State slams dredge results
Environmental boss critical of General Electric and EPA
ALBANY, N.Y. » The $1.7 billion Superfund cleanup of the upper Hudson River is not protecting the public’s health and the river as initially promised, New York’s environmental commissioner contended Wednesday.
Basil Seggos criticized the six-year dredging project performed by General Electric Co. in a letter to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt released in the waning days of a crucial public comment period.
Seggos was particularly scornful of an EPA review issued this summer that said it could take 55 years or more before all species of fish in the river are clean enough to eat once a week. At the same time, though, the agency said additional dredging of the upper river, north of the Troy Dam, was
not needed and that there was no reason to dredge any of the lower river.
“This is unacceptable,” Seggos wrote, echoing previous criticisms by the Cuomo administration official. “A remedy that will take generations to safeguard public health and the environment is clearly not protective.”
From 2010 through 2015, General Electric removed 2.75 million cubic yards of PCB-contaminated sediment from a 40-mile stretch of the river north of Albany-Troy under an agreement with the EPA.
The EPA’s recently released review said that based on the data so far, the cleanup will protect human health and the environment in the long term. Critics pushing for a broader cleanup have noted that a large amount of sediment contaminated by PCBs remains in the river.
General Electric dumped more than 1 million pounds of polychlorinated biphenyls into the river from two of the company’s upriver plants for decades until the federal government banned PCBs in 1977 as a suspected carcinogen. PCBs were used as coolants and lubricants in GE’s electrical equipment, including generators.
Seggos said the state is nearing completion of its own sampling program to measure the true extent of contamination.
An EPA spokeswoman said Wednesday the agency would consider Seggos’ comments along with all the others it is receiving.
The EPA is accepting public comment on its review through Friday.
GE spokesman Mark Behan questioned New York’s critical stance in an email that said PCB levels in the upper Hudson declined in some spots by as much as 73 percent in the first year after dredging.
“New York state approved and oversaw the dredging project and was instrumental in every major decision related to the project,” Behan wrote. “Its criticism flies in the face of the most up-to-date scientific data from the river itself.”
Others who have criticized the EPA’s conclusions include U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., U.S. Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, D-Cold Spring, and the environmental advocacy groups Riverkeeper and Clearwater.