"After sweltering through a succession of torrid, hazy and humid days, thousands of New Yorkers sought relief early last month by heading for the area's public beaches. What many found, to their horror and dismay, was an assault on the eyes, the nose and the stomach. From northern New Jersey to Long Island, incoming tides washed up a nauseating array of waste, including plastic tampon applicators and balls of sewage 2 in. thick. Even more alarming was the drug paraphernalia and medical debris that began to litter the beaches: crack vials, needles and syringes, prescription bottles, stained bandages and containers of surgical sutures. There were also dozens of vials of blood, three of which tested positive for hepatitis-B virus and at least six positive for antibodies to the AIDS virus. [ ... ]
As federal and state officials tried to locate the source of the beach-defiling materials, an even more mysterious--and perhaps more insidious--process was under way miles off the Northeast coast. Since March 1986, about 10 million tons of wet sludge processed by New York and New Jersey municipal sewage-treatment plants has been moved in huge barges out beyond the continental shelf. There, in an area 106 nautical miles from the entrance to New York harbor, the sewage has been released underwater in great, dark clouds"