Environmental Issues – July 2, 2008
AP reports that, after years of delays, the PCB dredging project on the upper Hudson River looks ready to get under way.
Said AP: “Workers hired by General Electric in Fort Edward are finishing a canal-side wharf for barges and a hangar-sized building to squeeze dry polluted river mud. A rail yard is being built with nearly seven miles of track for shipping out the waste.”
“The dewatering facility will treat tons of PCB-contaminated river mud beginning next spring. It will be the start of a six-year operation that will ultimately scrape away nearly 500 acres of river bottom north of Albany,” said the report.
The dredging project will get under way after three decades of plans, lawsuits, negotiations, delays and demonstrations.
The federal government signed a dredging order in 2002, but legal issues and negotiations pushed back the start date several times.