, particularly Cynthia Zipf, have been remarkably successful in blocking Wakeman's long-term proposals to deposit hazardous materials somewhere under the water. Zipf, executive director of the Sandy Hook-based group Clean Ocean Action, has rallied fishermen, ocean-front property owners, and others who recall with horror the washing ashore on New Jersey beaches of syringes and other medical trash. Zipf's group has filed lawsuits and orchestrated lobbying and media campaigns to block all ocean dumping. No doubt she's had a lot of headline-grabbing material to work with. In 1993, for instance, the Corps of Engineers' sloppy disposal of silt and rock at the Mud Dump created a pinnacle that came within four yards of the surface. When a barge unwittingly "discovered" and plowed into the obstacle, Zipf and her colleagues cleverly issued press releases about the perils of "Mount Spike." The political clout of Zipf's coalition has convinced New Jersey Governor Christine Todd Whitman to oppose any expansion of ocean dumping.
Wakeman complains that Clean Ocean Action and the region's other environmental groups are too specialized, that they focus on either water or air pollution but pay no attention to the cross-media implications of their demands. He argues that environmentalists' continued opposition to disposal sites will shut down port operations in New York and New Jersey, leading to huge increases in air pollution and congestion as trucks are called upon to transport materials between the region and distant harbors with deeper channels.
Jim Tripp is one environmentalist who tries to make the cross-media connections and has earned the wrath of some of his colleagues for supporting the creation of more offshore disposal pits. Tripp has been general counsel since 1983 to the Environmental Defense Fund, a national organization headquartered in New York City, and he's served as board chair since 1993 of the Tri-State Transportation Campaign, a broad-based coalition that seeks regional cooperation on dredging. The lawyer favors mining valuable sand near the Mud Dump, disposing hazardous dredged material into the resulting pits, and covering the tainted sediments with some of the mined sand.
Tripp's plan is only one of many, none of which has advanced politically. New Jersey Assemblyman Steve Corodemus led a New Jersey Materials Management Team that advocated building sealed underwater dumping grounds, but New Yorkers didn't feel involved. Senior representatives of New York Governor George Pataki and New Jersey Governor Whitman have proposed that $130 million be taken from the Port Authority's existing capital budget to pay for dredging, but they've been less than clear about where the filthy mud should be deposited. Wakeman wants to place dredged material in burrow pits three miles off Coney Island, but local officials fear having dioxin and other chemicals dumped so near to shore; the Port Authority also has considered dropping into the ocean 4,000-ton geo-textile bags filled with dirty mud, but the initial test bag burst.
Part of the challenge is satisfying an array of federal, state, and regional regulators. Those claiming some jurisdiction over dredging permits have proliferated in recent years and now include the Army Corps of Engineers, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Fish and Wildlife Service, National Marine Fisheries Service, state departments of fish and game and environmental protection, coastal zone management agencies, and state water resources control boards. While the federal government might provide a dredging permit, local land use and zoning authorities maintain control of "up land" disposal sites, and states ensure that any harbor cleanup meets local water quality standards. Even within the federal government, the Corps controls dredging permits, but EPA sets environmental criteria and provides oversight.
Allocating the costs for dredging and disposal has become a game of fiscal finger pointing. Before 1986, the federal government picked up virtually all expenses. As lawmakers tried to reduce Washington's deficit, however, they approved the Water Resources Development Act that increased the local share of navigation improvements. Environmentalists favored the move as a way of forcing local authorities to examine their plans more closely and to avoid unnecessary channel widening and deepening.
The allocation system, however, has been prejudiced toward ocean dumping, for which the feds picked up the entire tab. Disposal of contaminated sediments at land-based dumps or in confined disposal sites is largely a responsibility of the local port authority, state, or community. This arrangement has led non-federal sponsors to argue strenuously for open water disposal.
Also controversial is the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund, which reimburses the maintenance dredging of federal navigation channels by a tax on the value of goods passing through U.S. ports. Authorities at deeper ports without dredging concerns complain bitterly that they are forced to subsidize disposal efforts in New York and other shallow harbors. Those at shallow harbors complain that the $600 million in the Harbor Maintenance Trust Fund is not being spent quickly enough because Washington policymakers want to make the overall federal debt look less severe. Shippers, of course, would prefer to avoid the tax altogether, and they argue it retards U.S. trade and competitiveness.
The Trust Fund also was originally designed to pay for dredging but not disposal. The initial theory was that federal assistance was needed to pay for expensive dredging, but that disposal was a relatively easy and inexpensive step that local port authorities could manage on their own. Times have changed, and Representative Bob Franks (R-NJ), co-chair of the Northeast-Midwest Congressional Coalition, recently pushed through a measure within the Water Resources Development Act (WRDA) allowing the fund to be available for building secure containment sites, either on land or under water. In what Franks calls "a major step forward in ending the (New Jersey/New York) port's current dredging crisis," Congress's rewrite of WRDA also authorizes two dredging projects for New York Harbor; appropriations for those efforts will be debated in 1997.
