EPA Says It Will Toss Artifacts from Historic 18th Century Fort into a Landfill

CNSNews.com ^ | 8/18/09 | Adam Brickley

[Nachum]

(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

[Nachum]

The list, ping

[edcoil]

PCB’s were widely used for many applications, especially as dielectric fluids in transformers and capacitors and coolants.

Everyone knows these were widely used the the British occupying forces in the 1800’s.

[Still Thinking]

The EPA now says that the beams are contaminated with potential carcinogens known as PCBs and therefore must be buried in a landfill

Um, wouldn't it be sufficient just to warn people not to eat them. I doubt the PCB's are so volatile they're going to evaporate from some kind of exhibit and kill people looking from 10 feet away. If they were that volatile, they'd all have evaporated by now anyway.

[Vigilanteman]

Good thing the EPA wasn’t around when King Tut’s Tomb was discovered. They might have let us decontaminate the gold and pottery piece, but the corpse would have given off unhealthy dust which would have been ordered into the landfill. < / sarcasm >

[Still Thinking]

PCB’s were widely used for many applications, especially as dielectric fluids in transformers and capacitors and coolants. Everyone knows these were widely used the the British occupying forces in the 1800’s.

The EPA is probably claiming they got contaminated in place by some facility built above them or from river water or something.

[Arkinsaw]

1) They have been lying there contaminated in the open for a very long time
2) They are sorry they did not leave them lying there contaminated in the open for more years
3) But now that they are not lying there contaminated in the open and are under control...they must be gotten rid of because they are contaminated


This is not a logical chain of thought.

[JimSEA]

I was talking recently to an old friend who I worked with at Magma Copper many years ago. The conversation came around to hazardous waste sites and toxic industrial materials. We mutually we must have died a horrible death many years ago. The EPA tells us so.

[dadgum]

Correct. Not logical. The EPA exists simply to create reasons for the EPA to exist.

[dangerdoc]

PCB’s are not radio active. The pilings could be removed and preserved with no hazard to the public or enviroment.

The EPA is getting as bad as the taliban.

[DH]

This is the same EPA that goes into a panic when a mercury thermometer breaks.

How did all of us from 1965 back survive playing with the stuff? Maybe is was because the mercury we played with was not dangerous...the special lab type that became gaseous when heated was.

[Trod Upon]

Wow, if this isn’t emblematic of 0’s philosophical bent...
Rip up the underpinnings and history of America and toss it all in the landfill.

[Freedom2specul8]

Would this be of interest to your ping list?

[AmericaUnite]

Ping

[SamuraiScot]

The EPA now says that the beams are contaminated with potential carcinogens known as PCBs and therefore must be buried in a landfill

In case you were wondering, yes, it was pointed out years ago that the PCBs weren't posing any health risk by sitting buried at the bottom of the Hudson, so there was no reason to dredge them up. But in the politics of 25 years ago, it was REALLY important to accuse GE of contaminating the . . . solar system. So, to prevent what New York State's Communist pressure groups such as NYPIRG claimed was a health risk, the EPA eventually forced GE to dredge the river at great expense, to dig up this historic site—and to cause what they say is a health risk.

The consistency in the actions taken here does not appear to be avoiding risks to anyone's health. That would imply that the real priority is something else. Any guesses as to what it might be?

[autumnraine]

Every archealogical dig in the world is now trash according to the EPA?

This is insanity!

[StormEye]

"The EPA is getting as bad as the taliban."

The EPA long ago outlived any useful purpose it may have had.
Now it's purpose is to be an anti business, anti American impediment to economic and scientific progress.

[Hacklehead]

The EPA is more toxic than any PCB.

[ZGuy]

Doesn’t Obama have some measurable PCBs in his body too? Just askin’

[tacticalogic]

Can we keep the artifacts, and dump the EPA in a landfill?