editorial: GE s legacy on the Hudson
Times Union Editorial Board
Our opinion: We need to learn from General Electrics record on PCBs in the Hudson River in order to not repeat the mistakes now and in the future.
More than four decades after PCBs started becoming a serious concern for the Hudson River, General Electric says it still doesnt know how much of the toxic waste went into the river from its Hudson Falls and Fort Edward plants. It continues to challenge prevailing scientific opinion that PCBs are harmful to humans.
This isnt just about GEs history on the Hudson, but about the present and the future. Its about damage to the river, from the Capital Region to the Atlantic Ocean, that may take years to understand. Its about policy decisions that are being made, right now, by New York state to cut back on environmental protection. Its about the need for the public to be wary of how companies with much to gain, or lose, try to shape public opinion at the expense of the publics interest.
As Times Union investigations editor Brendan Lyons found through months of reporting, GE was advised by an engineer in 1970 that as much as 500,000 pounds of PCBs may have been escaping its capacitor plants every year. He based that on how much fluid the company used, how much it sent back to the supplier, how much went to dumps, and what was left over. Weeks later, a plant manager, with no explanation for how he came up with the figure, put the figure at 50,000 pounds a year.
http://blog.timesunion.com/opinion/ges-legacy-on-the-hudson/28214/