On-Hudson.com

Environmental Protection Agency Suspends Dredging Because Of High PCB Levels

http://www.poststar.com/articles/2009/09/12/news/local/doc4aabd963cbfad332215023.txt

Hudson River dredging halted in two locations

Testing shows PCB levels high near Thompson Island Dam

 NICK REISMAN
reisman@poststar.com

FORT EDWARD -- Dredging of PCB-laden sediment has been halted on two spots of the Hudson River after a survey found heightened levels of the chemical at Thompson Island Dam.

Tests conducted over a 24-hour period between Thursday and Friday found the level of polychlorinated biphenyls to be about 526 parts per trillion, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced late Friday.

The federal safety standard for water is 500 parts per trillion. A test showing the chemical level over the threshold triggers a temporary shutdown of dredging in some areas.

Dredging was shut down at the southern tip of Rogers Island in Fort Edward and about 2 miles south of the island.

Work on the Hudson River continues in other parts of the river, said Mark Behan, of Behan Communications and a spokesman for General Electric Co., the company that is funding the cleanup.

Additional water samples were taken on Saturday at the dam.

Behan said later Saturday that the tests found the PCB level to be lower. Work was planned to continue on the rest of dredging area of the river, he said. Dredging is not conducted on Sundays. Concerns over drinking water were raised before the project started, with officials in Halfmoon and Waterford arguing last year that an alternate water source is needed before the project could start.

The fear was that dredging could disperse more of the chemical downstream.

Residents in those communities now receive service from an alternative water source if tests find the level of PCBs to be more than 500 parts per trillion in river water.

Behan said officials in those towns were contacted by 4 p.m. Friday about PCBs exceeding the federal safety level.

EPA spokesman Michael McGowan wrote in an e-mail that the towns of Waterford and Halfmoon were notified in time to trigger an alternate water supply from Troy.

The long-delayed Fort Edward-based project to dredge the Hudson River sediment contaminated with PCBs, a chemical discharged by GE until the 1970s, started on May 15.

This is the third time since the cleanup started that work was disrupted by heightened levels of PCBs in the river.

In August, tests found PCBs crossed the 500 parts per trillion threshold twice — once on Aug. 1 and again on Aug. 7.

Dredging resumed the following week. At the time, EPA officials said the cleanup method was being adjusted to prevent further PCB dispersal down river.

Read more about this issue in The Post-Star on Sunday and online at www.poststar.com.

Report Hudson River PCB Levels Rising As a Result Of Dredging

http://www.heartland.org/publications/environment%20climate/article/25956/Hudson_River_Dredging_Increases_PCB_Levels.html

Hudson River Dredging Increases PCB Levels

Environment & Climate News > October 2009

Environment > EPA 
Environment > Rivers 

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Written By: Bonner R. Cohen

Published In: Environment & Climate News > October 2009

Publication date: 10/01/2009

Publisher: The Heartland Institute

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Less than three months after EPA’s much-delayed and highly controversial plan to dredge the Hudson River to remove PCBs got underway, the agency’s own monitoring devices show levels of the chemical are rising, not falling.

The findings cast further doubt on a project that is already more than five years behind schedule and $320 million over budget.

Eleven dredging machines, 18 barges, and 18 tugboats are currently at work along a six-mile stretch of the Hudson. Ultimately, EPA’s plan calls for the removal of more than two million cubic yards of PCB-laden sediment, to be deposited in giant landfills in west Texas.

Releasing Contaminants

In late July, levels of PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) along a stretch of the river about 35 miles north of Albany had risen to 442 parts per trillion (ppt), only slightly below the 500 ppt threshold EPA said would require shutting the project down. By August 7 the level had risen to 540 ppt.

EPA’s dredging guidelines stipulate that if PCB levels exceed 500 ppt twice, the agency will have to order a temporary halt to dredging operations. Agency officials scrambled to assure skeptical local residents the spike in PCB levels posed no threat to public health, and EPA announced it would modify its dredging procedures in the hope of reducing contamination to air and water.

