12/06 16:42 GE May Face $500 Mln Cost for Hudson River Cleanup (Update2) By Liz Skinner

New York, Dec. 6 (Bloomberg) -- The Environmental Protection Agency proposed a plan that would require General Electric Co. to spend almost $500 million to clean up a 40-mile stretch of the Hudson River that the company's plants polluted for 30 years.

The agency wants 100,000 pounds of toxic sediment removed from hundreds of sections of the riverbed near Albany, New York, where GE discharged PCBs, an industrial compound thought to cause cancer, until 1977. GE, which released as much as 1.3 million pounds of the pollutants from two plants under New York State permits, says it's safer to leave the PCBs buried in the riverbed.

``The Hudson River is too active a river to leave the PCBs in place,'' EPA Administrator Carol Browner said at a briefing in New York City. ``Failure to clean up this river will leave fish contaminated for another generation.''

General Electric, the world's largest maker of aircraft engines and power systems and the owner of the NBC television network, has fought proposals to dredge the river for years. The company last month sued the EPA in an effort to invalidate what it considers unconstitutional provisions of the federal Superfund law, under which the dredging would occur.

``We've had an aggressive cleanup program under way for 20 years,'' Stephen D. Ramsey, vice president for GE Corporate Environmental Programs, said at a briefing in Albany. ``This dredging program would have devastating long-term impacts on the river.''

Ecosystem

The dredging plan ``involves the massive removal of large parts of the ecosystem,'' destroying wetlands, wildlife food sources and habitat, Ramsey said. The EPA rejected a dredging plan for the upper Hudson River in 1984 and two similar state proposals were rejected after local citizens opposed them, he said.

The EPA plan would use hydraulic dredging technology that would allow the sediment to be sealed off from the rest of the river as it is removed, limiting disruption to the environment, Browner said.

GE recently started running television and radio advertisements saying the river is cleaning itself. GE, based in Fairfield, Connecticut, says it already has spent more than $200 million on PCB studies and cleanup.

Ramsey said the plan EPA proposed would take at least 20 to 30 years, based on the pace of other EPA dredging projects, not the five years Browner estimated. He also said the company will actively pursue its lawsuit questioning the constitutionality of the Superfund law.

New York's Department of Environmental Conservation, which supports dredging, said it will make sure EPA's cleanup work doesn't interfere with activity on the river or traffic in the cities along its banks, department Commissioner John Cahill said in a statement. The EPA, though, should address all concerns by local residents during the public comment period, Cahill said.

Fish Advisories

Browner said the EPA's proposal could allow the state to relax fish consumption advisories within two years after the five- year cleanup is complete. The toxic sediment that is removed would be buried in disposal sites along the East Coast, outside of the Hudson River Valley, Browner said.

The EPA proposal would call for General Electric to pay for the dredging of about 500 acres of targeted spots along the upper Hudson River and disposing of the toxic sediment, expected to cost about $460 million. The plan also calls for the company to pay about $30 million to stop additional PCB contamination from the sites of the two former electrical-equipment plants.

Browner said she would be ``hugely disappointed'' if the next president abandons the plan. She also encouraged General Electric to ``come to the table'' to discuss cleanup plans.

The EPA is accepting comments for 60 days on its Hudson River plan, which could begin as early as 2003. It expects the plan to be final by mid-2001.

The stock of GE, the largest U.S. company by market value, fell 19 cents to $53.94. It has risen 4.6 percent this year.

10-Year Study

The proposal comes after a 10-year agency study of the health and ecological impacts on the river of PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, which the government banned in 1977. The EPA concluded that without cleanup, an unacceptable risk of cancer and other health problems would remain for 40 more years.

General Electric studies suggest the opposite, showing PCB levels in striped bass and other fish from the Hudson are continuing to drop, Ramsey said.

Environmental groups that have fought for cleanup of the Hudson were optimistic that the plan would help remove PCBs. ``To reduce the health risks to people living in the Hudson Valley by reducing PCB levels in fish, the EPA has correctly concluded that the chemicals must be removed from the sediments,'' said Aaron Mair of the Arbor Hill Environmental Justice Corp. in Albany.

The river's wild, natural landscape inspired a school of American painters from 1825 to 1875 that included Thomas Cole and Frederic Church, known as the Hudson River School.

The EPA declared the Hudson a Superfund site in 1984. The 1980 Superfund law makes companies pay for cleaning up areas they've contaminated or face stiff penalties. General Electric has said the law illegally fails to provide for hearings before the government orders cleanups or court reviews afterward.

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-- Carl Jenkins (somewherepress@aol.com), December 06, 2000