Levels of PCB contamination in the Hudson River are far greater than first estimated and General Electric’s dredging operation must improve before the next phase of the toxic cleanup starts in 2011, according to a new report from federal regulators.
In the 272-page document, the Environmental Protection Agency analyzed GE’s work nearly 200 miles north of the Tappan Zee Bridge, to clean up decades-old contamination from the polychlorinated biphenyls.
GE, which is responsible for the pollution, also analyzed the first year’s operation and has released its own 247-page report.
The two sides will now wait for a seven-member panel of dredging experts to review the work and recommend changes for the bigger, five-year Phase 2.
The entire project’s estimated price tag is about $700 million.
Both sides agree there is much more contamination in the river sediment than first estimated. And both believe there are lessons to be learned from a dredging season that saw more PCBs kicked up than predicted, more equipment problems than expected — and the drowning death of a researcher.
“What people should take away from this whole thing is there is room for improvement,” EPA spokeswoman Kristen Skopeck said Tuesday after the report was made available on the agency’s Web site.
Mark Behan, a spokesman for GE, said the company wants to put a cap on the amount of PCBs dug up to lower the odds that they will find their way into fish and the rest of the ecosystem.
“The EPA’s goal was to reduce PCB levels in fish and in the Hudson,” Behan said. “What we found in Phase 1 is a clear relationship between dredging and resuspension. We can now design a smarter, more efficient project and get it done in five years.”
To achieve the goals EPA established for this project, GE wants the agency to impose a maximum limit on the mass of PCBs that dredging releases downstream over the five years of Phase 2.
PCBs are considered probable carcinogens. The company’s plants in Fort Edward and Hudson Falls discharged PCBs into the Hudson for decades before the oil-based coolant was outlawed in 1977.
The primary health risk associated with the site is the accumulation of PCBs in the human body through eating contaminated fish.
Federal regulators want a project that leaves no more than a 1 percent residue of the 1.3 million pounds of PCBs that went into the river, most of which is concentrated in the Upper Hudson River near the plants.
Skopeck said there is no evidence that resuspended PCBs floated down to the lower Hudson River.
Among the findings from the EPA:
• the depth and extent of PCB contamination was not adequately defined through sampling;
• pockets of highly concentrated PCB oil were identified;
• a greater volume of sediments were removed than the design goal, even though only 10 of 18 targeted areas were finished;
• debris blocked dredge buckets from closing tightly, so water and sediment were sometimes returned to the river;
• the dewatering facility was unable to keep pace with the rate of dredging;
• and PCB-contaminated sediment was left behind due to difficulties at disposal site in Texas.
Now the team of dredging experts, all engineers, will review the two sides’ reports and compile a list of recommendations for phase 2, which is due to start in May of next year.
The panel is expected to hold public meetings with the EPA and GE the first week in May and then deliver its report in June.
From that point, the two sides will negotiate what needs to be changed for Phase 2.
If they can’t reach an agreement, Skopeck said, GE can opt out of the work and it will be the EPA’s responsibility to go to court to force the polluter to do the cleanup or hire someone else and force GE to pay the bill after the work is complete.
Source:lohud,March 10,2010;Image:Flickr,February 25,2010