Situations among U.S. ports vary significantly. In Boston, an odd coalition of the port authority, shippers, and the League of Women Voters pushed through a bond that will pay for the burying of contaminated sediments in new pits. In Oakland, California, in contrast, an agreement to deepen channels from 40 to 42 feet took 20 years to be approved, and many ship owners sent their vessels elsewhere, leaving that port to founder.
A few ports are blessed by nature. Harbors in Norfolk, Virginia, and Halifax, Nova Scotia, for instance, average more than 50 feet in depth, and their officials are actively recruiting shipping companies that want to avoid New York's shoals. Container cargo traffic growth from 1982 to 1994 soared by 82 percent in Halifax and 179 percent in Norfolk, compared to only 6 percent for New York.
Such trends also reflect the fierce competition among ports. As Norfolk and Halifax lure container vessels with promises of smooth sailing, New York/New Jersey officials are slashing their berthing rates in order to stem those losses and attract business from Boston and other ports.
America's Ports
The quiet crisis brewing beneath the water's surface is not reflected in the bustle along the docks. On a sunny day in April 1996, when a group of congressional staffers toured the Port Authority of New York & New Jersey aboard an Army Corps work boat, some 25 commercial vessels were docked, including a Turkish-flagged freighter carrying vegetable oil, a boxy automobile carrier from Japan, two Liberian oil tankers, and three Panamanian ships stacked with truck-sized containers filled with an assortment of textiles, alcoholic beverages, and computers.
In 1994, the Port Authority handled more than 4,500 ship calls, some 2 million containers, 409,000 motor vehicles, and $63 billion worth of bulk cargo. The public agency boasts a total monetary impact on the region's economy of $19 billion, as well as the direct or indirect employment of 166,500 workers. With 75 berths and 48 container cranes, New York/New Jersey is the nation's second busiest port, behind only Los Angeles.
The unloading and loading of a large container ship is a marvel of engineering and organization. Arriving vessels typically carry 2,000 40-foot containers that are dropped onto truck chasses or rail flatcars, which would extend 20 miles if lined end to end.
With its computerized cargo tracking system, the SeaLand terminal features streams of trucks dropping off and picking up massive containers. A driver entering the facility selects an open port in what appears to be a lengthy line of toll booths, where he places a description of his load and his pickup authorization into a pneumatic tube that sucks the documents into a third-floor office filled with computers. As at a market check-out stand, scanners beside the toll booth also record bar codes on the truck and its trailer. The driver proceeds to his designated berth or yard where giant cranes pick up the container. He then travels a short distance to another berth where other cranes are unloading a waiting ship. Crane operators typically grab and deposit some 30 of these multi-ton, rectangular boxes in an hour, or one every other minute. With a machismo commitment to efficiency, some longshoremen brag of having moved 40-45 containers in an hour. As soon as the crane operator plops one box down, the trucker moves on and another replaces him. Before exiting the terminal, the driver enters another slot in a line of toll booths, where his papers and bar codes are checked and matched for accuracy. The entire loop can take less than an hour, but the process is not always smooth, as was evidenced on that day in April when congressional staffers heard impatient drivers laying on their horns to move forward a traffic jam at the exit gate.
Ports, in fact, process the bulk of this nation's military shipments and international trade. As vital defense links, they loaded two-thirds of the military cargo sent to the Middle East during the rapid buildup for Operation Desert Shield/Desert Storm. Ports handle 95 percent of U.S. imports and exports, contribute some $70 billion to the U.S. gross domestic product, funnel $14 billion in taxes to the federal treasury, and support more than 15 million workers.
Most economists expect water-borne cargoes to expand steadily. Consider just the potential for grain exports. According to Daniel Amstutz of the North American Export Grain Association, projected growth in world population and spendable incomes, particularly throughout Asia, will lead to a 20 percent increase soon after the turn of the century in world trade of wheat. By the year 2025, he projects world trade in coarse grains will be approximately 170 million tons, up some 75 percent from today's levels. Most of that increased trade will flow through U.S. ports, at least those that are capable of handling the traffic.
Sedimentation rates also vary, sometimes according to the weather. In 1994, when the Mid-Atlantic winter brought only light snow and the spring was relatively dry, little silt flowed downstream. At the same time, the line between salt and fresh water moved further up the Hudson and other rivers in the region. As the denser, salt water blocked the flow of lighter, fresh water, sediments fell in the river rather than the harbor. The opposite effects, of course, occur during years of heavy precipitation.
A few port authorities are beginning to consider ways of reducing permanently the flow of silt into their harbors. Toledo officials, for instance, convinced the Army Corps of Engineers to spend some of the money it would have used to dredge the harbor to, instead, educate farmers and upstream city officials on how they can deploy efficient tilling and land-use-planning methods that reduce the runoff of silt.
