ALBANY, N.Y., Dec. 4 (UPI) -- The Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday moved forward with an almost half-billion dollar project to clean up toxic waste in the Hudson River by formally sending its plan to New York State officials for review.
The federal agency decided in August to uphold a Clinton administration decision ordering General Electric Co. to dredge a 40-mile stretch of the river to remove polychlorinated biphenyls or PCBs, making it one of the largest dredging operations in the world.
"We are going ahead with this important cleanup," said EPA Administrator Christie Whitman. "We will do so with a continuing open process that will involve all parties. The affected communities also will have the opportunity to comment on all sitting issues."
The EPA released its Record of Decision, considered a final decision on the issue, to the state of New York for its three-week review of the dredging project.
"At first blush it sounds positive," said Gov. George Pataki, R-N.Y. The governor was in favor of the dredging and urged Whitman to go ahead with the plan.
In a decision that stunned many, the Bush administration decided in August to go along with the proposal for a $460 million dredging operation of the Hudson River, that was approved in the waning days of the Clinton administration.
The final decision had been expected in September but it was delayed by the terrorist attacks. General Electric was ordered by the EPA to pay the $460 million cost of the project.
About 150,000 pounds of PCBs, a suspected carcinogen, along with 2.65 million cubic yards of contaminated sediment will be removed with targeted dredging along a 40-mile stretch of the upper Hudson River north of Albany, N.Y.
The PCBs, used as insulation and a coolant for electrical equipment, were dumped in the river legally for three decades by General Electric, based in Fairfield, Conn., before the federal government banned the practice in 1977.
Mark Behan, a GE spokesman, said the company had not seen the decision so it declined comment.
The cleanup plan includes performance standards for air quality and noise consistent with state and federal law. EPA expects to involve all interested parties: New York officials, other federal agencies, environmental groups, local communities, Congress and industry.
"We will be there at every meeting at every step in the process -- we will be heard," said Marilyn Pulver, mayor of Fort Edward, one of the areas to be dredged. Many upstate communitas opposed the 24-hour-a-day dredging operation fearing the equipment and trucks would be disruptive and that the Hudson Valley would end storing the contaminated sediment in landfills.
The standards will include, but may not be limited to, resuspension rates of PCBs during dredging, production rates during dredging, and residuals after dredging. In addition, EPA will monitor PCB levels in fish and restoration of aquatic vegetation.
Before the performance standards are finalized, the EPA will ask an independent scientific peer review panel to evaluate them. Federal officials estimate the design phase of the dredging plan will take three years.
Rep. John Sweeney, a Republican who represents the upper Hudson region in Congress who has been against dredging, called the performance standards "the first time the residents of the Hudson have been heard by the federal environmental agency and it's a responsible thing to do."
GE -- which had argued against the dredging via a multimillion media campaign maintaining that the "river is cleaning itself" -- also lobbied in favor of performance standards. It said PCBs do not present a health hazard because they are buried in the sediment and that upsetting the PCBs would cause more contamination in the river.
Environmental groups argued that PCBs contaminate the fish in the river and pose a health threat to those who eat the fish and that boulders in the rivers can upset the sediment causing more PCBs to leak into the river. The EPA advises against eating bottom-river eating fish contaminated with the PCBs from the Hudson River.
"The dredging plan will reduce the amount of PCBs in the river by about half in the next 15 to 20 years. We're pleased with the decision," a spokesman for Environmental Advocates in Albany, N.Y.
The 200-mile portion of the Hudson River was declared a Superfund site in 1984 because of the widespread PCB contamination. PCBs bio-accumulate in fish and pose potential cancer and other health risks to people who eat the fish, according to the EPA.
