EPA defends dredging plan
Colonie -- Agency stresses to a divided crowd that PCBs should be removed

By DINA CAPPIELLO

Wednesday, February 7, 2001

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency went on the offensive Tuesday night, defending its $460 million proposal to dredge the Hudson River before a crowd of nearly 1,000 divided on whether to dredge the river of PCBs.

In a 20-minute presentation that began the fifth public meeting the agency has held since it announced its decision Dec. 12, the EPA responded almost point-by-point to questions they said were raised by the public. But the issues addressed strongly resembled claims made by the General Electric Co. in newspaper advertisements, billboards and commercials.

Under federal Superfund law, GE could be ordered to pay for the half-billion dollar cleanup because it discharged 1.3 million pounds of PCBs into the river over three decades.

"We had to get our message out there. Much of this is in response to questions from the public,'' said EPA spokeswoman Ann Rychlenski, adding that GE's advertising campaign contributed to some of the public's confusion.

Some of the claims disputed by the agency were that PCBs are not harmful to public health and PCB levels are declining in fish and water. The EPA countered that PCBs are probable human carcinogens and that fish and water levels haven't changed much since the late 1970s when the toxic chemical was banned from use.

"We are concerned that the public may start to believe that PCBs are not harmful. This is not something the EPA is making up. This is reality,'' said Richard Caspe, director of the Superfund division in Region 2.

The tone of Caspe's speech differed markedly from previous public meetings where the EPA has outlined the basics of its plan, which calls for the "targeted'' dredging of PCB hot spots along a 40-mile stretch of the river. The project -- which will remove 13 percent, or 2.65 million cubic yards, of the river bottom between Hudson Falls and the Federal Dam at Troy -- will take five years, starting in 2003.

Environmentalists, who held their own public information session one hour and 15 minutes before the EPA's meeting at the Albany Marriott on Wolf Road, said the aggressive approach taken by the EPA Tuesday night was clearly a response to GE's ads and repeated requests for rebuttal by the federal government.

"It was a very strong response to the ads GE has been airing up here. They took a lot of the lies and debunked them. It's rare to see an agency so impassioned,'' said Laura Haight of the New York Public Interest Research Group, or NYPIRG.

But those opposed to dredging, including GE and the grassroots group CEASE, had a different interpretation of the EPA's actions, saying it was another attempt by the agency to avoid talking about a plan that is "full of holes.''

"Rather than providing the information, the EPA wants to talk about GE. The EPA is responding to GE rather than telling the public why it would abandon an effective cleanup program for dredging,'' said GE spokesman Mark Behan.

The latest gap in information, according to anti-dredging groups, was unveiled Monday when a document obtained by a Freedom of Information request revealed 12 sites along the river the EPA is considering for 30-acre de-watering and sediment transfer facilities. Previously, the EPA had said it was only considering two possible sites, both 15 acres in size, in Moreau and the Port of Albany.

"It doesn't mean any one of these sites will be used,'' Caspe said.

But the topic was definitely on the minds of the public, whose boos and hollers reached an uncontrollable pitch at times.

"The new issue is that we are all targeted to hold the stuff that comes out of the river,'' said Laura LeFebvre of Brunswick, before the meeting.

By 9 o'clock, just 22 of the 103 who signed up to speak for two minutes had addressed the EPA representatives. While waiting, those on opposite sides -- such as Stanley Byer of Poestenkill (a pro-dredger) and David Luck of Hudson (an anti-dredger) -- debated in their chairs.

"I'm 90 percent committed to not dredging,'' said Luck.

Countered Byer, who was leaning over his seat: "There's an opportunity now to get it out of here,'' Byer said.

Earlier in the day, state and local lawmakers weighed in. At a news conference at the office of Assemblyman John McEneny, D-Albany, Assemblyman Richard Brodsky, D-Westchester, questioned whether opposition to de-watering facilities upriver is a legitimate concern or just a series of excuses to delay cleaning up the river.

"The interest of the local communities and the state are not incompatible,'' said Brodsky. "But if their concerns are just a series of excuses to do nothing (to the river), we can't meet them on that.''

McEneny said the EPA will have to answer the question of where the two de-watering facilities will be located eventually.

"The EPA should give a full and complete answer to where the stuff will be put. That is a valid question,'' McEneny said.

The public comment period runs through April 17. Another hearing will be at 7 p.m. today Hudson Falls High School.