The Dredge

On October 7, 2009 the Environmental Studies department at Skidmore College provided a trip and tour of GE’s Hudson River Dredging Project in Fort Edwards, NY, which is concluding phase one of the dredging project this Fall. We were met by Mark Beehan, a GE spokesman, who knowledgably explained the project and answered our questions. The following is some of the information from our experience.In the 1940s, GE used polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) as an insulating fluid in electrical capacitors manufactured at plants along the Hudson River and legally discharged these PCBs into the River until GE discontinued its use of PCBs in 1977 when the federal government banned them after evidence that they build up in the environment and can cause negative health effects. PCBs were originally hailed as a “miracle chemical” due to their stability, low flammability, and trait of a good insulator. Because of these properties, PCB effects are still being dealt with today. PCBs are stable and water-insoluble meaning they are very hard to break down and will remain in the environment for years. Also, PCBs readily penetrate skin creating human health effects, such as skin conditions and rashes that the EPA has determined to probably be carcinogenic to humans since PCBs affect the liver. Animal populations are also effected mainly through liver damage, which in some cases has caused death.

In the 1980s, the EPA assessed the Hudson River and rejected dredging the Upper Hudson until the EPA began a reevaluation of the Hudson River conditions leading its decision to dredge the river in 2002. The dredging project has two phases: phase one, the current phase, removes approximately 265,000 cubic yards of sediment from 94 acres of river bottom and phase two, planned to begin in 2011, will encompass the remaining years of dredging. GE is striving for 0.25 parts per million goal for PCB levels in the Hudson when residential requirements are 1 part per million. GE is solely responsible for financing this PCB dredging project. GE has 500 workers on this project, half of which are local. Years ago, the EPA estimated the total cost of this project to be $750 million, however to date, GE has spent $629 million and phase one has yet to be concluded. For the enormous amount of time and capital already spent on this project, GE decided to challenge the constitutionality of the Superfund Law with Laurence Tribe, one of the foremost Supreme Court practitioners, as their lawyer.

A Barge- 35 feet wide and 195 feet long

In Fort Edwards, GE uses up to 11 mechanical dredges with clamshell buckets to extract the sediment from the river. The sediments is transported into a barge that carries the dredged sediment to the processing and transportation facility 2 miles away along the Champlain Canal. During peak operations, barges may make a total of 20 one-way trips through Lock 7 each day so GE widened the Champlain Canal by 60 feet so other boats could pass by the barges. The dredged sediments are unloaded at the Champlain Canal to be treated in the processing and transportation facility. The water is treated in an on-site water treatment plant, but the “filter cake,” the PCBs and materials left behind when the water is extracted, is sent by train to a landfill in Texas. More specifically, 450 railcars of this material are sent to Waste Control Specialists (WCS) in Andrews, Texas a week.