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**KatoabamyHant** · 05-19-2006, 07:00 AM

G.E. Commits to Dredging 43 Miles of Hudson River

By ANTHONY DePALMA
October 7, 2005

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/07/nyregion/07pcb.html

Nearly three decades after PCB's were discovered in the upper Hudson River, General Electric made a binding agreement yesterday to dredge them from the river in one of the largest and most expensive industrial cleanups in history.

The agreement appears to end years of resistance by G.E. and initiates a process in which the company could eventually spend hundreds of millions of dollars to remove PCB's from 43 miles of river bottom stretching from Hudson Falls to Troy.

Work will start in the spring of 2007 and could be completed in six years, if there are no interruptions.

But there are no guarantees that the $700 million project will go smoothly, because the consent decree splits the cleanup into two phases. While General Electric has agreed to Phase 1, it will not make a decision about the second phase until the first is completed. The company also agreed to pay $78 million to cover government costs associated with the cleanup, on top of $37 million it has already paid.

General Electric used PCB's, or polychlorinated biphenyls, in the manufacture of transformers. PCB's were banned in 1976, but the large amount of the chemicals that G.E. had discharged into the Hudson had settled into the bottom of the river, where they posed a continuing threat to the environment and to people who ate fish caught in the Hudson.

For years the company argued that dredging the river mud would cause more problems than leaving the PCB's undisturbed. Environmental groups and community organizations along the river claimed yesterday that the consent decree did not ensure that the entire river would ever be decontaminated.
Under the terms of the agreement, G.E. will dredge the heaviest deposits of PCB's, at a cost of $100 million to $150 million. That work, which is expected to take about a year, will remove about 10 percent of the 2.65 million cubic yards of PCB-contaminated sediment.

The remaining mud, in which the contamination is lighter but spread over a much larger area, would be dredged in the second phase, a project that would last five years and cost about $500 million.

Federal officials said that if G.E. decided not to cooperate in the second phase, the government would use legal means to force the company to do the work, or would undertake the cleanup itself and bill G.E.

"We have made a commitment to all parties that this cleanup is going to get done, and we are unequivocal about this," said Alan J. Steinberg, regional administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency, which filed the consent decree with G.E. in federal court in Albany.

Community organizations like Scenic Hudson, which has been fighting for years to get G.E. to remove the PCB's, were disappointed with the consent decree.

"Unfortunately, this is exactly what we would expect from G.E.: a lack of commitment to cleaning up their mess," said Rich Schiafo, Scenic Hudson's environmental project manager. "G.E. has fought a cleanup tooth and nail, and they're still not making a full commitment."

Robert Goldstein, a lawyer with the environmental group Riverkeeper, said he was skeptical that the agreement would lead to the removal of all the PCB's. Because the company will be operating the dredges and monitoring the work, Mr. Goldstein said, it could make a case that dredging does not work, justifying a decision to drop Phase 2.

George Pavlou, the environmental agency's Superfund director for the New York region, said dredging had been conceived as a two-phase process since at least 2002. Doing so, he said, allows the work in Phase 1 to be evaluated by an independent panel "to determine whether engineering and quality of life standards will be achieved in such a way that they do not do more harm than good."

G.E. will have until August 2008 to decide whether to go forward with Phase 2. Gary Sheffer, a spokesman, said the company had already shown its willingness to cooperate with the cleanup. G.E. has spent more than $100 million taking samples from the river bottom and designing a dredging plan. It has agreed to build a processing plant in Fort Edward, about 45 miles north of Troy, that will be large enough to handle all 2.65 million cubic yards of contaminated sediment over the life of the project.

Copyright 2005The New York Times Company

05-19-2006, 07:00 AM	#7
KatoabamyHant Join Date Oct 2005 Posts 554 Senior Member	Hudson River De-Contamination / Clean-Up G.E. Commits to Dredging 43 Miles of Hudson River By ANTHONY DePALMA October 7, 2005 http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/07/nyregion/07pcb.html Nearly three decades after PCB's were discovered in the upper Hudson River, General Electric made a binding agreement yesterday to dredge them from the river in one of the largest and most expensive industrial cleanups in history. The agreement appears to end years of resistance by G.E. and initiates a process in which the company could eventually spend hundreds of millions of dollars to remove PCB's from 43 miles of river bottom stretching from Hudson Falls to Troy. Work will start in the spring of 2007 and could be completed in six years, if there are no interruptions. But there are no guarantees that the $700 million project will go smoothly, because the consent decree splits the cleanup into two phases. While General Electric has agreed to Phase 1, it will not make a decision about the second phase until the first is completed. The company also agreed to pay $78 million to cover government costs associated with the cleanup, on top of $37 million it has already paid. General Electric used PCB's, or polychlorinated biphenyls, in the manufacture of transformers. PCB's were banned in 1976, but the large amount of the chemicals that G.E. had discharged into the Hudson had settled into the bottom of the river, where they posed a continuing threat to the environment and to people who ate fish caught in the Hudson. For years the company argued that dredging the river mud would cause more problems than leaving the PCB's undisturbed. Environmental groups and community organizations along the river claimed yesterday that the consent decree did not ensure that the entire river would ever be decontaminated. Under the terms of the agreement, G.E. will dredge the heaviest deposits of PCB's, at a cost of $100 million to $150 million. That work, which is expected to take about a year, will remove about 10 percent of the 2.65 million cubic yards of PCB-contaminated sediment. The remaining mud, in which the contamination is lighter but spread over a much larger area, would be dredged in the second phase, a project that would last five years and cost about $500 million. Federal officials said that if G.E. decided not to cooperate in the second phase, the government would use legal means to force the company to do the work, or would undertake the cleanup itself and bill G.E. "We have made a commitment to all parties that this cleanup is going to get done, and we are unequivocal about this," said Alan J. Steinberg, regional administrator for the Environmental Protection Agency, which filed the consent decree with G.E. in federal court in Albany. Community organizations like Scenic Hudson, which has been fighting for years to get G.E. to remove the PCB's, were disappointed with the consent decree. "Unfortunately, this is exactly what we would expect from G.E.: a lack of commitment to cleaning up their mess," said Rich Schiafo, Scenic Hudson's environmental project manager. "G.E. has fought a cleanup tooth and nail, and they're still not making a full commitment." Robert Goldstein, a lawyer with the environmental group Riverkeeper, said he was skeptical that the agreement would lead to the removal of all the PCB's. Because the company will be operating the dredges and monitoring the work, Mr. Goldstein said, it could make a case that dredging does not work, justifying a decision to drop Phase 2. George Pavlou, the environmental agency's Superfund director for the New York region, said dredging had been conceived as a two-phase process since at least 2002. Doing so, he said, allows the work in Phase 1 to be evaluated by an independent panel "to determine whether engineering and quality of life standards will be achieved in such a way that they do not do more harm than good." G.E. will have until August 2008 to decide whether to go forward with Phase 2. Gary Sheffer, a spokesman, said the company had already shown its willingness to cooperate with the cleanup. G.E. has spent more than $100 million taking samples from the river bottom and designing a dredging plan. It has agreed to build a processing plant in Fort Edward, about 45 miles north of Troy, that will be large enough to handle all 2.65 million cubic yards of contaminated sediment over the life of the project. Copyright 2005The New York Times Company
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