The long-term solution to contaminated sediments, of course, is to prevent the release of pollutants before they flow into the nation's rivers and harbors. Largely because of federal legislation and lawsuits, significant cutbacks have been achieved at "point sources" such as factories. Tougher to control are the "non-point sources" that include runoff from farms and city streets.
Also needed, says Dr. Keith Jones, is a new perspective on mud. While most members of the port community view dirty sediments as a problem, a serious one at that, Jones wants to consider the muck as an asset, something that has value, something that can be used for "beneficial purposes."
Jones is a physicist employed at the Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory on Long Island. With the government cutting back on nuclear research, Brookhaven scientists have been searching for other projects to keep them busy and employed. Jones, long intrigued by the challenge of cleaning contaminants, began four years ago to focus on technologies that could remove pollution from harbor sediments and allow the remaining mud and sand to be used productively.
Shore-based communities throughout the world have used clean sediments to restore beaches damaged by storms or erosion and to create landfills on which are built wildlife habitats, stadiums, and amusement parks. Relatively clean mud dredged from the Port Newark Channel, in fact, was used recently to create a parking lot for an outlet-store mall in Elizabeth, New Jersey.
Jones wants to find beneficial uses for even New York Harbor's most contaminated sediments. He started testing decontamination technologies on mud from the highly polluted waters of Newtown Creek, which separates Brooklyn from Queens. According to environmentalist Jim Tripp, "If you can decontaminate Newtown Creek sediments, you can decontaminate anything."
Army engineers long have dabbled with sediment cleaning techniques. On a rather grand scale, they often hose down dredged mud, let it dry, then cart off the remains to restore beaches or create parking lots. Jones is considering more sophisticated approaches and has contracted with seven "vendors," including large engineering firms like Battelle and Westinghouse. The treatment methods go by odd names, including "solvent extraction" and "solidification/stabilization."
To date, the so-called bench tests run by Jones and his "vendors" have dealt with only very small supplies of dirty mud, just 0.03 cubic yards of material. The pilot tests, just begun, will process 25 cubic yards, or the equivalent of 5,000 gallons. According to Jones, the most promising technologies seem to be those that break down the contaminants by heat, processes known as "thermal destruction" or "thermal desorption." The Corps' traditional method, known as "sediment washing," says the scientist, is "simply not effective."
The Port Authority of New York & New Jersey is offering both the mud and a processing site for vendors at its Port Newark Terminal. Jones, thrilled with the offer of free space, didn't initially realize it was located next to a giant pile of salt, the region's depository for winter snow removal, that is leeching and drifting over to the test site. Rather than express frustration with an additional contaminant, the scientist shrugs and acknowledges that uncertainties arise when tests are transferred from the laboratory to the field. "The salt," he says, "is just another challenge, making the pilot test even more realistic."
Reports of Jones' bench test results have surprised other scientists. In 1994, the Environmental Protection Agency released a rather downbeat report associated with its multi-year Assessment and Remediation of Contaminated Sediments (ARCS) Program. That study of mud in Great Lakes harbors found that "individual treatment technologies are only effective on specific types of sediment contaminants, with no one treatment technology able to adequately treat all contaminants." Several of Jones' vendors, however, have been able to destroy 80-100 percent of an array of pollutants, including PCBs, dioxin, pesticides and herbicides, furans, PAHs, and metals.
The ARCS Program also concluded that sediment treatment technologies "will remain more costly (by approximately an order of magnitude) than traditional disposal methods without further process development and refinement." Jones, in contrast, anticipates a full-scale decontamination facility, processing annually some 500,000 cubic yards of the most contaminated sediments, will cost $50 per cubic yard, certainly more than the $22 for the Newark Bay burrow pits but far less than the $117 for the Utah odyssey.
The key, according to Jones, is to find a market for the processed muck, to locate someone who's willing to buy the decontaminated material for $50 or more. He's already found interest among cement manufacturers who believe the cleaned mud is comparable to the fly ash they now use as an ingredient in their mixtures. Jones argues the federal government should stimulate this market by declaring that a certain percentage of the cement it buys for roadways or buildings must contain recycled sediments, similar to what Washington has done to jump start the recycled paper market. By mobilizing market forces, argues Jones, the federal government would clean the nation's harbors safely and economically.
As Jones talks, he becomes more enthusiastic and idealistic. The perceived sediment processing companies, he boasts, will provide jobs and tax revenues for the affected communities. With a profit incentive to dredge, these firms will clear harbors and enhance international trade - without burdening taxpayers. Some decontamination plants will be placed on barges and transported to needy harbors, able to move on when a dredging project is completed.
The Port Authority's Tom Wakeman hopes Jones' optimistic visions are realized, and he supports Brookhaven's continued research. "Unfortunately," he says, "I've got an immediate need to dredge a lot of contaminated muck and no near-term agreement on where to put it."