Environmentalists and government officials say that even though most of the Hudson's water may be free of PCBs, fish and other river animals that come in contact with the sediment become contaminated with PCBs. The PCBs accumulate in the fish's fatty tissue and make their way up the food chain.
While humans can be exposed to PCBs in a number of ways, consumption of fish is one of the most common sources. For more than 20 years, PCB concentrations in fish from the Hudson River have exceeded the U.S. Food and Drug Administration's safety limit (of two parts per million). Fishing was banned on the upper Hudson from 1976 to 1995. Today it is allowed only if the fish are not consumed.
"That PCBs are a carcinogen is not a question," said David Carpenter, a professor of environmental health and toxicology at the State University of New York at Albany.
Besides causing cancer, people exposed to PCBs may experience reduced immune and thyroid function as well as developmental problems, Carpenter said. "The most serious effects [of PCBs]," he added, "are effects on the developing fetus."
Just as PCBs can remain in fish and accumulate in humans, he explained, women who eat fish—even as children—may later pass on PCBs to their own children. That can lead to lower I.Q. and reduced attention span in offspring, according to Carpenter. "The reduction in I.Q. with PCB exposure is almost identical to that with lead," he said.
Some studies, he added, also have shown that PCB exposure in fetuses increases the risk of birth defects of male sex organs, as well as reduced testosterone and sperm counts when the affected children reach adulthood.
According to the EPA, the targeted dredging in the Hudson would reduce risks to human health and to fish by five times the current risk levels immediately after the cleanup. Two years after the cleanup is completed, New York would be able to relax advisories about fish consumption, the agency says.
Self-Cleansing River?
Reflecting the view of many Hudson Valley residents who oppose the cleanup plan, Merrilyn Pulver says that PCB levels found in fish from the Hudson River fish have been dropping, and the level of risk to human health is not high enough to warrant dredging.
The battle lines have been strengthened by a massive ad campaign against dredging sponsored by GE. In a report to shareholders in April, GE chief executive officer Jack Welch noted that the campaign was financed by the company at a cost of between U.S. $10 million and $15 million.
The dredging plan, Welch declared to shareholders, "is a terrible idea that will do more harm than good." As part of the campaign, area residents appeared in television and radio ads arguing that "the river is cleaning itself." Among the examples they cited were a return of wildlife to the river and a 90 percent decrease in river-water PCB levels since 1977.
Members of a related organization sponsored by GE, Hudson Voice, call dredging "messy" and "destructive." They warn that dredging will stir up PCBs that have long been covered by sediment.
Local governments from more than 50 upper-river communities echoed that view in anti-dredging resolutions sent to the EPA.
Dredging "will create unnecessary risks of injury to the public and cause great disruption to nearby residents and communities," reads a resolution passed by the Washington County Board of Supervisors.
The board also contended that dredging would harm the river's shoreline and "destroy 97 acres of prime aquatic habitat."
Pulver said many people in Hudson River communities along the proposed dredging area are also worried about what effects the project would have on their homes. "The impact that we will have to suffer will be economically devastating to this area," she said. "Somewhere in the [EPA's] equation is lost the people of the upper river and the insult to the river."
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