Community group meets amid review of Hudson River dredging cleanup
A community group is set to get an update regarding the federal Superfund project to clean up the Hudson River.
The Environmental Protection Agency is currently reviewing the effectiveness of a six-year project by General Electric to dredge 2.75 million cubic yards of PCBcontaminated sediment from the upper river.
A community advisory group is scheduled to hear the latest on the EPA review at its regularly scheduled meeting on Thursday in Saratoga Springs. The review is to be completed by April 2107.
Dredging operations that have cost General Electric $1.5 billion to clean chemicals from the upper Hudson River ended, but some advocates are pushing for another round.
Advocates cite an analysis that concluded the river will take far longer to recover due to greater PCB contamination than initially expected. They say EPA should call for more dredging under provisions in the legal settlement that gives the agency that right if new information shows the cleanup is failing to protect human health and the environment.
GE maintains that it continues to fulfill all of its obligations.
Until the mid 1970s, GE plants discharged into the river more than 1 million pounds of polychlorinated biphenyls, which are considered a probable carcinogen. A 200-mile stretch of river down to New York City became a Superfund site in 1984. But the EPA didn’t call for dredging until 2002, after years of dispute over whether it would be effective.