GE rejects renewed calls for more PCB dredging

Schuylerville

Citizen and environmental groups are once again urging General Electric Co. to expand its $1 billion Hudson River PCB cleanup project to include the Champlain Canal.

GE, which is paying for what is the nation's largest Superfund program, again repeated it has no such plans, arguing the work is the state's responsibility.

But the company's position isn't sitting well with local activists and elected officials.

"A less-than-full removal of PCBs will continue to cause problems," said Mechanicville Supervisor Thomas Richardson, chairman of the Historic Hudson/Hoosic Partnership. He and other officials met on the Hudson at canal Lock 5 in Schuylerville, near a new kayak and canoe launching site at Hudson Crossing Park where a new sign advises boaters to avoid contact with toxic PCB-tainted river sediments.

"This cannot be back-burnered. It needs to be dealt with now," said state Sen. Kathy Marchione, a Halfmoon Republican. The partnership includes Corinth, Easton, Fort Edward, Greenwich, Hoosick Falls, Halfmoon, Moreau, Northumberland, Pittstown, Saratoga, Schuylerville, Schaghticoke, Victory and Waterford, as well as Saratoga, Washington and Rensselaer counties.

At issue are up to 136 acres of river bottom that contain PCBs but are not part of a 2005 Superfund cleanup agreement between GE and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. That agreement excluded the canal's navigation channel, which has been filling in for more than three decades because the state Canal Corp. could not dredge toxic polychlorinated biphenyls, commonly known as PCBs, leaving the channel now too shallow for most commercial traffic.

While EPA is not ordering further dredging, a natural resources damage assessment is required under federal law for polluted sites, with the goal of restoring wildlife and infrastructure, like the canal.

For the Hudson, this assessment is being done by three federal trustees — the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the state Department of Environmental Conservation.

The trustees have been studying potential damages for more than a decade, and have yet to issue findings on what steps, such as navigation channel dredging, might be sought. There is no timetable for the report.

"DEC and the federal trustees are working together to follow up EPA's remedy with a program that is intended to address natural resource damages. All of the issues raised by the Partnership are being considered," said DEC spokeswoman Emily DeSantis. "The trustees expect to recover damages to ensure that New Yorkers are compensated for natural resources damaged by PCB discharges, including the lost recreational opportunities due to contamination and other injuries."

While calls for dredging are taking on increasing urgency now that the work is moving faster than originally planned, and dredging is expected to be wrapped up by the fall of 2015. GE is dredging about 500 acres along 40 miles of river bottom from Fort Edward to Troy. "Calls to expand the dredging project are not new," said GE spokesman Mark Behan. "Navigational dredging is the responsibility of the state Canal Corporation. GE is focused on the environmental dredging project and will meet all of its commitments to EPA."

At Lock 5, Peter Gross, the new executive director of the environmental group Clearwater, called upon Gov. Andrew Cuomo to broker a deal with GE. "We want the governor's office to act to intervene," Gross said.

Ned Sullivan, president of Scenic Hudson, said GE should reach a settlement over the canal and natural resources damages, rather than risk a drawn-out legal struggle that could last years. "It is typical of GE to sit back and wait until the last minute," he said.

A spokesman for Cuomo's office said questions on the matter should go to DEC. A spokesman for the state Canal Corp. also declined comment.

Last year, the cash-strapped Canal Corp. said it would start planning for the dredging work without a clear way to pay the estimated $180 million cost. The 60-mile canal runs from Whitehall, near the tip of Lake Champlain's South Bay, south to Fort Edward, where it joins the Hudson and proceeds through a series of six locks and dams to Waterford.

Calls for comment to the two federal river trustees — Tom Brosnan of NOAA, and Kathryn Jahn of USFW — were not immediately returned. In January, a war of words broke out between GE and the trustees, who accused the company of being "misleading" in a report to state Comptroller Tom DiNapoli that said no further dredging would be needed.

bnearing@timesunion.com • 518-454-5094 • @Bnearing10