The news that EPA’s cleanup of the Hudson is actually contaminating local air and water is but the latest chapter in the long debate over what, if anything, the federal government should do about trace PCB amounts in the river. Two General Electric capacitor plants legally released PCBs into the Hudson from 1947 to 1977.

PCBs were used widely in electrical equipment because of their insulating properties, until Congress banned the use of the chemical compounds in 1976.

The congressional action came on the heels of a landmark study by Renate Kimbrough, then with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, who found laboratory rats fed huge amounts of PCBs developed liver cancer.

New Study Dampens Alarm

Nearly a quarter of a century after publishing her initial findings, Kimbrough revisited the subject in a March 1999 peer-reviewed study in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. In that study, Kimbrough and epidemiologist Martha Doemland found no association between actual human exposure to PCBs and death from cancer or any other disease.

Their study focused on more than 7,000 people who worked from 1946 to 1977 in the exact GE plants on the Hudson where the PCBs were released into the river. It found GE workers were less likely to die of cancer than expected in a statistically similar group of people, both in the region and nationwide.

Ignoring the evidence the gradually decomposing PCBs at the bottom of the Hudson River posed no threat to public health, the Clinton administration began considering removing the chemicals via a vast dredging project. Clinton EPA Administrator Carol Browner, now the White House energy and environment czar, recommended the project shortly before leaving office in January 2001.

Her successor at EPA, Christine Todd Whitman, gave the green light to the project in December 2001, effectively turning the upper Hudson River into a giant Superfund site.

Costs, Contaminants Rising

As originally conceived, dredging was to get underway in 2003 or 2004, last for an undetermined number of years, and cost $460 million. Dredging didn’t get started until May 2009, however, and the price tag, to be paid by GE, is currently forecast at $780 million and is still rising.

Before EPA mandated the PCB removal, critics warned the agency was vastly underestimating both the cost of the project and the difficulty of containing the PCBs once the dredging got underway. They pointed out PCB levels in the upper Hudson had been falling for years as the contaminants became entombed under successive levels of sediment on the river’s bottom. Dredging, they pointed out, would stir up the chemicals, creating the very problem EPA’s dredging scheme was supposed to solve.

Warnings Ignored

One of those issuing such warnings was Tim Havens, president of Citizen Environmentalists Against Sludge Encapsulation (CEASE), a local group opposed to dredging. Havens says he’s disappointed EPA failed to listen to him and other critics of the project earlier this decade.

“I wish I had been wrong,” Havens said. “But the facts speak for themselves. EPA is making a complete mess of this beautiful river. They need to stop dredging. They need to stop right now. EPA has set back the pace of natural recovery by years. The more they dredge, the more pollution they create.”

The dredging is slated to last for several years, with a target completion date of 2015.

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Bonner R. Cohen, Ph.D. (bonnercohen@comcast.net) is a senior fellow at the National Center for Public Policy Research in Washington, DC.

 

