Coalition to analyze EPA’s PCB clean-up of Hudson River before public meeting

Three of our area’s biggest advocates for the Hudson River – Scenic Hudson, Riverkeeper and Hudson River Sloop Clearwater – have created a coalition that “completely disagrees” with the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) recent report claiming there is not enough scientific evidence to determine if the EPA’s PCB dredging clean-up actually worked.

From 1947 to 1977, General Electric discharged polychlorinated biphenyls, commonly known as PCBs, into the Hudson River from its capacitor manufacturing plants at Hudson Falls and Fort Edward. The discharge flowed downriver, affecting a 200-mile stretch of the Hudson River from Hudson Falls to the Battery in New York City.

Clean-up of the PCBs began from 2009 to 2015, but the EPA’s latest draft review claims there is not enough scientific evidence to determine if the dredging was effective.

On Thursday, August 15, The Friends of a Clean Hudson coalition will lead a virtual event discussing the EPA’s third five-year review and provide information from “independent experts about how the science clearly shows too much toxic PCB pollution remains in the river’s fish and sediment.”

The EPA’s will then hold a virtual public meeting on August 21, 2024. Register: https://usepa.zoomgov.com/meeting/register/vJItcuivqjwsGSB6qygZhTmcFabSG0FFwSc

Read a draft of the EPA’s report: https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2024-07/third-five-year-review-report-for-the-hudson-river-pcbs-superfund-site.pdf

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Sources: https://health.westchestergov.com/images/stories/NEWS/2024july30wnvfoundinwestchester.pdf

https://www.orangecountygov.com/civicalerts.aspx?AID=2121

https://www.cdc.gov/west-nile-virus/about/index.html