Posted by

General Electric Company

For Immediate Release: December 20, 2000

ALBANY, N.Y. - EPA’s plan for massive dredging in the Upper Hudson River destroys 97 acres of prime aquatic habitat and damages 17 miles of shoreline but provides only marginal reductions in PCB levels in fish beyond what would be achieved through GE’s clean-up program and natural recovery, a preliminary analysis by GE and a panel of experts shows.

EPA said its proposed project, which is larger than all previous environmental dredging projects combined, could be completed in five years. But GE’s analysis shows the plan is based on EPA’s assumption that it could achieve overall removal rates two to four times greater than what has been achieved at other environmental dredging projects.

EPA claimed that dredging would shorten by a generation the time when fish could be safely consumed from the Upper Hudson. But EPA’s plan shows dredging never achieves two of three PCB-reduction goals in fish in the Thompson island Pool, where EPA proposed the most aggressive dredging. It also shows that in most of the Upper Hudson the difference between the results of GE’s clean-up program and dredging are less than half a part per million.

GE’s analysis reached the following conclusions:

• EPA envisions using four bucket dredges, each operated by a crane on a barge, or three bucket dredges and one hydraulic dredge. EPA overestimated by two to four times the rate at which sediment could be dredged from the Upper Hudson by using unrealistic production rates for hydraulic dredges.
• EPA’s plan would be highly disruptive to the river and communities along the river. The plan calls for a 24-hours-a-day operation, with up to 19 hours a day of dredging, six days per week, six months of the year for five years. EPA envisions a virtual “dredging armada” of 12, 150-foot-long barges or scows; seven deck barges and seven tow boats. Billions of pounds of dredged sediment would be transported to two storage and dewatering facilities, where each day 45, 100-ton rail cars would be needed to transport the mud to final disposal at locations EPA did not identify.
• EPA’s plan will remove and/or destroy critical fish and aquatic wildlife habitat and food sources, including 76 acres of shallow-water submerged aquatic vegetation and 21 acres of near-shore wetlands as well as 17 miles of shoreline. Removal of the habitat will kill or displace adult and juvenile fish and fish eggs.
• EPA failed to evaluate the risks from the siting of two waste storage and water treatment facilities and from the dramatic increases in barge, truck and rail traffic, and the risks to workers from dredging itself. According to industry statistics, death rates from dredging are 10 greater than the average workplace fatality rates.
• After dredging, EPA envisions dumping 2 billion pounds of sand and gravel into the river and transplanting 1 million aquatic plants. A restoration project of this scale has never been attempted at a dredging site.
• In 1984, EPA rejected massive dredging in the Upper Hudson because of the potential for “devastating” ecological impacts. But in the 4,000-page plan released last week EPA devoted only a few scant pages to discussion of the ecological damage of dredging. EPA claims it can fix the ecological damage of dredging afterward, but provided virtually no details on how it would be done and no estimate of how long it would take.

EPA claimed dredging was necessary because the decline in PCB levels in fish has tapered off, but in fact long-term fish trend data show clearly that PCB levels in fish and sediment continue to decline. PCB levels in fish have declined 90 percent since 1977, declined at the rate of 9 percent per year in the 1990s, and are projected to decline 70 percent in the next 10 years as a result of GE’s source-control program and natural recovery.

The ongoing recovery is driven by GE’s major clean-up projects at Hudson Falls, which have reduced to less than three ounces per day the quantity of PCBs entering the river. EPA acknowledges in its study that the long-term reduction of PCB levels in fish in the Upper Hudson depends upon the success of the GE’s clean-up plan (“source control”) and natural recovery.

GE is developing the final phase of the Hudson Falls remedy, a tunnel beneath the riverbed to collect the small amount of PCBs that escape the on-shore underground collection system. The plan involves building a 1,500-foot long shaft running 60 feet beneath the river near Baker’s Falls (Hudson Falls). GE has discussed the approach with EPA and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and plans to submit a formal plan early in 2001.

Contact: Mark L. Behan 518-792-3856

Or visit www.hudsonvoice.com

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