Lock 5 on the Hudson River just north of Schuylerville
General Electric is about to begin one of the largest environmental cleanups in the history of the United States. Beginning in May, GE is going to dredge the Hudson River in Fort Edward, New York to cleanup PCBs in the river bottom. Eventually, 40 miles of the river will be dredged from Hudson Falls south to Troy, NY. I live in Washington County, New York, just across the river from Schuylerville. I am 13 miles south of where the dredging will begin.
There are half a dozen “hot spots” where dredging will occur within a short distance of my house. They won’t be touched until Phase 2. The area around Fort Edward will be dredged this year in Phase 1. There will then be a review process of what was completed. Phase 2 dredging should continue in the spring of 2010. It could take 5 years before all of the dredging is completed.
It still amazes me that GE dumped the PCBs into the river in the first place. A lot of smart people work for GE. I read somewhere that the GE research center in Niskayuna, New York (near Schenectady), has more Phds. than anywhere else in the world. Someone at GE should have known that discharging this stuff into the Hudson River was a very bad idea, even in the 1940s. If not the 40s, than at least the 1960s. I don’t care if it was legal or illegal. I don’t care if they had a permit or they didn’t have a permit. It was stupid and irresponsible and they should have known better.
Common sense should tell you that you shouldn’t dump this stuff into the river. Now they have to spend millions of dollars to clean it up. It would have been much smarter to either say that we shouldn’t manufacture this stuff in the first place because it is too dangerous or we have to figure out a safe way to dispose of it before we start making it.
GE started dumping polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) into the Hudson River in the 1940s and continued to do so until 1977. I was trying to find out why GE eventually stopped dumping PCB’s in 1977 when I ran across this 2001 article by Charlie Cray called, Toxics on the Hudson: The Saga of GE, PCBs and the Hudson River. GE stopped discharging PCBs into the river because they were banned by federal law. The United States Congress banned the manufacture of PCB’s in 1976 when they passed the The Toxic Substances Control Act.
PCBs are bad for you. They are the reason that you can’t eat fish from the Hudson. You can catch fish in the Hudson, but you must release them right away.
The Environmental Protection Agency has an entire section of its website devoted to Hudson River PCBs.
GE has a website with all kinds of detailed information about the project, Hudsondredging.com
The Hudson River is beautiful in this area. It should be as clean as it looks. What do you think?
Tags: dredging, EPA, Fort Edward, Ft Edward, GE, General Electric, Hudson Falls, hudson river, PCB, PCBs, schuylerville, Washington County
General, New York State | John Tedder | 
April 20, 2009 1:12 pm | 
Comments (6)
Today is the first day of spring here in beautiful Washington County, New York. I knew spring was on its way because the geese have been flying north over my house all week. I first noticed them on Sunday, March 8th and I grabbed my camera to take a few pictures. I live next to the Hudson River and it is a main migration path for the geese. I can see the Route 29 bridge over the Hudson and some of the river flowing under it, from where I am writing this.
There is a 15 acre field behind my house where the geese sometimes land. The field still has the remains of the corn stalks that were cut last fall. Some of the geese formations have been rather poor and lopsided this year. I don’t know why I judge them, but I do. How hard could it be to form a flying V? I don’t like it when one leg of the V is much longer than the other or it contains obvious gaps. Don’t they realize they are putting on a show for those of us on the ground? I wonder what they think of us as they look down from 200 feet in the air? I always enjoy watching and listening to the geese honking as they make their way north.
I also saw my first Robin of the spring this morning near my bird feeder. I only saw the one. I didn’t see any of his companions. I have a homemade bird feeder in my yard. It consists of two saw horses that a friend of mind donated to me when he moved to North Carolina and two boards that I had laying around. My cat likes to sit in the window and watch all the activity. He makes chirping noises while banging his tail against the wall. We (my cat and I) have had up to five squirrels around the feeder at one time.
My cat doesn’t go outside. I don’t want him killing the birds. I don’t want him being eaten by a coyote or a fox that strolls through my yard once in a while either. I don’t want him getting hit by a car or bus. He has already run into a car. That is how we got him. My wife was driving home from work and he ran across the road without looking. He was stunned by the accident, but not hurt too seriously. We took him to the vet and she fixed him up. We brought him home and he is now an inside cat. We named him Bumper.
There is still some snow on the ground around here. A lot of it has melted over the past two weeks. The temperature should be in the 50’s this weekend and that will probably melt the snow that remains.
I saw my first skunk cabbage of the year this week too. I was walking through an old pond on my property when I saw it. It has probably been there for a few weeks. They usually come out sometime in February. I usually end up with at least a dozen or so in the pond and alongside the stream that runs near it.
When the stream leaves my property, it flows through a culvert under the road. It comes out on the other side and meanders through some woods that are owned by the New York State Canal Corporation. If I walk through those woods at this time of year, I will see a dozen skunk cabbages poking through the ground. I can also be standing on the bank of the Hudson River in about a minute.
There is no boat traffic this time of year. The locks on the Champlain Canal don’t open until sometime in May. Shortly before the locks open, a big barge and a handful of men, set up all of the buoys and markers along the river. That is always a welcome sight here along the river and, even though I don’t have a boat, I look forward to seeing the buoys being put back in the river.
I live just south of Lock 5. I had never seen a real operating lock until I moved here four winters ago. The Hudson River in this area is very beautiful and amazing. If you get a chance, stop by and see Lock 5. You can also take a tour of the river on either of two boats operated by Champlain Canal Tour Boats. If you do, tell Captain Bob and Marie I said hello.
Tags: buoy, champlain canal, geese, hudson river, lock 5, new york, robin, skunk cabbage, spring, Washington County
General, New York State | John Tedder | March 20, 2009 12:17 pm | Comments (5)
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