#moredredging

“ General Electric Co. is scheduled to begin its sixth and expected final season of PCB dredging in May, as part of a $2 billion federal Superfund project. Long-running calls for GE to dredge PCB "hot spots" outside the project's boundaries are taking on urgency because the company will dismantle the sprawling facility that treats the contaminated river sediments after dredging ends.”

The environmentalists assert that an enormous amount of cleaning up will be incomplete if additional areas are dredged. However, the GE officials claim that no further dredging is guaranteed due to the fact that the Environmental Protection Agency has asserted that this current project satisfies all of the goals for a cleanup.

In an email, company spokesman Mark Behan said "GE is meeting all of its responsibilities on the Hudson, addressing 100 percent of the PCBs that EPA targeted in the comprehensive dredging project that will be completed this year."

Until 1977. a Connecticut-based company called “Fairfield”, discharged approximately 1.3 million pounds of polychlorinated biphenls from its upriver capacitor plants. PCBs that were used for electrical equipment as coolants, could be potentially cancer-causing chemicals that may build up in fish over time. This poses a serious healthy risk to those who may consume these fish.

Over five years, crews have removed approximately 2.5 million cubic yards of sediment contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls. Remaining areas north of Albany are expected to be cleaned up before winter. 

Keywords:

Dredge- A machine or boat that removes mud, sand, etc., from the bottom of a lake, river, etc.

Biphenyl- A white crystalline hydrocarbon C6H5*C6H5 used especially as a heat transfer medium and in organic synthesis.