USA: Deadline for Hudson Dredging Review Postponed

Acording to LoHud.com, the federal Environmental Protection Agency this week decided to take another month as it completes its five-year review of the efforts to remove PCBs from the upper Hudson River.

Some environmental groups and officials had publicly worried the agency wasn’t allowing enough time to perform the review. Only two years of dredging have been completed but the review period begins with prep work that started in April 2007.

EPA Regional Administrator Judith Enck on Tuesday notified Rep. Nan Hayworth the deadline had been extended to the end of May.

“The purpose of a five-year review is to ensure that the cleanup is functioning as intended and continues to protect public health and the environment. Although the Hudson River remediation project is still in the early stages, this project has been under almost continuous review since May 2009 when dredging began,” Enck wrote to Hayworth.

Hayworth Tuesday evening said the agency’s decision was “good news.”

[mappress]

Dredging Today Staff, April 19, 2012; Image: hudsondredging