The overhauled approach comes a year after GE pitched a deeply unpopular proposal that relied heavily on trucking at a meeting in Lee. The plan presented at the thinly attended Taconic High School auditorium gathering Wednesday night reflected the fierce criticism leveled at the company that dumped PCBs in the county’s main waterway throughout the 20th century by Berkshire residents in 2023.
“GE has performed a thorough evaluation of the various modes of transportation, and we selected an approach that maximizes the use of hydraulic transport. 79% of the project material from the rest of river will be transported hydraulically without the use of trucks. That's an increase from the prior plan of about 57%. Our approach maximizes the use of rail transport for both onsite and offsite disposal. 17% of the project materials will be transported by rail combined with truck," said Project Manager Matt Calacone. “We're minimizing the use of trucking alone, with only 4% of the project materials transported solely by truck. This approach results in the fewest local round trip truck miles for all the alternatives that we evaluated.”
Of the roughly million yards of material GE expects to remove from the Housatonic, 100,000 will be taken away for offsite disposal.
Responding to local demands that GE prioritize rail over trucking, Calacone said GE had chosen the fourth of four potential scenarios for the plan to bring back to the table.
“It is important to note that scenario four does rely heavily on the use of the railroad and the railroad schedules, and while we have commitments from them, if their schedules can't meet the production rates or removal volumes from the project we will need to supplement the rail truck method with trucking,” he added.
The controversial cleanup – brokered by the EPA between GE and communities along the Housatonic River behind closed doors – includes the creation of a new upland disposal facility or UDF in Lee.
It is expected to continue until 2038 and is divided into discrete reaches.
Reach 5A is where the first five years of the project will take place. Using a map, Calacone broke down which roads would be utilized for the cleanup during that portion of the work in and around the Lenox, Lee, and Pittsfield area.
“We'll use East New Lenox Road, New Lenox Road, a portion of Route 20, Holmes Road, and then ultimately Utility Drive," he said. "Once loaded onto a rail car at Utility Drive, the rail car will be moved down to Woods Pond. Once it's at the Woods Pond rail spur, it still needs to get to the UDF. Here are the routes that will take to get from Woods Pond to the UDF: The primary route proposed in the plan is to use Willow Creek Road, Crystal Street, across Schweitzer Bridge onto Valley Street, which is partially privately owned, and then onto Woodland Road. There is a secondary route that's proposed from Willow Creek Road down Crystal Street over the Mill Street bridge onto Willow Hill Road and coming in from the south to get to the UDF.”
Reach 6, which will begin three to five years after the project starts, will focus on Woods Pond itself. The body of water is also contaminated with PCBs, and sits adjacent to the new landfill.
“The great majority of the material for Woods Pond is going to be hydraulically dredged," said Calacone. "That means it will be pumped from Woods Pond directly to the UDF. There is a small amount of material, one truck load of soil that needs to go to the UDF, that's not sediment, and that'll be driven there. And then for material from Woods Pond that needs to go off site, it will use those same routes. It will be at the UDF, and then it'll reuse the reverse route back down Woodland Road, Valley Street over Schweitzer Bridge to Crystal Street over to the Woods Pond rail spur.”
Reaches 5B and 5C will begin at least six years after the cleanup begins.
“Most of the material from these reaches is for on-site disposal, meaning it's going to the UDF, about 85% from these reaches. It's mostly sediment from reach 5C," said Calacone. "That will be hydraulically pumped to the UDF. Soil, however, that can't be hydraulically pumped from 5C and 5B that needs on-site disposal will have to be driven to the UDF using a portion of East Street, New Lenox Road, Roaring Brook Road, and then ultimately on to Woodland Road and the UDF. Material for offsite disposal is similar to reach 6. If it's at the UDF, it will follow the reverse and get over to Woods Pond spur, or it could be driven directly to Woods Pond spur using these routes over the Schweitzer Bridge route.”
Reaches 7B, 7C, and 7E start work over a decade into the project. The material removed from the first two sites will be disposed of in the UDF, which GE proposes will contain around 960,000 yards of less dangerous toxic waste.
“Material from reach 7E, we're now down at Willow Mill Dam," explained Calacone. "That's also for onsite disposal. There's a small volume of material here that will need to be trucked. The routes used will be Route 102, Route 7 out to Route 20, onto Walker Street, then to Mill Street, Willow Hill and Woodland Road.”
The final phases of the project will also take place more than ten years into the process.
“Sediment from 7G and reach 8 will be hydraulically transported to the Rising Pond loading area where it will be dewatered," Calacone said. "Sediment from reach 7G, a small amount, will also need to be transported to the Rising Pond loading area using these roads because it can't be hydraulically pumped: Glendale middle road out to Route 183, down to Front Street and Van Deusenville Road. Once material is at the Rising Pond rail loading area, it can be transported up to Woods Pond and follow the routes that we talked about to get to the UDF.”
Calacone says the plan accounts for quality-of-life concerns from Berkshire residents.
“The transport and material will be performed by trained and licensed haulers familiar with how to respond to emergencies," he said. "The trucks and rail containers will be certified inspected. They'll be lined and covered, and they'll undergo safety checks and appropriate labeling. We're going to implement traffic control [Best Management Practices] by using additional signage or flaggers as needed, and we'll be implementing measures to mitigate traffic roadway infrastructure impacts, meaning we're going to evaluate the roads that are to be used for reconditioning or upgrading, and we're also going to monitor those roads before, during, and after the remediation, to assess any impacts to the roads. Also, all the work will be conducted under EPA oversight.”
Public comment on GE’s revised cleanup plan is open until January 15th and is subject to EPA approval.
