The orcas of coastal British Columbia once had
it made. With no natural enemies, these 30-foot sea mammals, also
known
as killer whales, once sat serenely atop the food web, masters of their
own destiny by virtue of their size and strength. Orcas, however,
can
claim the dubious title of the world’s most contaminated animal,
and population data suggest these majestic giants will soon be saddled
with the ignominy of a place on the endangered species list. The most
troubling of the chemical pollutants that riddle the orca’s sometimes
12,000 pound frame are polychlorinated biphenyls—PCBs. Male orcas
are commonly found to have PCB concentrations in excess of 250 parts
per million, 5,000 times the level deemed safe by the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency (USEPA). Human residents of New York, especially those
who live along the Hudson river, have a special reason to be concerned
about this disturbing news, and to hang their heads, since many of the
PCBs found in today’s Pacific northwest sea creatures likely came
from the Empire State.
The federal government has designated 14 waterways, from the Rio Grande
in Texas to the Connecticut and parts of the Mississippi Rivers, as
American Heritage Rivers—streams that are deemed to have particular
economic, cultural and environmental significance for all Americans.
Of this group, the Hudson River is unique in that most of it—a
200 mile stretch from Hudson Falls to the Battery in Manhattan—is
simultaneously the country’s largest Superfund site. Between 1946
and 1977, when they were declared illegal, over a million pounds of
waste PCBs were discharged from two General Electric plants in the upper
Hudson, a fact that essentially made the river over into the world’s
largest PCB dumping ground. PCBs are a class of manmade chemicals once
valued for their stability; they are stubbornly nonflammable and do
not easily break down. When released into the environment, these same
qualities make them among the world’s most persistent pollutants.
They are also extremely potent. PCBs mimic natural hormones, such as
estrogen, and can severely disrupt the body’s endocrine system,
resulting in birth defects, sterility and degradation of the immune
system in humans and wildlife. Unlike more water-soluble pollutants,
PCBs are hydrophobic, meaning that rather than washing downstream, much
of their volume prefers to attach itself to carbon compounds. The Hudson
river bottom is carbon-rich, particularly in the north where sediment
backed up by dams still has a large proportion of decayed wood from
the river’s days as a vehicle for lumber and pulp. So the upper
Hudson makes a perfect medium for storing PCBs: Even 20 years after
their ban, hundreds of thousands of pounds remain imbedded in the river
bottom waiting for the inevitable flood seasons to turn the water column
into an agent for global toxic distribution.
Entering the environment through bottom-dwelling organisms, PCBs work
their way up the global food web in increasingly lethal concentrations.
The most common and efficient pathway is through fish, at greatest risk
are fish-eating birds and mammals, such as the belted kingfisher, great
blue heron, mink and river otter. Studies have shown that PCBs adversely
affect the behavior, survival and reproduction of these animals, as
well as other species, such as raptors and large marine mammals which
are particularly vulnerable to the hormonal effects of PCBs. While otters
and mink, whose diets are almost exclusively fish, are most threatened,
even owls and eagles have been found on the River with PCB concentrations
that would qualify their carcasses as hazardous waste (containing an
excess of 50 parts per million).
The struggle to address this global environmental tragedy, and potential
public health crisis, has, to a large extent, paralleled the history
of the environmental movement, in that it is the story of laws catching
up to the reality of pollution. While their toxicity was known as far
back as the 1930s, by the 70s the threat to human health posed by PCBs
became evident to the point that it could no longer be ignored. In 1975,
concern over PCB contamination resulted in fishing being banned on the
Hudson; today fish advisories remain on the river, including one that
warns against consumption of Hudson River fish by children and women
of child-bearing age.
Unclean Politics
In the late 1970s, primarily because of the damage to Hudson fisheries,
New York State tried to address the issue of PCB contamination. But
the politics of the business relocation wars reared its head. No one
disputed that GE was the polluter in this case, but by threatening
to
move tens of thousands of jobs from New York—its headquarters then
were in nearby Schenectady—the company had substantial leverage
with politicians, and therefore, in the settlement negotiations. The
bargain was brokered by Jack Welch himself, who would later become the
corporation’s celebrated CEO. It was a sweetheart deal for GE,
which wound up paying only a few million dollars for partially capping
some local landfills where PCBs had been dumped. Though a meager plan
was developed for cleaning parts of the river, nothing was ever implemented
or accomplished.