Concerns That Hudson River PCB Disposal Could Poison Texas Aquifer

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/may2009/2009-05-19-094.asp

Toxic Hudson River Sediment Could Poison Texas Aquifer

FORT EDWARD, New York, May 19, 2009 (ENS) - The long awaited dredging of the Upper Hudson River to remove sediment contaminated by PCBs from a General Electric factory began Friday near Roger’s Island in Fort Edward. The six-year dredging project will be conducted by General Electric under the terms of a November 2006 consent decree. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will oversee all aspects of the work; dredging will continue through October 2009, weather permitting. This first phase of the dredging project will be conducted 24 hours a day, six days a week and aims to remove 265,000 cubic yards of sediment and 20,300 kilograms of PCBs from a six-mile stretch of the river between Roger’s Island and Thompson Island. PCBs leaked from the GE Hudson Falls Plant site into the Hudson River (Photo courtesy U.S. EPA)   The entire project will remove an estimated 1.8 million cubic yards of sediment and 113,000 kg of PCBs. Sediment removed from the river will be carried by barge to a dewatering facility located on the Champlain Canal in Fort Edward. There water will be squeezed from the sediment and treated to drinking water standards before being returned to the canal. The remaining PCB-laden dirt will be loaded onto railcars for disposal at a permitted landfill facility in Andrews County, Texas. The 1,338 acre treatment, storage and disposal facility operated by Waste Control Specialists in Andrews County is licensed for the processing, storage and disposal of a broad range of hazardous and toxic waste as well as low-level and mixed low-level radioactive waste. But environmentalists in Texas are demanding an Environmental Impact Statement, saying that disposing of the PCBs at the Waste Control Specialists site could the poison the Ogallala aquifer. The vast underground water table underlies parts of eight states, including Texas, acting as a natural groundwater storage reservoir. Dr. Neil Carman, a chemist with the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club said Saturday, "This is like a shell game, moving hazardous toxic PCBs from one sensitive location to another." "The Waste Control Specialist dump site is already controversial because it is located over vulnerable aquifers," Carman said. "We are concerned about contamination of the Ogallala Aquifers and other aquifers in this dry region of Texas that needs to protect and conserve water for drinking and agricultural uses." "We are also concerned both about public health and environmental disasters along the train route, said Carman. "GE plans to ship 81 carloads in a mile long train every four to five days for six months beginning around July 1st. The train cars will have plastic covers that would do nothing to hold the toxic waste in the event of a derailment. These train cars should be properly capped with a steel cover that would contain and minimize any spill of PCBs." "Communities along the route must be informed and first responders warned so they can be prepared to handle a potential disaster," Carman demanded. From approximately 1947 to 1977, the General Electric Company discharged as much as 1.3 million pounds of polychlorinated biphenyls, PCBs, from its capacitor manufacturing plants at the Hudson Falls and Fort Edward facilities into the Hudson River. PCBs are a mixture of individual chemicals which are no longer produced in the United States, but are still found in the environment. Health effects include acne-like skin conditions in adults and neurobehavioral and immunological changes in children. PCBs are known to cause cancer in animals. The primary health risk associated with the Hudson River site is the accumulation of PCBs in the human body through eating contaminated fish from the river, according to the EPA. "The start of Hudson River dredging is a symbol of victory for the environment and for its river communities," said George Pavlou, acting EPA regional administrator. "Dredging will help restore the health of the river, and will one day allow people to eat fish that are caught between Fort Edward and Albany. This is an historic day for an historic river." "This is another chapter in the story of a river coming back from the brink," Governor David Paterson said. "Forty years ago, the Hudson River was a poster child for pollution, mocked as an open sewer. But through the Clean Water Act, the upgrade of wastewater treatment plants and increased public vigilance fostered by the growing public interest in environmental protection, the Hudson has steadily improved and it is cleaner than it has been in decades. At the conclusion of this first phase of the dredging project, an independent panel of experts will review the results of the dredging and may make recommendations for changes that may be incorporated throughout the remainder of the dredging, which is targeted for completion in 2015. Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2009. All rights reserved.

General Electric Hudson River Dredging Project Scrapes First Load Of PCB Laden Sediment

http://capitalnews9.com/content/top_stories/369926/dredging-underway-in-north-country/Default.aspx

Dredging underway in North Country

Kim Lengle

FORT EDWARDS, N.Y. -- It's D day. The day the Hudson River dredging project begins. And the EPA is calling it a victory for the environment.

Equipment for the big dig started to assemble along the Hudson in the fog early Friday morning. Then in an afternoon ceremony, we saw the first dredge scrape up the first load of PCBs laden sediment.

"I want to thank General Electric, they fought this project in the airwaves and in the court room, but when the record of decision came out, they've rolled up their selves, they partnered with government and I think they've designed a very impressive project that will work," said NYS Deputy Secretary for the Environment, Judith Enck.

"The idea that my childrens' children and their grandchildren and their great grandchildren can swim in the river is just a wonderful idea," said David Mathis.

The state health department found elevated levels of PCBs at the end of David Mathis's dock where he swam for years.

"They were right around hazardous waste levels," Mathis said.

Mathis says General Electric came out and capped the contamination. He says he's here today to commend them.

Of course not everyone agrees.

