The Albany Times Union
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National Academy of Sciences cleanup study may, however, be basis for changes in $460M proposal

By DINA CAPPIELLO
Friday, January 5, 2001

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday that a scientific panel's conclusions on the effectiveness of PCB cleanups would not delay its plans to dredge the Hudson River, although the recommendations could result in minor changes to the $460 million cleanup proposal.

The anticipated National Academy of Sciences report, which was officially released Thursday, has long been used by General Electric Co. lobbyists to delay the cleanup of the Hudson and 28 other Superfund sites where PCB pollution of sediments is a problem. The report was requested by Congress in 1997 at the behest of then U.S. Rep. Gerald Solomon, R-Queensbury.

But much like the rest of the debate over the Hudson River, the interpretations of the report differed based on what side of the issue -- for or against dredging -- the reader was on.

While the academy's report confirmed that PCBs buried in the sediment could pose a significant health and environmental risk, it outlined areas in which the EPA and other regulatory agencies need to do further research. Many of those areas focused on the risks posed by dredging and other cleanup techniques.

"I don't see anything in the report that we wouldn't be able to accommodate in the time frame we have. That's not to say there aren't things that we might want to sharpen a bit, but that's something we will be able to do in the next few months,'' said Richard Caspe, director of the EPA's Emergency and Remedial Response Division.

A final decision on the proposed dredging of 2.65 million cubic yards of sediment from a 36.7-mile stretch of the river is expected in June or July, after the EPA collects and considers all public comment.

The General Electric Co., which could pay for the $460 cleanup proposed since it discharged 1.3 million pounds of PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, into the river from 1946 to 1977, said that it would press the EPA for a thorough evaluation of the report's findings.

"We believe the EPA is obligated to consider a (National Academy of Sciences) report that says the damage of dredging has to be evaluated. It's enormously relevant,'' said Mark Behan, GE's spokesman.

The academy panel, composed of 15 members of the private not-for-profit society charged with advising Congress on scientific matters, did not judge the EPA's cleanup choice for the Hudson River, saying that it was "inappropriate to make generalizations about whether an option will be effective.''

But according to U.S. Rep. Maurice Hinchey, D-Saugerties, that's exactly what anti-dredging proponents wanted.

"They wanted something out of the report that said the EPA's plan was wrong. They actually got something that supports the foundation on which the EPA plan stands,'' said Hinchey, who lobbied to weaken a provision attached to a VA-HUD appropriations bill earlier this year that would have delayed the Dec. 12 decision on the fate of the Hudson River until the academy report came out.

Environmentalists viewed the cautious nature of the report as support for their notion that its request by Solomon, who is now a GE lobbyist, was nothing but a delay tactic.

"It really doesn't change anything, which is why from the beginning we thought it was just a delay tactic. There was no reason why the EPA should have waited for this study,'' said Rich Schiafo of Poughkeepsie-based Scenic Hudson, Inc.

But in a move that characterizes much in the long-standing debate over what to do about the PCB pollution that contaminates 200 miles of the Hudson River from Hudson Falls to the Battery, GE interpreted the 15-page executive summary differently.

"It would have benefited the public for the EPA to have considered the destructiveness of dredging before it proposed the most massive dredging project in history,'' said Behan.