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Long Branch, NJ --- U.S. Rep. Frank Pallone, Jr. (D-NJ) and Clean Ocean Action this week demanded the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) explain why the agency granted General Electric (GE) another six-month delay in cleaning up PCBs from the Hudson River.
On July 27th EPA Regional Administrator Alan Steinberg released a surprise statement citing "obstacles beyond (EPA's) control" for the delay without defining the obstacles or justifying how they caused the delay.
In separate letters to the federal environmental agency, the New Jersey congressman and Clean Ocean Action's Executive Director Cindy Zipf and Principal Scientist Dr. Jennifer Samson asked that EPA provide the area community a more detailed explanation so they can fully understand the reasons for delaying the cleanup until 2008. (COPIES OF BOTH LETTERS FOLLOW.)
"Given the past delays in the progress of this cleanup and GE's prior indications that it did not want to dredge the river, any delays in the schedule must be viewed with suspicion," Pallone wrote in an August 3rd letter to EPA Administrator Stephen L. Johnson. "That is why it is imperative that your agency provide as much information as possible to the public to explain why the delay occurred and how the agency and GE are working to proceed with the cleanup as expeditiously as possible."
"Clean Ocean Action is disappointed by the lack of content in the small, one paragraph statement that was released," Zipf and Samson wrote in an August 1st letter to the EPA Regional Public Affairs Office. "Considering the wide ranging implications and varied interest in the cleanup efforts, the EPA must provide specific, detailed information on both the progress and obstacles that led to the decision to put the clean up off for yet another year."
Specifically, Clean Ocean Action asked that the report from EPA include: 1) specific information on efforts undertaken by GE and the EPA to date, 2) the obstacles and issues that could not be overcome in time for the scheduled 2007 start date, and 3) what is being done to eliminate these obstacles and ensure that the cleanup begins by 2008, if not sooner.
GE's PCB contamination caused the first closure of recreational and commercial fisheries 30 years ago. Pallone said the seriousness of the public health threat continues to this day, including a recent New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) fish consumption advisory for winter flounder caught in the Raritan Bay that have been contaminated with PCB's originating in the Hudson River. |