Eventually, in the face of revelations of toxic sites throughout the
nation, the federal government had to take action. In 1980, Congress
passed a law designed to provide a process for cleaning up the nation’s
most contaminated sites. It was called the Comprehensive Environmental
Recovery, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA). The law contained
several guiding principles. Among them: if the principal responsible
party (the PRP) could be identified, that polluter would be liable for
paying for the cleanup, regardless of whether any laws had been broken.
If no PRP was identified, the money for a cleanup would come from a
dedicated money cache which became known as the Superfund. The law also
put restrictions on how much delay the PRP could engage in and set forth
a process by which the EPA should determine the proper cleanup actions.
The last of the nine sections of this process is “community acceptance” intended
to give local municipalities a say in the decision-making.
The 200-mile stretch of Hudson River contaminated by PCBs was added
to the Superfund register in 1986. It is now the longest unattended
site on that list. The reasons for the Hudson cleanup plans languishing
are political. The Agency presented a plan in the late 1980s, for instance,
but a Reagan Era EPA director (who later resigned in disgrace after
it was revealed she and a subordinate had inappropriately close ties
with polluters) sent the project back for more study. Recognizing the
political pitfalls of the Hudson situation, the EPA spent ten years,
from 1990 to 2000, studying the Hudson River PCB situation. Their conclusion
was that PCBs in the river’s sediment pose an unacceptable risk
to the health of humans and the environment. Their proposed solution
is to dredge 2.65 million cubic yards of sediment from the northern
part of the river, a move that would cut in half the 500 pounds of
PCBs
that spill annually over the federal dam in Troy, a barrier that provides
the dividing point between the upper Hudson and the rest of the river.
The delaying politics continue, however. Most of the upper river is
part of New York’s 22nd Congressional District, a sprawling, rural
area gerrymandered to accommodate Gerald Solomon, a conservative Republican
who, for years, used his considerable Congressional clout to intimidate
the EPA. A few years ago, Solomon resigned in mid-term to become a GE
lobbyist, one of many powerful advocates the company has under contract.
In an obvious attempt to derail the cleanup plan by skewing the “community
acceptance” part of CERCLA, GE has recently engaged in a public
relations campaign of unprecedented magnitude (estimates exceed $2 million
a week). With techniques like slick sound bites on radio and TV spots
and daily full-page newspaper ads, the company has driven home its message:
no cleanup required. Most of this massive media blitz is directed at
the 100,000 residents of the upriver region, where most of the dredging
will take place—billboards saying “Stop the EPA from dredging” line
all the major roads in the upriver counties. The other 10 million people
who live close to the Superfund site get less and less attention
as one moves down the river valley.
How this struggle plays out remains to be seen. Recent developments
in the Bush Administration, like the reversal of EPA arsenic standards
in drinking water and abandoning a campaign promise to address carbon
dioxide emissions, do not bode well for a cleanup of the Hudson River
PCBs. New York’s George Pataki, however, who has positioned himself
as a green governor, is in favor of a cleanup, although his public
pronouncements
on the subject have been sparse.
Much more is at stake than just the health of a great river. When CERCLA
first went into effect, it was in response to toxic dumps like the
infamous
Love Canal. Many of those obvious sites have been addressed. Over 1,400
other federal Superfund sites remain, however, awaiting cleanup plans
(including scores that are GE’s responsibility—the company
is involved in more sites than anyone). Over a third of these sites
are under water, and the Hudson River project could well determine whether
those contaminated water bodies will be cleaned up any time soon. Among
them are PCB projects in the Great Lakes where coho salmon exceed the
EPA’s PCB threshold 70 fold, ducks often contain PCB levels 60
times the health standard for domestic poultry, and cormorants suffer
from crossbill syndrome, a PCB deformity, at 42 times the natural occurrence.
If GE’s public relations and lobbying campaign proves itself an
effective strategy for dodging Superfund responsibility, it could become
the template for corporate procrastination, and result in a powerful
impediment to toxic cleanups nationwide. If the tactic becomes commonplace,
orcas, humans, and living things worldwide will pay a heavy price.
David Higby is the Solid Waste Project Director
for Environmental Advocates of NYS. He is also a 25-year resident of
Washington County, New York, where the Hudson Falls and Fort Edward
GE capacitor plants in this article are located. Environmental Advocates
represents 130 grass-roots groups and over 7,000 members statewide,
and is the New York affiliate of the National Wildlife Federation. For
more information visit www.envadvocates.org
or their Hudson River site www.cleanhudson.org.
