Environmental organization Scenic Hudson announced this week it is bringing on board a well-known public official to serve as Executive Director of Policy, Advocacy and Science.
Pete Lopez, a former Republican New York State Assemblyman and EPA Regional Administrator in the Trump administration, most recently served as Special Assistant for Climate and Renewable Energy for the New York State Department of Agriculture and Markets.
Lopez will begin his new job with Scenic Hudson on March 14th, a time the organization’s president Ned Sullivan calls the “right moment.”
Lopez tells WAMC he is honored to join Scenic Hudson.
Pete Lopez:
I've been a long standing admirer of the capacity of Scenic Hudson to come together in collaborative fashion to and multidisciplinary fashion, to address critical pressing issues and to provide leadership and counsel and support to the people and communities in the Hudson Valley. And again, I've been particularly thrilled to have been able to meet Ned, see him and his team in action and, and see this thoughtful, engaged cadre of professionals do incredible work. So, to me, I'm excited, I'm very honored that they would consider me and I'm even more honored to be to be added to the team.
During Lopez’s tenure as EPA Region 2 Administrator, the EPA issued a Certificate of Completion for General Electric’s PCB cleanup of the Hudson River.
Scenic Hudson was among the groups opposing the declaration, and undertook its own sampling to dispute EPA’s findings.
On a call with Lopez and Sullivan, WAMC asked Sullivan about his organization’s dispute with EPA, and his work with Lopez at the time.
Ned Sullivan:
Scenic Hudson and I personally have been engaged in advocating for a clean Hudson to address the issue of General Electric's PCB contamination of the river for over 30 years. And we were very actively pushing EPA to make two decisions. One was, we hoped that EPA would deny GE a certificate of completion for the work that had done in the upper Hudson. And the second was, we wanted EPA to acknowledge that the cleanup had not achieved the goals of the remedial plan, the cleanup plan that EPA and GE had agreed to.
So, in the decisions that EPA made under Pete's leadership, as EPA Regional Administrator, we we got half a loaf, I would say. We were disappointed with the decision about certificate of completion. EPA did not agree with New York State and Scenic Hudson that that should be withheld. But they did make the determination that the cleanup goals had not been met, or that the data could not confirm that the goals of the cleanup had had been met in fish. Translating that, the fish were still too contaminated with PCBs to be edible. And so we felt and still feel very strongly that additional cleanup is necessary.
We're waiting for new data and that we will be looking at to determine whether we were right then whether New York State was right then, and New York State did sue EPA over this. Their lawsuit was rejected, they did not prevail in that. But the issue stands that we wanted more cleanup, we felt that the data to support that this cleanup had met the goals. And underneath leadership, EPA agreed on that front. So we felt we got half a loaf, and we're gonna keep working for more cleanup. And now Pete's joining our team in that index slot.
Lopez provided a lengthy description of his work at the time EPA was considering issuing the Certificate of Completion, saying it was Scenic Hudson’s advocacy and action by the State of New York that shaped the terms of the decision – to require further dredging by GE if determined necessary, as sampling continues.
Pete Lopez:
The first piece I’ll address is back to the issue of protectiveness. So under the Superfund Act, any remedy needs to be proven to be protective of public health and the environment. And in this instance, Ned rightly asserted, and I give him and his team credit. Ned knocked on the door many times and brought data to the agency, which provided sampling, additional samples that have been taken. I believe with DEC support, DEC sampling, 4000 additional sample somewhere in that magnitude. And and so folks, you really need to look at this. And you need to look at your data set and look at this data. And we, DEC and Scenic Hudson feel that there are issues here. So what I did was I worked with the existing team, and mind you that my engagement with EPA was not part of a career engagement on this issue, but we did have any number of staff who had been engaged their whole careers on this issue.
Within EPA, there was a belief that that the remedy would be protective. And again, I say they went from their sampling. They had their sample set and they were looking at data by, not to get too far into the weeds, but they were they were taking sediment samples and averaging by what's called an operational unit. And Ned came back and said, ‘You really need to look, you need to plot the data points and look at it at data points and not average it.’ Because you lose a lot when you average information. Any one of us can understand that: you average something, you lose a lot of richness and meaning with the data.
So I was able to convene and work with Basil Seggos and with Ned’s support, bring the two agencies together, EPA and DEC, in particular, to work through the datasets, the two agencies look for any discrepancies with methodology. And then force – well not force – but arrive in an outcome where EPA staff. Career staff acknowledged that there were areas within the river that were not performing as they thought they should. And they deem them areas of interest. They didn't call them hotspots, but that's their terminology, not mine. And because of that, the career staff, the Superfund division said because of this data, and our look at this, not only by the data points, but also by river reach, which is more of a natural systems-based way of looking at it, we feel that we cannot say that, that the remedy is protective. We need to keep collecting fish data.
And to be honest, I was pleased to have that occur because it was not heading in that direction. And I, again, Ned was very persuasive. And the data was very, very rich. And we made that happen. And so I'm very pleased that that occurred. And that leaves the door open for further conversation because as the fish data is collected, if the remedy, as we're dredging, is not proven to be protective, there is an ability to for EPA to be prevailed on to reopen its assessment and to force GE to go back into the river and do more.
And so I'll step into the second piece. So back to the certificate of completion of the remedial action. Here's where the delineation between science and the rule of law occurs. So the first I spoke about was science and data driven. The second was back to my being schooled by counsel both at the national and regional level about the rule of law. And the way they surmised it, the way they summarized it was that the that the Certification of Completion of the Remedial Action, and not to trivialize it, but the way they based it's best explained it was that it was a series of boxes to check. EPA laid out a scope of work, which was, which was supported in the courts and became the basis for GE’s engagement under EPA supervision. They had a list of things to do. And so EPA’s responsibility was to follow that list and make sure that they completed the list to the extent that EPA had requested them. Counsel came back to me program staff, came back to the headquarters came back to me and everyone said, ‘Pete, they've done what's been asked to them, and if you deny this, GE will sue and they will win,’ based on again that simplified analysis I just gave you.
And so, in that regard, I had no other decision, but to no other course of action, but to to to provide the certification of completion of the remedial action. However, that certification can become null, void if the data shows that the remedies not moving forward. So even though they completed a scope of work, that work can come back and be revisited.
And so that's, that's what I'm particularly gratified about is that we've left the door open. Again, with Scenic Hudson leadership and working with our state partners. The door is open for everyone to see whether the river is recovering and if it's not. We prevail on EPA and possibly go back in.
Former New York State Assemblyman and EPA Regional Administrator Pete Lopez speaking with WAMC on Friday. Lopez is joining environmental group Scenic Hudson as its next Executive Director of Policy, Advocacy and Science.