The Army Corps of Engineers, no less than the general public, is aware that water moves, and moves what is deposited in it with great force. Putting highly contaminated material into water is the same as giving it an express ride to our beaches. The sand cap notion itself is astonishing. Anyone who has spent any time on a beach knows that water moves sand without any difficulty. Even if this poison-loaded material were encased in concrete, the water would be the worst place for it.
Water is notoriously corrosive.
These poisons diffuse quickly into the bodies of the tiny and microscopic plants and animals that our food fish eat. These poisons are also consumed with the floating organic material that form the diet of those fish food sources. Fish taken out of our waters will be covered with the poisons which they will also be absorbing directly through their skin. We, too, will be absorbing these poisons directly through our skin when we swim at our beaches. What the Army Corps of Engineers is proposing here is nothing less than turning Staten Island into an uninhabitable Love Canal.