Posted on 08/31/2009 11:14:47 AM PDT by Graybeard58
They were warned. Over many years, PCBs used by General Electric in the production of transformers and other electrical equipment wound up in the Hudson and Housatonic rivers. GE broke no laws when it released the PCBs, which can cause cancer when consumed in huge quantities but are all but harmless when dispersed in silt along many miles of river bottom. Principled members of the environmental community were torn. Should it be dredged, at enormous cost to GE, its customers and shareholders, and taxpayers? Or should it be left alone, in the reasonable expectation technology would present a better way to manage the problem?
The Environmental Protection Agency and other dredge-it-out advocates won. GE has removed silt from a heavily contaminated section of the Housatonic at Pittsfield, Mass., and is evaluating mitigation alternatives downstream. And extensive dredging of PCB-contaminated silt is continuing, albeit haltingly, in the Hudson.
Twice in the last month, the $750 million cleanup of the upper Hudson has been suspended because PCBs kicked up by the dredging are drifting downriver. Adding insult to injury, one of the dredges tore out a section of Fort Edward, built by the British before the Revolutionary War.
Meanwhile, scientists have been developing bacteria that neutralize PCBs. This technology has potential to clean contaminated areas cheaply and thoroughly without dispersing the pollutants to a larger area or destroying archaeological sites.
Of course, GE is shelling out hundreds of millions to deal with the problem the way the EPA wants it dealt with: enormous cost, with lots of money to be made by contractors that specialize in dredging, transportation of contaminated materials, and removal and disposal of the contaminants. As always in such cases, skeptics should follow the money.
Ping to a Republican-American Editorial.
If you want on or off this list, let me know.
Thanks for the ping Graybeard.
Pittsfield MA, a GE plant used and manufactured items filled with PCB oil for 50 years, and had an employee cancer rate 22% lower than the general population.
PCB poison is a horrible hoax.
Much like the new light bulbs....they are filled with mercury. People will not dispose of them in a sealed locked, vault. Mercury in water will increase. But hey, it’s Iran’s buddy, Obama’s buddy’ GE, after all.
“Sorry, pcb’s are not carcinogenic. it is another one of “the big lies” and tort lawyer fantasies.”
PCBs cause tumors in RATS but not humans.
The dredging debacle is the result of 2 incompetant GE managers who were too stupid to understand biodegradation and chose to abandon a winning argument for an engineering solution.
GE brownfields, Schenectady.
ALCO, Waterveliet,
National Lead, Colonie,
Knolls Atomic, Schenectady,
BASF Renesselear,
Norton Abrasives, Granville
Grace Minerals, Albany
Atlantic Cement..
On, and on, and on....
It seems to be much kinder to humans than it is to animals, if Wikipedia has it right. It can kill birds through liver damage, and large amounts have caused cancer in rats. Liver damage in humans has been suggested through blood work, and it is a known cause of chloracne. It is not a human teratogen. The stuff is almost chemically nonreactive and is terribly difficult to destroy.
“Ya think?? I live right in the middle of all that...”
We’re probably neighbors.
Biodegradation can get rid of some but not all forms of PCB, and it’s tricky to unleash it in nature because the germies often prefer to eat other food sources.
What I don’t understand is how it ever came to be dumped. It was a valuable product and GE wouldn’t have wanted to lose any.
“...and it is a known cause of chloracne”
I think the chloracne is caused only when it was accidentally mixed with cooking oil. The high temp converted the PCBs to chlorinated dibenzothiphenes which produced chloracne.
I would have hated to have eaten those French Fries.
“What I don’t understand is how it ever came to be dumped. It was a valuable product and GE wouldn’t have wanted to lose any.”
Accidental spills probably. I think it was pretty cheap back then.
Yeah, this stuff sounds like its biological effects are on a par with paraffin wax or petroleum jelly.
Not even that bad.
I had a nasty case of chloracne on the back of my hands after a transformer release. No lasting effects.
It got dumped because it was cheap, used in almost every area where fire-suppression was key and there were no rules regarding disposal.
“Just squeegie it down the drain, Cletus!”
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