Says it needs more data to rule on PCBs in Hudson
The Environmental Protection Agency this week released the draft of its latest five-year review of the cleanup of General Electric’s pollution in a 40-mile segment of the Upper Hudson River. Although the report is a year late, the federal agency said it still needs more time to reach any firm conclusions.
For 30 years, from 1947 to 1977, GE discharged polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) into the river from two manufacturing plants on the Upper Hudson. The pollution effectively ended commercial fishing in the river and kicked off decades of legal battles. As part of a settlement, GE dredged the Upper Hudson for six years, from 2009 to 2015, to remove contaminated sediment. Environmental groups argued that the cleanup didn’t target the most polluted parts of the river and that initial measurements of PCBs were faulty.
Lisa Garcia, the region’s EPA administrator, said that while PCB levels in water and fish are decreasing, the agency needs more annual fish data before it can determine if the cleanup is meeting expectations. She said the agency needs at least eight to 10 years of evidence after dredging “to begin to draw science-based conclusions about the rate of recovery in fish.” The EPA expects to reach a determination on the river before 2028 while expanding its monitoring and testing.
The decision to defer a decision was met with scorn by Friends of a Clean Hudson, a consortium of environmental groups that includes Clearwater, Riverkeeper and Scenic Hudson. The groups say the EPA has enough data to show that the recovery isn’t meeting benchmarks set in 2002. “Every delay in action continues to put ecological and human health at risk,” said David Toman, executive director of Clearwater.
Last year, Friends of a Clean Hudson commissioned its own report based on the data that the EPA relied on. It concluded that the dredging wasn’t as successful as the EPA predicted and that, in some sediment samples, pollution appeared to be getting worse.
PCB levels in fish dropped sharply right after the dredging was completed but has plateaued since then at levels far above the predicted benchmarks, said Pete Lopez of Scenic Hudson. The only way contamination levels could drop over the next few years and reach the benchmark would be for something “miraculous” to occur, he said.
“My hope is that this deferral is the agency saying, ‘All right, we want to take one last hard look at the data,’ but they can make this decision now,” he said.
Lopez is in a unique position to know. When the last five-year review was undertaken, he held Garcia’s job as EPA regional administrator. He said that the EPA was ready to declare in 2019 that the cleanup had been successful until the state Department of Environmental Conservation approached him with its own data.
The numbers gave EPA scientists pause, he said. After folding the state data in with what had been collected by the EPA and General Electric, Lopez said a fuller picture emerged and the EPA concluded the cleanup wasn’t working.
Lopez said he had hoped that data from state agencies, as well as pushback from elected officials and environmental groups, would force the EPA to declare that the cleanup had failed. “I’m frustrated and crestfallen that my former colleagues who paused in the last five-year review didn’t step back and say, ‘Hey, we’re off target even more than we were, we need to err on the side of the public and those who are at risk,’ ” he said.
How to Respond
The Environmental Protection Agency is accepting public comments through Nov. 7 by email at [email protected]. A virtual public meeting will be held on Aug. 21; see bit.ly/pcbzoom. The plan is posted at bit.ly/3rd5yearreview.
The report does not consider samples taken last summer by the EPA and GE in the river south of Troy, although the agency said it expects to release that data soon.
The only way GE can be compelled to continue dredging is if the EPA determines the cleanup was not successful. In 2021 New York State sued to have the cleanup continue, but the suit was dismissed.
While it is possible that further study and sampling will allow the EPA to build a stronger legal case, Drew Gamils, a senior attorney at Riverkeeper, said the agency already has more than enough data to make that case.
“It’s hard to say what direction the EPA is trying to go in by looking for three additional years,” she said. “If anything, things are just going to get worse.”
General Electric was granted permits to discharge PCBs into the Hudson River by both the Environmental Protection Agency and the state Department of Environmental Conservation. Environmental legal teams know the amount of the discharges because the permits required GE to keep records. In addition, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers dismantled the Fort Edward Dam in 1973 without testing the sediment, releasing pollutants downriver. Lastly, GE completed its dredging as required. Want more of this ineffective dredging? Make the EPA, DEC and Army Corps do it.
I suggest that Scenic Hudson, the Fjord Trail and its huge benefactor pay for additional dredging as part of its nearly 2-mile planned walkway abutting or in the Hudson because the environmentally unfriendly steel and cement installed from barges is destined to release more PCBs.