Posted on March 18, 2021
State officials filed the lawsuit in 2019 after the EPA said GE had finished the job it was required to undertake.
HUDSON VALLEY, NY — U.S. District Court Judge David Hurd has dismissed New York State’s lawsuit against the federal Environmental Protection Agency over the GE project to dredge PCBs from the bottom of the Hudson River.
State environmental officials are now reviewing the court’s ruling and considering an appeal.
The suit was filed in 2019, after the EPA said GE had finished the job it was required to undertake. Critics disagreed. SEE: EPA Decision On Hudson Cleanup Draws Instant Ire.
Some 200 miles of the Hudson River — from Hudson Falls to The Battery — are designated as a Superfund site. GE had dumped a million pounds of polychlorinated biphenyls into the river at its plants in Hudson Falls and Fort Edward over many years.
Under orders from the EPA, between 2009-15, the company dredged up 310,000 pounds of PCBs from the bottom of the river near Albany. Since 2016, state environmental officials have been challenging the cleanup as inadequate.
In 2018, the Department of Environmental Conservation released a study showing the cleanup of PCBs in the upper Hudson River was incomplete and not protective of public health and the environment. At that time, state officials pointed out PCB levels in fish were still above EPA’s own acceptable risk range.
