General Electric Co. said it will fight any order from EPA that the company clean up toxic chemicals in the Hudson River.
On Thursday, EPA proposed that GE spend approximately $460 million to cleanup parts of a 40-mile stretch of the Hudson that the company''s plants polluted for three decades.
EPA is suggesting that GE remove about 2.65 million cubic yards of river-bottom mud, containing an estimated 100,000 pounds of PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls), by dredging the river bed.
GE said that EPA''s proposal is "outrageous" noting that the agency has willfully ignored its own finding in 1984 that a massive dredging program like the one proposed would be "devastating to the river ecosystem."
"This proposal makes no sense because, as people who live near the river know, the Hudson is dramatically cleaner today than it was when EPA rejected dredging 16 years ago," said a GE statement.
GE said, "the action from EPA bureaucracy is a misguided attempt to punish a corporation that lawfully discharged PCBs 30 years ago, not a sensible effort to advance public health or the ecosystem of the river."
The corporation plans to join forces with others who share their view to fight EPA''s dredging proposal during the regulatory process.
by Virginia Sutcliffe