Towns Fight U.S. Plan to Clean Up Hudson River

Jennifer Mapes
for National Geographic News

May 30, 2001

When the conservation group American Rivers recently issued a list of what it said were the "most endangered" rivers in America, the Hudson River was fourth on the list. The designation was made, according to the group, because much of the river is contaminated by PCBs—a group of chemicals known to cause cancer in laboratory animals and suspected of causing a host of ailments in humans.

A cleanup plan, however, has drawn battle lines between those who want to see the PCBs removed and those who believe the river should be left alone.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) announced in December a proposed plan to dredge a large span of the Hudson to remove the PCBs. The oily, solid particulates have been buried in the sediment at the bottom since being discharged into the river 25 years ago by General Electric (GE) factories in upstate New York.

Former EPA administrator Carol Browner called the U.S. $460 million cleanup plan "one of the most aggressive environmental efforts ever proposed." Under federal law, GE would be responsible for the costs of the dredging project.

"Without cleanup, the PCBs at the bottom of the Hudson River will pose a risk to the environment and public health for the foreseeable future," said Rebecca Wodder, the president of American Rivers. "It's time for General Electric to step up to the plate and act like a responsible corporate citizen."

But GE opposes the plan as unnecessary. Residents of many communities along the river agree, saying the effort could even do more harm than good.

"There's no benefit to be gained by anyone, including the river," by dredging, said Merrilyn Pulver, town supervisor of Fort Edward, home to one of the GE factories that discharged the PCBs.

Health Risks Cited

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) were once used widely as an insulator and coolant in the manufacture of electrical equipment. For 30 years, more than a million pounds of toxic PCBs were dumped into the Hudson River.

The EPA banned the use of PCBs in 1979 after classifying them as a probable human carcinogen. Today, PCBs are listed along with DDT as one of a "dirty dozen" chemicals blacklisted in the United States.

According to the EPA, most of the discharged PCBs remain in the riverbed sediment along a 200-mile (300-kilometer) stretch of the Hudson River from Hudson Falls, New York, to the Battery in New York City. Under the EPA plan, set to be finalized this summer, contaminated sediment would be removed over five years from EPA-designated PCB "hot spots" along the Hudson. The targeted sites were selected on the basis of possible risk to people, fish, and other wildlife of various ecosystems along the river.

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."