Posted on January 27, 2025
For 30 years ending in 1977, GE dumped more than 1 million pounds of polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, into the Hudson River, turning a 200-mile stretch into a superfund site. The EPA ordered GE to dredge a section of the upper Hudson as a result, and ever since GE wrapped that project in 2015, the agency has been monitoring the river to gauge its results.
But in its third five-year review, the EPA said it still doesn’t have enough data to determine whether or not the dredging was effective, or “protective,” of the environment. The report has angered a coalition of environmental groups under the moniker “Friends of a Clean Hudson,” including Scenic Hudson.
“For an organization that prides itself on science and the rule of law, that they continue to refuse to acknowledge their own data…it’s an incredible array of emotion, but ultimately condemnation,” says Peter Lopez, Scenic Hudson’s executive director of policy, advocacy and science.
PCBs have been linked to cancer, reproductive issues, and other health concerns. In its review, the EPA said it needs eight years of data on fish and sediment from the Hudson before it can determine whether or not GE’s remedy was protective. It says it gathered an eighth year of data in late 2024, and will add an addendum to its report no later than 2027.
Lopez, a former Region 2 administrator for the EPA, says his former colleagues have enough data to know PCB levels aren’t going down enough. Friends of a Clean Hudson released its own report using EPA data in 2023, and found levels had essentially stalled after the dredging.
“It’s clear in very demonstrable terms that the reduction of PCB is not occurring,” he says. “And in some cases, some of the levels have increased.”
Lopez says Friends of a Clean Hudson and the EPA are working with the same data, but they’re butting heads on its interpretation. Lopez says the EPA appears to be holding out hope that PCB levels can drop to the standards set in the original Record of Decision that ordered the dredging. But that decision also had interim goals, which Lopez says the project has either blown by or is on track to miss.
When he signed off on the EPA’s second five-year review in 2019, Lopez recommended gathering eight years of fish and sediment data to fully understand the situation. But he says the data since shows those interim targets aren’t being met, and it’s not worth waiting to tell GE to go back to the drawing board.
“It’s really disingenuous to say that another year or so of data collection is going to change the trajectory. It’s not,” he says.
In statements, General Electric has maintained that its dredging project “removed the vast majority of PCBs from the Upper Hudson, led to broad declines in PCB levels, and is on track to deliver further improvements.”
Drew Gamils, an attorney at Riverkeeper, says she’s frustrated but not surprised by the third five-year review — the EPA released a draft of its report over the summer that essentially said the same thing.
Going forward, she says Riverkeeper hopes to be included on the EPA’s technical team analyzing data for the addendum. But it also plans to do its own updated analysis, and it’s pushing the EPA to order cleanups on other sections of the superfund site, including the floodplains on each side of the upper Hudson dredging project, and the lower Hudson.
“There is a lot of work to be done. This is a milestone for EPA — a frustrating one, because it hasn’t led to anything else, really. So I don’t know how much of a milestone it really is,” she adds. “But there is a lot to do form this point on.”
Gamils says swimming in the river is still safe for residents, at least when it comes to PCBs. PCBs build up in the body primarily from eating contaminated fish. Currently, it’s largely recommended to avoid eating fish or crabs from the Hudson River, except in certain areas and in limited amounts.
