Several Berkshire, Massachusetts County communities are banding together, figuring there's strength in numbers when it comes seeking financial compensation from General Electric during the PCB cleanup of the Housatonic River.
Lenox last week joined Lee, Stockbridge, Great Barrington and Sheffield to join the effort, and Pittsfield is expected to join Tuesday.
Nathaniel Karns, executive director of the Berkshire Regional Planning Commission, tells The Berkshire Eagle that together the communities can hire a law firm to negotiate with GE.
Karns says the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency' s delayed initial proposal to remove PCB contamination along a 10-mile stretch of the Housatonic is likely to be challenged by GE and may wind up in court.
PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, are probable cancer-causing chemicals that GE used at its former power transformer plant in Pittsfield.
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