The NY/NJ Harbor is part of an estuarine system that includes the Hackensack, Passaic, Hackensack, and East Rivers, Arthur Kill, Kill van Kull, Newark Bay, and Upper Bay. Sediments in this region are widely contaminated by organic pollutants that include PAHs, PCBs, dioxins, and furans that have deleterious environmental effects. This has led to a ban on ocean disposal of a major fraction of dredged material from navigation channels and berthing areas found in the Harbor. Removal of the organic pollutants from dredged material by use of decontamination techniques followed by beneficial use is one method that can be used to solve the problem of disposal of dredged material. Working with industry, we have carried out a series of technology tests to investigate the effectiveness of the technologies and the practicality of applying them to processing dredged material on scales of 100,000 to 500,000 cubic yards per year. It is expected that this work will culminate in the operation of a treatment train that can remove organic pollutants from a substantial fraction of total yearly production of dredged material in the Harbor, and will be widely applicable in other estuarine environments.
 
 

*Work supported through the Water Resources Development Acts of 1990 (Section 412), 1992 (Section 405C), and 1996 (Section 226); the U.S. Department of Energy under Contract No. DE-AC02-98CH10886; and through Interagency Agreement DW89941761-01-1 between the U.S. EPA and the U.S. DOE.