A General Electric plant in Pittsfield dumped toxic PCBs into the Housatonic River throughout the 20th century. While the waterway immediately downstream of the facility was remediated over 20 years ago, it remains contaminated to the south as it runs through Berkshire County, Connecticut, and eventually to the Long Island Sound. At the Herberg Middle School meeting, EPA Project Manager Dean Tagliaferro offered a general assessment of how the agency views the current risks posed by the tainted river today.
“It's perfectly safe to do the fishing, just eating the fish is a health risk," he said. "We don't recommend that. Wading in the river, swimming in the river is fine. If you live near the river, you don't have to worry about the PCBs in the air. They do volatilize [at a] very, very low level, certainly, as is. Those are all reviewed. Living near the floodplains, not a risk. So as far as people's risk, again, it's eating the fish and continued contact to the high-level contaminated soil.”
Tagliaferro says the two-mile segment of the river in Pittsfield that’s already been remediated is a success story.
“It's called parts per million," he explained. "That's how you measure the PCBs. One- It's pretty much what it says, one part PCB per million parts of soil or sediment, if that works for you. 10,000 parts per million, for frame of reference, would be 1%. 1% of that would be PCBs. So even though we say high levels, like 100, it's like .001%. It doesn't mean it's good for you, but- Just trying some scale. But the important thing here is not so much the number, but where we started was in the 60s to the 100s in the sediment. Post remediation, every five years we sampled, and 20 years later, they're all much less than one. Greater than 99% reduction in PCBs. That's a good measure. To me, that shows you accomplished something. That's a much better, healthier river.”
The costly, lengthy, and locally divisive plan to address the rest of the river brokered by the EPA and announced in early 2020 was agreed to behind closed doors by municipal leaders and GE. Activists decry the proposal as undemocratic and insufficient, and vociferously oppose the new landfill it will create in Lee. Most recently, public fury has been directed at GE’s plan to rely more on trucks than rail to remove toxic waste taken from the river out of Berkshire County. According to the EPA, there is no way to totally remove trucks from the equation.
“You need trucks for this operation. You cannot hydraulically pump into rail cars sitting on a rail line. The reason that the rail spurs need to be properly located is that they need to be located near the track and you need to have space. It's not so much disturbing sensitive habitat. If that's needed, that'll be done. You can't hydraulically pump floodplain from the east side of the river to a rail car on the west side of the river. That's not physically possible," said Tagliaferro. “To say that you can remove 100,000 cubic yards of material, both sides of the river, the river itself with a railroad on one side of the river that's active without using a truck- Can't happen.”
Tagliaferro said GE would explore how to most efficiently hydraulically pump materials out of the river.
“They will evaluate it to see if they can get it from behind Columbia Mill Dam, from Eagle Mill Dam, maybe they can hydraulically pump that up to the UDF and take the trucks off the road there," he said. "Maybe there's a way to put a rail station where Berkshire Scenic Rail is, but then you've got to get it from there to the landfill. That's why the intermodal boxes are a good option, you don't have to triple handle it. If it's feasible and appropriate than GE will do it. But it's not the solution to no disruption, no trucking, no backfilling, no noise, no lights.”
GE is expected to spend $600 million and 13 years on the cleanup. The Pittsfield portion will be entirely in the city’s southeastern Ward 4. Trucks carrying toxic waste out of the river from the Southern Berkshires will likely be routed through Pittsfield as they leave the county.
“One of the things that Citi bargained for and achieved, there's several discrete neighborhoods, three discrete neighborhoods, I'll call it, in this stretch- Not that the others aren't neighborhoods, but they're smaller streets that go down, a lot of them right off Pomeroy here," said Tagliaferro. "There's the Polo Grounds, if I can still use that phrase, the horse streets, and then Joseph Drive neighborhood. So, GE cannot run contaminated material down those roads, that that's a flat-out prohibition. They can use it maybe for surveyors to come down, engineers to come down, but no contaminated material is going to go down those roads.”
You can listen to the full EPA presentation and public comment here:
