Castle Astoria misses deadline for dumping dredge materials at HARS
Congressmen, COA
seek compliance with new toxicity guidelines
A New York heating oil company may have missed its chance to dump in the sea. Last Wednesday the deadline for Queens-based Castle Astoria Terminals Inc. to place dredge materials at the Historic Area Remediation Site (HARS) six miles off Sandy Hook passed.
Fear remains, though, that grandfathered multi-year permits with loosely interpreted toxicity definitions will allow what activists consider poison goop back into the HARS next year.
Castle Astoria Terminals Inc. is one of many dredging companies that has a multi-year permit. With this permit in place, old federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) guidelines that allow for more toxic material to be dumped could be followed.
According to a previous Clean Ocean Action press release, Castle Astoria’s mud tested at 170 parts per billion (ppb) of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). The new standard, set in September for PCBs allowable for cap materials at the HARS site, is 113ppb. The old standard, a far cry from the new, was 400 ppb.
In early October, the long-awaited revised toxicity guidelines were made public and enforced. The problem that those opposed to dumping now face is that the multi-year permits — which were approved before the new standards were released — were granted in accordance with the older, less stringent toxicity standards.
In this case, Castle Astoria’s permit was issued in January, calling for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to dredge about 112,000 tons of PCB-laden sediment from an area off New York’s East River and take it to the HARS site in Sandy Hook bay.
PCBs are known carcinogens. The higher their parts per billion, the more contaminated the muck is considered to be.
The position of the corps on the muck from Castle Astoria was that it would act as a cap for the HARS site to contain "more seriously toxic" materials on the floor of the bay.
Clean Ocean Action Director Cindy Zipf called the move irrational and maintains that stance. She said that just because the muck slated to cap the area is less toxic than what is beneath it doesn’t mean the cap material is not seriously toxic.
For some time, Sandy Hook-based Clean Ocean Action and congressmen Frank Pallone and Jim Saxton have been fighting the less stringent EPA standards that allowed what they considered dumping toxic dredging material into what was supposed to be a closed dump site.
Rallies and marches ensued from Memorial Day through the summer, even as toxic material from New York’s Buttermilk Channel was being dumped on the HARS site.
While Clean Ocean Action, Pallone and Saxton feel that they’ve overcome one hurdle, they remain leery of future toxic dumping threats.
"It is ironic that after battling for over a year, Castle Astoria Terminals Inc. decides they don’t need to dredge this year," said Zipf. "It is yet another bizarre twist to the ocean-dumping saga."
Dredging, according to the Castle Astoria’s contract, was allowed from Oct. 1 to Nov. 15.
"I am pleased that Castle Astoria did not dredge this fall," said Pallone in a released statement; however, I am concerned that this project could actually be dredged next year, even though it fails the EPA’s own revised criteria. I will continue to work to ensure that neither Castle Astoria nor (the three) other toxic dredge proposals are never accepted."
Permit reauthorization language, as it applies to the multi-year permits, is what has Pallone certain that enforcing adherence to new standards has been a long-standing criteria that now, more than ever, needs to be paid attention to.
According to Pallone, the contract language dictates that "any reauthorization will depend upon the applicable criteria for HARS placement at that time, the availability of an approved placement site, and the results of any new or additional testing required to determine the appropriateness of future HARS placement conditions."
Several standing multi-year contracts will be up for reauthorization next year, and Pallone, Saxton and Clean Ocean Action intend to ensure that the new EPA standards are met well before any dumping is done.
"People who love the ocean have something more to be thankful for this holiday season," noted Zipf. "The idea that they may be able to dump in the future is unthinkable. We now know that the material is toxic and harmful to marine life. If the federal agencies have any conscience ,they will not allow this material to go out to our ocean now or ever."