"We ate fish from the Hudson River, we fished, we swam, we did everything else back when all the municipalities dumped all their raw sewage in the river. They say that PCBs have a detrimental effect on your memory, I have a memory like the best computer you've ever bought," said Tim Havens of Kingsbury.

Havens is a vocal opponent of dredging. He's fought the project for 30 years.

"So it has followed me my entire life," said Havens.

Havens says he thinks some of the science behind PCBs is phony. He also says he doesn't like how some of the environmental groups are funded.

"I think there an awful grab for money on this whole thing." said Havens.

The question of dredging has hung over this community for 30 years has now just been answered

This kicks off a 24 hour a day, six day a week dredging marathon. People will see the equipment in their neighborhood and it will become part of their lives. 

After Decades Of Deliberation GE Hudson River PCB Dredging Set To Start Friday May 15th

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny--hudsonpcbs0512may12,0,6599867.story

GE dredging of PCBs in Hudson set to begin Friday

FORT EDWARD, N.Y. - Dredging for PCBs in the Hudson River is set to begin Friday after decades of arguments and negotiations. 

The federal Environmental Protection Agency says dredging on a stretch of river 45 miles north of Albany in Fort Edward will begin Friday morning. The agency called for dredging in 2002. 

General Electric Co. discharged wastewater containing PCBs _ a probable carcinogen _ into the Hudson before the substance was banned in 1977. Contamination is concentrated along the upper river. 

Under an agreement with the EPA, GE will clean up 265,000 cubic yards of river bottom this year. Results will be studied before the start of a second, much larger, stage. 

Drinking Water Filtration System Underway As Hudson River Dredging Date Approaches

http://www.troyrecord.com/articles/2009/02/25/news/doc49a4c943eecb5587159679.txt

Work begins on filtration of Stillwater drinking water

Danielle Sanzone

STILLWATER — Construction for a drinking water filtration system started today in preparation for the Hudson River dredging slated to begin at the end of May, said officials from the Environmental Protection Agency.

An informational session on the $700 million dredging project will take place tonight at the Stillwater Central School Auditorium from 6 p.m. until 9 p.m.

With concerns from residents regarding drinking water quality, EPA officials anticipate answering a lot of questions regarding the new filtration system and water testing, said spokeswoman Kristen Skopeck.

“We are hoping that we can alleviate any concerns by giving residents more information on the project,” she continued. “We are very close to the dredging beginning and we want people to understand the process.”

The filtration system will eliminate at least 99 percent of PCBs from the Hudson River water which is used by the town and the village for their drinking water. The system should be operational before dredging begins in May, though officials could not give an exact starting date for dredging since it will depend on the river flow. Once the system is done, it will continue to filter the water throughout the project, said Skopeck.

This varies slightly from the situation in Waterford and Halfmoon, another two communities which draw water from the river. The EPA and General Electric agreed to pay for the construction of an $8 million pipe connecting to Troy in case they need another water source but they will not pay for the municipalities to purchase the Tomhannock reservoir water throughout the project.

It will cost approximately $600,000 each year to purchase drinking water from the City of Troy. The EPA and GE have agreed to pay the difference of the water cost only if the PCB count exceeds the legal amount at the Fort Edward site or if the water cannot be monitored in a safe and timely manner, officials said.

“If it is good, clean, safe water, we cannot legally pay for it,” said EPA spokesman David King.

About 30,000 residents in Waterford, Halfmoon, and the Mechanicville City School District utilize this water.

“I have battled the EPA for four years to get to this point,” said Waterford Town Supervisor Jack Lawler at a previous dredging meeting. “It has not been easy. I am not willing to take the risk of PCBs affecting my family and my community. I find it morally offensive that the EPA thinks it would be safe for us to drink that water.”

“The filtration system is a temporary fix until we find something else,” said Skopeck. “We want to make sure they have water meeting drinking water standards.”

Once the project begins, dredging will be 24 hours each day for six days a week, officials said.

PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyl, an oily substance that was a popular hydraulic fluid decades ago, can enter a person through the air, by being absorbed by the skin, or through consumption in food or drinks. Small amounts of the substance are found in types of butter, eggs, milk and even in Big Macs, said David Carpenter, a former dean of public health at the University at Albany and a current member of the Institute for Health and the Environment.

