New York to EPA: Don't Approve GE's Cleanup of Hudson
September 16 2016 - 6:56PM
Dow Jones News
By Ted Mann
New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman asked the
Environmental Protection Agency to postpone the formal completion
of General Electric Co.'s $1.6 billion cleanup of the upper Hudson
River, saying the agency has yet to prove whether dredging the
river is working.
In a letter sent Friday to Judith Enck, regional administrator
of the EPA, attorneys from Mr. Schneiderman's office say the agency
should delay awarding a "certificate of completion" to GE for the
dredging work. Instead, they argue, the EPA should conduct new
studies of fish in the Hudson to determine how much of GE's
pollution remains in the river and how long it will be before
humans can safely eat fish from the river again.
Mr. Schneiderman's letter is the second unanticipated missive in
the past month from New York's state government to the EPA
suggesting that GE should do more to clean up the carcinogenic
polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, that it dumped into the river
for decades, ending in the late 1970s. In August, Commissioner
Basil Seggos, head of the state Department of Environmental
Conservation wrote to the EPA that GE's "work is not done" removing
PCBs from the riverbed.
Both GE and EPA say the company has completed one of the most
complex environmental cleanups in U.S. history, encompassing six
seasons of dredging over seven years, after years of contentious
negotiations between the company and the government over its
responsibility for the river.
In a statement, a GE spokesman said that New York officials had
approved and overseen "every major decision about the dredging
project," and said that tests for PCBs in the upper Hudson River
have shown "significant declines" since dredging ended last
October.
"We're confident that the assessment will show the dredging
project achieved the agency's goals of protecting public health and
the environment," the statement read. "When we have completed our
decommissioning obligations later this year, we expect the project
to be declared complete."
The attorney general's letter comes as the EPA is preparing to
issue the certificate of completion. That step is important, said
Ned Sullivan, president of Scenic Hudson, a group that advocates
greater cleanup of the river, because issuing the certificate would
mean that the EPA relinquishes its ability to require GE to conduct
more cleanup work in the river.
Mr. Sullivan said he met in July with Bill Mulrow, Mr. Cuomo's
secretary, and Mr. Seggos to press the case for state action before
the certificate of completion is granted.
"They're leaving much more extensive contamination than was
expected," Mr. Sullivan said.
An EPA spokeswoman didn't immediately respond to a request for
comment. The agency has called the project a success, though it
says it will be decades before PCB levels decline in the Hudson
River's fish.
The EPA contests a set of findings issued last year by the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that found that
PCBs would linger for decades longer than previously suspected in
the Hudson and its fish. The EPA expects to complete a second
five-year review of the dredging project early next year.
Write to Ted Mann at ted.mann@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
September 16, 2016 18:41 ET (22:41 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2016 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
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