NYT - Japanese Government Says Decommissioning Fukushima Reactors Will Take 40 Years

[OKIsItJustMe]

12. How soon did you want work to begin?

A case in point — The GE cleanup of the Hudson.

http://www.ens-newswire.com/ens/apr2002/2002-04-11-07.html

[font face=Times, Serif][font size=5]General Electric Offers Hudson River Settlement[/font]

[font size=3]ALBANY, New York, April 11, 2002 (ENS) - General Electric (GE) has offered to devise and execute a cleanup plan for the upper Hudson River, hoping to avoid additional lawsuits over the polluted sediments for which the company is blamed.

After battling for two decades to avoid a half billion dollar cleanup project, GE said Tuesday it would begin testing for PCB hotspots in the Hudson this summer, and contract with environmental specialists to dredge contaminated sediments from the river. The company said it would pay for the dredging and reimburse the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for $37 million in previous government expenditures.

GE filed what it called a "good faith offer" with the EPA, volunteering to design a dredging plan to remove sediments laden with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). About 1.3 million pounds of PCBs were deposited by two GE plants that manufactured electric capacitors in Fort Edward and Hudson Falls, New York.

Use of PCBs in capacitor insulation was banned in 1977, but prior to that time, GE had been dumping the chemical for more than 35 years. The Hudson River was declared a Superfund site in 1983.

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http://www.nrdc.org/water/pollution/hhudson.asp

[font face=Times, Serif][font size=5]Historic Hudson River Cleanup to Begin After Years of Delay, But Will GE Finish the Job?[/font]
[font size=4]Under the EPA's unusual agreement with General Electric, the company could escape full responsibility for cleaning up the toxic mess it made in the Hudson River.[/font]

[font size=3]After 30 years of struggle, it seemed that the concerns of local people had finally triumphed over corporate interests in one of the signature battles of the modern environmental movement -- the fight to remove toxic PCBs from New York's Hudson River. In 2002 a landmark EPA decision spurred General Electric, the company that had dumped as many as 1.3 million pounds of cancer-causing PCBs into the Hudson, to create a plan to remove its toxic mess from the river. This historic victory is now tinged with uncertainty, as the EPA and GE have reached a settlement that allows the company to back out after removing only 10 percent of the contaminated sediment targeted for removal, leaving the remainder of the cleanup in doubt.

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From 1947 to 1977, GE dumped as many as 1.3 million pounds of PCBs into the Hudson, turning a 197-mile stretch of the river into the nation's largest Superfund site. Even today, PCBs still leak into the river from GE's Hudson Falls plant. Under Superfund law, polluters are responsible for cleaning up the messes they make. Yet for years, GE fought the development of a cleanup plan with every tool it could buy, lobbying Congress, attacking the Superfund law in court, and launching a media blitz to spread disinformation about the usefulness of the cleanup, claiming that dredging the river would actually stir up PCBs.

But advocates for the Hudson River stood firm, exposing the scientific holes in GE's claims; the public relations campaign failed to sway residents of the valley, and GE's lobbying efforts failed to move the EPA. The 2002 decision, which spurred GE to design a plan to remove 800 Olympic swimming pools worth of toxic muck from the river, was a landmark victory for the environment, and a blow to corporate polluters hoping to evade their cleanup responsibilities.

GE, however, has been dragging its feet on carrying out the cleanup. Dredging was slated to begin in 2005, but GE has repeatedly requested delays, pushing the start back to 2009. And in October of 2005, the EPA changed tack, rewarding GE's foot-dragging by striking a backroom deal that allowed GE to commit only to completing the first phase of cleanup -- a mere 10 percent of the job. Environmental advocates and government scientists expressed concerns that the agreement would not even ensure adequate performance of that initial phase of the cleanup. Under the Freedom of Information Act, NRDC obtained records spelling out the detailed bases for these scientists' concerns, and filed suit against the EPA and the Department of Justice to compel them to release additional records they had refused to provide.

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http://yosemite.epa.gov/opa/admpress.nsf/d10ed0d99d826b068525735900400c2a/45c36859456cb840852578ab005890a0!OpenDocument

[font face=Times, Serif][font size=5]EPA Marks the Startup of the Final Phase of Hudson River PCB Dredging; 500 Jobs Created By This Cleanup Project[/font]

Release Date: 06/10/2011
Contact Information: Larisa Romanowski, [phone], cell phone [phone]; [e-mail]

[font size=3](Fort Edward, NY) EPA Regional Administrator Judith A. Enck was joined today in Fort Edward, New York by Representative Maurice Hinchey, Representative Paul Tonko and New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Joseph Martens to mark the start of the second and final phase of the Hudson River cleanup that began on June 6, 2011. During this phase of dredging, General Electric will remove about 2.4 million cubic yards of sediment from a forty-mile section of the Upper Hudson River between Fort Edward and Troy, NY that is contaminated by polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). PCBs are potentially cancer-causing in people and build up in the fat of fish and animals, increasing in concentration as they move up the food chain. The primary risk to humans is due to the accumulation of PCBs in the body from eating contaminated fish.

“This week, we started the final course of the long awaited cleanup of a treasured and historic river. EPA is grateful for the work and cooperation provided by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and the New York State Attorney General’s office. This state and federal partnership is responsible for past progress and we look forward to working with the state and others to remove PCBs from Hudson River,” said Judith A. Enck, EPA Regional Administrator. “EPA looks forward to returning the Hudson River to health so that is can be fully utilized by the people up and down the Hudson Valley.”

“Starting phase two of the Hudson River clean-up project is an important milestone to restore the health of the Hudson River,” New York State Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Joe Martens said. “This project is an important example of how collaboration among government agencies can benefit the people they serve and the area in which they live and work. GE’s commitment to completing Phase 2 will ensure the project continues to progress. DEC looks forward to continuing this productive partnership with the EPA and GE.”

During the current dredging season, which runs to November 2011, mechanical dredges will remove buckets of PCB-contaminated sediment from a 1.5 mile stretch of river, south of the town of Fort Edward. Four dredges will work 24 hours a day, six days a week to remove approximately 350,000 cubic yards of PCB-contaminated sediment from 100 acres of river bottom. Dredging will begin in the western channel of Roger’s Island and move south in the main stem of the river.

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