“Any level of PCBs is an unsafe level,” he said citing risks of cancer, diabetes, cardiovascular disease, developmental abnormalities, and immune suppression.

Officials in Stillwater have asked for another source of drinking water during dredging and officials in the EPA are looking into that.

The Department of Health and the Department of Environmental Conservation will also be monitoring the project. Representatives from those agencies will also attend tonight’s meeting.

Until banned in the 1970s, PCBs were dumped in the Hudson River by GE starting in 1948. The GE sites at Fort Edward and Hudson Falls both utilized it and dumped approximately 1.3 million pounds of PCBs.

Danielle Sanzone may be reached at 270-1292 or by email atdsanzone@troyrecord.com.

PCBs From Hudson River To Be Buried In Andrews Texas

http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2009/02/out_in_west_texas_harold_simmo.php

Out in West Texas, Harold Simmons Is Burying Hudson River Carcinogens

By Alexa Schirtzinger 

Ever wondered what's at the bottom of New York's Hudson River? Andrews, a small West Texas town 350 miles west of Dallas, is about to find out.

Last month, the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality approved an application to allow the disposal of low-level radioactive waste in a site just outside of Andrews. Dallas billionaire Harold Simmons, who controls Waste Control Specialists, the company that applied for the permit and owns the site, has been waiting for this moment for years -- and, as a recent D CEO article suggests, stands to reap some fat financial benefits from the deal. But before WCS gets any radioactive waste, its Andrews site will have the privilege of housing some of New York City's worst pollutants: millions of cubic yards of PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls), a carcinogenic compound.

Environmental Protection Agency

The GE Hudson Falls Plant that discharged PCBs into the Hudson River now on their way to West Texas

For three decades, General Electric legally dumped PCBs into the Hudson River. In 2002,the EPA declared the river a Superfund site and ordered GE to dredge it and remove the toxic compounds. GE was then responsible for finding a place to dispose of the contaminated sediments; in 2007, it chose the WCS site in Andrews. GE rep Mark Behan tells Unfair Park dredging and sediment transport (via railroad) will begin this May and last through October. Though this isn't WCS's first contract to store PCBs, it will be its largest -- and possibly most lucrative.

And the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club is begging the EPA to stop sending them to West Texas.

Exporting environmental problems is hardly unprecedented, but the Sierra Club's Neil Carman says there was an alternative: neutralizing the toxic compounds before they even left the Hudson.

"The technology has existed for 15 years to neutralize PCBs," Carman says. "There's no reason in the world we should be shipping them elsewhere."

But according to Behan, dredging, not neutralization, is all the EPA ordered. And in the EPA's view, there is a reason.

"The most cost-effective way to proceed was shipping sediments to [an out-of-state] storage facility," says Kristen Skopeck, the EPA's community liaison for the Hudson cleanup. "We're trying to do it as quickly, as expediently, as [possible]." Which does nothing to soothe the Sierra Club.

"All they're doing is relocating toxic waste," he tells Unfair Park. "They're moving a problem from one location to another [and] creating problems for future generations to solve."

PCBs, unlike nuclear waste, don't degrade over time; they'll be just as toxic hundreds of years from now. But their container drums will at some point have to be cleaned and replaced. Carman also says earthquakes in nearby New Mexico and sensitive aquifers underneath the storage site could lead to groundwater contamination. An SEC filing from Valhi (the Simmons-owned parent company, which owns 90 percent of WCS) in 2002 insists that "based on  extensive drilling by the oil and gas industry in the area, Waste Control Specialists does not believe there are any underground aquifers or other usable sources of water directly below the site."

Carman is particularly concerned that no one has disclosed the rail route for the contaminated sediments. But the EPA's Skopeck says that's normal: "PCBs and other wastes are transported by rail all the time, secretly." Which means a train of toxic waste could be rumbling through the DFW right now? Skopeck says that once the bottom of the Hudson River leaves New York, it's no longer under the EPA's mandate. The safe transport of hazardous cargo falls to the U.S. Department of Transportation, Skopeck says, and whatever happens to the waste once it gets to the WCS site is governed by the state of Texas.

