General_Electric’s_Campaign_Against

General Electric’s Campaign Against On February 1, 2002, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) signed a Record of Decision (ROD) calling for the largest river cleanup in history, for the Hudson River in New York (EPA, 2002). The goal is to remove 150,000 pounds of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) from the river. A three-year design phase will determine the exact engineering details for the EPA plan, which calls for the dredging of 2.65 million cubic yards of sediment from PCB “hot spots” in a 40-mile stretch of the river north of Albany (McCaffrey, 2002 and State Legislatures, 2002). In 1984, a 200-mile portion of the Hudson River was declared a federal superfund site because of PCB contamination. The PCBs, believed to be carcinogens, are buried in the sediments and have bioaccumulated in fish. The PCBs were deposited by two General Electric (GE) plants between 1946 and 1977, the year the federal government banned the substance (EPA, 2002 and Heilprin, 2002). Supporters of the EPA’s decision include the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, New York Governor George Pataki, and 32 members of Congress from New York and New Jersey (State Legislatures, 2002 and ge, pcbs, hudson, 2002, 2001, epa, river, new, cray, york, public, pollack, order, dredging, cleanup, fish, federal, pcb, million, cercla, superfund, state, ge’s, because, ads, stretch, site, opinion, media, levels, law, decision, contamination, contaminated, campaign