PCB News Around the World

Cambridge, N.Y Council bars PCBs

Noah Hoffenberg
Bennington Banner
November 13, 2002

CAMBRIDGE, N.Y.-- The town council unanimously passed a resolution Monday night that would bar any PCB-laden sludge from coming anywhere near Cambridge.

Councilwomen Beth Dillard, Carol Imhof, Julia Reynolds and Town Supervisor JoAnn Trinkle voted against the PCBs being trucked through or dumped into the town.

The resolution states that Cambridge has been opposed to dredging and landfilling for almost a quarter of a century. There is also a local law prohibiting the creation of dumps or landfills in the town.

"Basically it is to protect Cambridge from any of the dumpings," said Trinkle. "I really think this is a good idea ... (there are) some places that think filling in ravines is a good place to dump this stuff."

A resolution, however, is not a law, and it merely expresses an opinion or a political stance.

Richard Caspe of the Environmental Protection Agency said at a recent meeting the EPA will begin notifying outlying communities if they've been chosen as an on-shore site for dredged materials. He said towns may pass resolutions against becoming a host town to a PCB sludge dumpsite, but would not say if those resolutions were binding upon the EPA.

GE discharged about 1.3 million pounds of PCBs into the river before 1977, when the chemicals linked to cancer in tests on laboratory animals were banned.

"PCBs, plain and simple, are toxic. They enter the food chain through the organisms fish eat, and they find their way into people and wildlife who eat these fish," said Jane Kenny of the EPA. "PCBs cause cancer in laboratory animals and they are considered a probable cause of cancer in humans."

PCBs also cause other health problems, with children and pregnant women being the most vulnerable, she said.

"And while the PCB levels in the fish is lower than it was 25 years ago, it's still dangerously high. Nature alone can't take care of the problem," Kenny said.

The most heavily contaminated sediments in the Hudson are in an area about 40 miles north of Albany. The EPA is scheduled to start the seven-year dredging project in about three years.

The government estimates the cost of the cleanup at nearly $500 million. Since GE dumped the vast majority of the PCBs into the Hudson that are contaminating sediments, it is liable for the costs.

The clean-up of the Hudson River targets 40 miles of river which counts for 2.65 million cubic yards of dredging which would remove 150,000 pounds of PCBs. This is roughly 65 percent of the PCBs in that stretch of river, according to Caspe.

Three hundred-forty thousand cubic yards of the dredging is needed to ensure a proper flow to the river to carry away contamination out of the channel where it exists, Caspe said.

The remedy includes siting of dewatering facilities or water-based facilities rather than land based. The remedy also includes that the dredged materials and the backfill needed for the river will be hauled by barge or rail. No trucks will haul any material within the Hudson Valley, he said.

Construction completion of the dewatering facilities is expected to be done by 2005, and then dredging will begin.

The EPA has been studying the problem of PCB contamination since 1984, according to Kenny. During this time the New York Department of Health has issued fish advisories warning people to severely limit the amount of fish that they eat from the river. During all that time, all commercial fishing had been outlawed.

More than 75 community meetings had been held on the subject. Petitions, e-mails and letters were sent by the thousands, Kenny said.

The EPA's headquarters for the Hudson River clean-up were recently located in Fort Edward.

Copyright 2002 MediaNews Group, Inc. and New England Newspaper Group, Inc.