But TCEQ spokesman Terry Clawson says the waste storage permits WCS holds are granted by the EPA, under the Toxic Substances Control Act -- "for which TCEQ has no jurisdiction," Clawson wrote in an e-mail sent to Unfair Park Friday. He writes, "At present, the TCEQ may not require an Environmental Impact Statement for the WCS facility." 

http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?newsdate=1/28/2009&navigation=nextprior&category=STATE&storyID=764279

Judge rejects GE's Superfund challenge

ALBANY — The federal law that can force companies to spend millions cleaning up contaminated sites has again been upheld by a judge, who ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency can force General Electric to dredge PCBs from the Hudson River.

GE sued in 2000, just before the EPA ordered the company to pay for dredging contaminated sediments along a 40-mile stretch of river north of Albany. Its plants released about 1.3 million pounds of PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, into the river between 1946 and 1977. A 197-mile section of the river has since been declared a Superfund site.

In a ruling issued Tuesday, U.S. District Court Judge John Bates upheld the Superfund law's constitutionality.

Peter O'Toole, a GE spokesman said the company was considering its options, including appealing the decision.

Questions About Quality Of Drinking Water Persist As General Electric Ponies Up To Help Cover Costs Of New WaterLine

http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=763724&category=REGION

Drinking water deal fails to lift impasse

Waterford and Stillwater spared some expenses but safety concerns linger

 BRIAN NEARING

ALBANY — The federal government failed to defuse a dispute with two Saratoga County towns over Hudson River drinking water safety during the PCB dredging project by getting General Electric to also cover the added cost of piping in outside water from Troy.

he U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announced Monday that GE will pay $7 million toward a new $8.2 million water line current being built to connect Waterford and Halfmoon to Troy drinking water. As well, the company will pay for whatever water the towns buy when PCB levels in the river become unsafe or when there is not enough time to test river water before it reaches the towns' drinking water intakes. However, that is the same offer that EPA has made to the towns for months to no avail, and still leaves the towns faced with taking drinking water from the river when PCB levels are deemed safe. "If there is a period during the winter months when they are not dredging, we should be fine with (river) water," said Halfmoon Supervisor Mindy Wormuth.. "But during the rest of the year, I am not willing to roll the dice. What if tests later show that drinking even these low levels of PCBs have health effects?" About 30,000 people in the two towns, as well as the Mechanicville School District, rely on the Hudson for drinking water. Town officials initially tried to bar the EPA from getting on property needed to build the new water line, and last month turned to the Saratoga County Board of Supervisors for support in a possible lawsuit against EPA. The county set aside $100,000 for possible litigation on the dredging project in 2007. "It is not of matter of if this money gets used, but when," Wormuth said. In September, the towns drew support from the project's EPA Community Advisory Group, some of whom walked out of a September meeting in protest. "We at Riverkeeper recognized the importance of assuring these communities, including Waterford, that the dredging process would not impair their drinking water supply," said Robert Goldstein, general counsel of the environmental group Riverkeeper and a CAG member. "This agreement ...also demonstrates what we hope is a new attitude by General Electric, which has agreed to fund this effort, to accept its responsibility." Goldstein predicted the towns would not prevail in potential legal action, since the water agreement made their claims "moot." GE spokeswoman Joan Gerhardt said the agreement was "a reasonable approach. We support what EPA is trying to do." EPA and GE agreed to the changes as a modification to a 2006 consent decree in which the company agreed to perform at least one year of the projected six-year river dredging project, which aims to dredge out PCBs that got into the river from the GE plant in Fort Edward and Hudson Falls. Updates Informational meetings on the changes are scheduled for 7 to 9 p.m., Wednesday at the Moreau Community Center, and 7 to 9 p.m. Thursday at the Fort Edward fire station, Fort Edward. The modification also will be discussed at the Feb. 5 meeting of the Hudson River Community Advisory Group, scheduled for 1:30 p.m. at the William K. Sanford Library, Loudonville.