Cleaning Up a Toxic Mess from the Hudson River

- In the 1980s, EPA
designated a 200 mile stretch

of the Hudson River as
the nation's largest

Superfund hazardous waste site.

Superfund is the nation's
environmental law that deals

with the cleanup of toxic
hazardous contamination

from historic pollution.

The Hudson River is one

of the largest Superfund
sites in the country,

and one of the most important
because of the thousands

and millions of people that are affected

by potential exposure to PCBs
from fish in the Hudson River,

PCBs are a highly toxic chemical.

They've been identified
by EPA as a probable cause

of cancer in humans,

and they've also been
linked to illnesses such

as thyroid disease, immune disorders,

reproductive disorders, low IQ, and,

and other adverse health
effects on humans.

General Electric dumped 1.3 million pounds

of PCBs into the Hudson River from 1947

through the 1970s when PCBs
were banned by Congress.

- The fishing from,
from Troy all the way up

to here in Fort Edward.

The health department
has, has regulated saying

that you cannot keep the fish.

You can catch 'em and you can release 'em,

but you can't keep the fish,

nor can you eat any of
the fish that you have due

to the PCB contamination.

Right now. One of the
objectives of the dredging is

to get those fish levels down to the point

where you can start eating the fish again.

In fact, that really is the
main source of risk exposure

that we, we have on the project,

and that's what the
project was designed to do,

is reduce the levels in the fish.

- NRDC has been involved
since the 1970s in working

towards this cleanup.

It's now underway.

We've used all the tools in
our toolbox from litigation

to citizen advocacy to hard science.

- EPA oversees the
general electric company

who is actually doing the, the
dredging work in the river.

So our role is to be there,
inspect the work, make sure

that it's going according to
the plants and specifications,

and that they're actually
meeting the, the standards,

engineering standards that
were set for the project.

GEs role is to actually implement the,

the work itself to do the project.

They designed it. We reviewed
and approved the design,

and they now have their
contractors actually doing

the physical work in the field.

- The law in the US is polluter pays.

That means GE made a mess

and they're responsible to clean it up.

But for decades, GE spent tens of billions

of dollars on lawyers,
lobbyists, scientists, pr people

to convince the public,
seeking to convince the public

that a cleanup would
only make things worse.

- Gee tried to make the argument that,

that you would get sufficient
resus suspension to make it,

to negate some of the, the
positive aspects of the work.

But what we're finding is that
we, we don't see that level

of Resus suspension that becomes an issue.

The second phase of the project,
which is what we're in now,

contains a lot of changes in
the approach that we're taking,

and we find the Resus suspension
numbers are much lower than

they were in the first phase,
which was done in 2009.

- Initially, GE argued the PCBs weren't

harmful to people at all.

Then GE argued that the
river was cleaning itself.

When the data clearly
showed this wasn't true,

GE shifted ground

and argued that an attempt

to clean up the river would
only make things worse

by spreading around the contamination,

by bringing independent science to bear.

And RDC was able to refute

and show the errors of those assertions.

NRDC was able to support
in an informed way,

a strong comprehensive cleanup,

which ultimately the
government has required in this

case and is now underway.

- Phase one of the
project was the first year

of the project, and the
purpose of that was to look at

the design itself, see how
the equipment is operating,

are we getting the
production that we needed?

Are we meeting the engineering standards

that was associated with the design?

And then after phase one,
we had a peer review panel

that was put together to
take a look at the data we

collected so

that we can make adjustments
necessary for phase two.

And phase two is the remainder
of the entire project.

We expect that to take anywhere from five

to seven years to complete.

As far as the dredging,
what we do is we identify

where the hotspots are, that's

where the PCBs are the
the most concentrated,

and the dredging contractor
is, is told where to do

that and what depth.

He then removes that.

We go back and we re-sample it

and see if, if it is all gone.

If it isn't, we go back one more time

and they're only allowed to do that twice.

And from there we
backfill it if it's clean

or we put a cap, which
basically just covers it

and holds it in place so

that it's not coming back
into the environment,

we will be dredging through
the next five to seven seasons.

And of course, the dredge season
is coincident with the time

that the Champlain canal is
open since we need the Champlain

canal as part of the work.

So that means that our, our year

that we can actually dredge
goes from roughly the 1st of May

till the end of October.

So we're working 24 hours a
day, six days a week in order

to make up for time that we
don't have access to the canal.

Thanks, Larry. How you doing?

- Boom.
- That's unloading the barge

and it'll either put it in a,

a directly into a truck if it's dry enough

or put it through the, the
size separation system.

The trauma system. What he's
doing now is he's loading

up a hopper.

Underneath that hopper
is a wobbler system,

and what that does is it processes the,

the material and anything four inches

or larger is kicked out, and
that's taken away separately.

And the rest then goes up into the trauma.

The trauma is the blue and
yellow piece of equipment.

You can see that rotating inside.

That's a, it's just a, a cylinder

that has five eighth inch diameter holes.

So anything smaller than
five ace drops through it.

Anything larger than five ace goes

to the conveyor that's behind it.

And all of that material
goes out on the conveyors

and is taken by, by truck
up to the storage area

where it's then loaded onto rail carts.

The sludge is then pumped up to the, up

to the filter presses.

We have 12 filter presses

and that squeezes the water
out of the, the slurry

water goes to the treatment facility

and the slurry gets staged
for loading onto the rail.

Now, bucket he's using
is a five yard bucket

with a level cut, so he
can actually get right down

to the bottom of the barge and,

and do a good, good cleanup on the barge.

Once, once we're done with the dredging

the following season, we
come back in, in the spring

and do habitat replanting.

What we do is we actually
replant a portion of the area

that was dredged so that
that becomes seed plants

to expand that weed bed again.

That, that we removed during the dredging.

The reason we put the plants back is

to reestablish the ecosystem

that was there before the dredging.

I mean, this is, this is
the start of the food chain.

The, the plants provide
cover for the fish to spawn.

They provide food stock for the fish

and other aquatic animals.

So it's, it's important
to make sure that we get,

get the habitat reestablished

to give it a a boost, if you will.

It will come back on its own,

but this way it comes back much quicker.

- The start of phase two

of the cleanup in 2011 marks the beginning

of the end of a long saga.

It brings us closer

to the day when the Hudson
River will be restored,

when fish will be safe to eat,

when communities along
the river will be able

to enjoy its bounty, we'll
be able to enjoy recreation,

commerce in safety

and health without fear of

poison and pollution.

From the legacy of PCBs,
there's still a lot

of hard work left to get the job done.

So it's important to
remember where we've been

and the challenges that still lie ahead.

Continued vigilance by EPA

and by the public will
be crucial to ensure

that General Electric completes the job

and completes it right.