News

Jul 31, 2023

Hudson River: Scenic Hudson says General Electric owes billions

Three years ago this week, the Environmental Protection Agency announced it

Three years ago this week, the Environmental Protection Agency announced it would not require General Electric to continue dredging toxic PCBs from the Hudson River, and certified that the company "properly performed" the restoration steps with which it was tasked.

Amid widespread criticism from environmental groups and government leaders, then-EPA Regional Administrator Pete Lopez asserted the certification does not "let GE off the hook," promising studies in the coming decades will fully evaluate if those steps were effective in remedying the harm the company caused.

Scenic Hudson is attempting to reopen that conversation by assessing GE a whopping – although theoretic – bill for at least $22.1 billion.

2021: NY considering 'all legal options' after EPA lawsuit dismissed

2019: EPA will not yet require GE to continue cleaning Hudson River

Timeline: How GE's Hudson River PCB cleanup began

The environmental advocacy agency on Tuesday asserted "damages for injuries to natural resources held in trust for the public" may be claimed in a Natural Resource Damage Assessment, a process established under the 42-year-old Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act.

According to the EPA's website, the process "identifies additional actions, beyond the response needed, to address injuries to natural resources."

No such formal claims – which must be made by Natural Resource Damage Assessment trustees – have been made.

But Scenic Hudson says its report released this week, in which three analyst companies were commissioned to study trustee reports and other data to arrive at an estimate, should be used as "a credible framework for assessing the damages GE could owe."

The study concluded damages to the Hudson's wildlife, drinking water and recreational fishing opportunities caused $11.4 billion in damages. It also concluded additional dredging that it believes should be required of GE would cost another $10.7 billion. And, any additional damage before or during that dredging process could be added to the bill.

"GE's contamination has caused 70 years of harm, that is expected to last another 50 years or more into the future," Dagmar Schmidt Etkin, one of the report's authors from Environmental Research Consulting, said in a statement from Scenic Hudson. "Hudson River Trustees have documented PCB pollution of drinking water, fishery closures and fish consumption restrictions, compromised river navigation in marinas and canals, and threats to the health of waterfowl and mammals."

GE issued a broad response to the study, in which it noted the EPA's conclusion the company satisfied its designated remediation steps was upheld in court amid legal challenges mounted by the state of New York.

"The government's natural resource assessment has not yet been completed," the response said. "We are proud of our contributions and will continue to work closely with local, state and federal agencies."

GE spent $1.7 billion dredging 310,000 pounds of PCBs from the bottom of the Hudson about 40 miles north of Albany, under a 2006 consent decree. EPA says that represents 72% of the PCBs in the 40-mile stretch of river that was considered the most polluted.

From 1947 to 1977, the company dumped into the river an estimated 1.3 million pounds of the chemical it had used to keep machinery from overheating.

PCBs are considered likely human carcinogens, according to the EPA. They are linked to other adverse health effects such as low birth weight, thyroid disease and immune system disorders. The biggest exposure to humans along the Hudson is eating contaminated fish.

In 2017, EPA officials announced that neither "the data, the science or the law" would allow the agency to compel GE to conduct more dredging.

They said the project, which ran from 2009 to 2015, had reduced PCB levels in fish, though it would still take 15 to 30 years to bring it down to a level at which they can be eaten safely.

EPA touts the cleanup as one of its "Superfund Success Stories," though in issuing the certificate to GE in 2019 it noted it would not determine how effective the restoration of the Hudson was "until more years of Hudson River fish tissue data are gathered."

Environmental groups have widely rejected the EPA's 2019 conclusions.

Scenic Hudson's report notes NRDA trustees for the Hudson River, which include the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the DEC, the National Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, "have documented injuries have occurred" in numerous released reports since 2002 "but have not provided their plans for injury quantification and damage assessment whereby dollar damages will be estimated and negotiated with the responsible party."

The analyst companies contributing to the report, Environmental Research Consulting, RPS Group and Greene Economic, looked at these reports and other studies when evaluating perceived injuries.

The trustees evaluated the depth of damages ranging from:

"Many low-income and immigrant populations in the Hudson Valley rely on the river to feed their families," Aaron Mair, director of the Forever Adirondacks Campaign, said in a statement. "The longer we delay PCB cleanup, the more we are harming our low-income Black, indigenous and people of color communities."

Each damaged area includes formulas and explanations for how estimates are reached. Interest payments are included to account for inflation and compounding problems over time. While most are complicated and, at times, theoretic, other takeaways in the report are more easily relatable:

"Water sampling has shown that exceedances of state and federal water quality standards have occurred through all parts of the river for every year sampled from 1975 to 2014."