Posted on 08/20/2009 4:07:20 AM PDT by IbJensen
(CNSNews.com) – Less than a week after the Environmental Protection Agency restarted a controversial dredging project on the Hudson River, dredgers operated by the General Electric Company dislodged wooden beams that are the last remnants of one of the largest British forts in the American colonies.
The EPA now says that the beams are contaminated with potential carcinogens known as PCBs and therefore must be buried in a landfill.
The dredging operation is being conducted to remove sediments containing PCBs from the river about 40 miles north of Albany, N.Y.
Fort Edward, where the dredging damage occurred, was one of the largest forts in the colonies during the French and Indian War in the mid-18th century, and it was a key strategic position during the American Revolution.
Much of the archaeological site where the fort was located was destroyed on Aug. 14 when dredgers pulled two large timbers out of the river bank.
Neal Orsini, a town board member in Fort Edward, N.Y., and the owner of the property where the incident occurred, told CNSNews.com, “[The damage] was extensive. It’s a piece of the original fort from 1755.”
“The timbers are roughly 14 by 14 inches square and 15 to 18 foot long,” said Orsini. “They’re big, long timbers, and they pulled them out of the river bank--straight out of the river bank--which compromised the river bank. So, it was quite damaging.”
Kristen Skopek, a spokeswoman for the EPA’s Hudson River Field Office, told CNSNews.com that she concurred with General Electric's assertion that the dredging crew did nothing wrong. “They didn’t, it’s true,” she said.
“One of the timbers was completely buried and extended into the dredge area approved by the EPA,” she said.
There had been some effort by the EPA to avoid the site. An EPA archaeological survey “identified the timber that was exposed as an historical artifact,” said Skopek, “So the exposed timber wasn’t meant to be disrupted by the project in any way. However, the archaeological survey didn’t detect the length of the submerged timber or even know – we didn’t even know it was there, or identify that it was attached in some way to the onshore timber.”
Skopek said that the timbers were photographed and documented after they were removed.
However, she also said that both timbers--including the one that was originally protected as a historical artifact--were contaminated and would be buried in a landfill.
“This is a historic area,” Skopek said, “so there will be some artifacts that will be uncovered in the process, and many of them won’t be able to be preserved. They’ll just have to be documented and then they’ll have to go to the place where all the other PCBs are going for final burial--basically, in a landfill.”
She added, “If it was a glass shard or ceramic, they could be decontaminated, but there’s no way to decontaminate wood. You know what I mean?”
Skopek also noted that archaeologists have discovered 10 sunken vessels in the way of the dredging project, and that an archaeologist was being brought in to answer the public’s questions on that subject. She did not indicate what the fate of the shipwrecks would be.
When CNSNews.com asked whether disposing of artifacts was justified in the name of environmental protection, Skopek responded, “Yes, they’re old, rotten timbers that are covered in PCB oil.”
Asked whether the EPA was getting too close by allowing dredging only 10 feet from known artifacts, Skopek said, “You have to remember that this area where we’re dredging in is not even--the river up here is very narrow. I mean, I think the whole entire channel there is only 100 feet, and we’ve got big dredges and bring big barges in there.”
“I’m not trying to sound insensitive,” she said. “I mean, it’s unfortunate that this happened.”
That was of little comfort to Orsini. “They said there was one timber left,” said Orsini, “but it was a major blow for us in Fort Edward. It’s one of the last remaining pieces from the eighteenth century fort.”
This article covers just one of hundreds of cases where we the people are able to see a government that is totally out of control.
This government serves nothing but its own continued existence and expansion.
There isn't a government agency that shouldn't be chopped!
As long as no one eats the PCB’s there won’t be any problem.
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