Welcome to DU! The truly grassroots left-of-center political community where regular people, not algorithms, drive the discussions and set the standards. Join the community: Create a free account Support DU (and get rid of ads!): Become a Star Member All Forums Issue Forums Culture Forums Alliance Forums Region Forums Support Forums Help & Search
 

hrmjustin

(71,265 posts)
Sun Mar 16, 2014, 02:15 PM Mar 2014

editorial: GE s legacy on the Hudson

Times Union Editorial Board

Our opinion: We need to learn from General Electric’s 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 doesn’t 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 isn’t just about GE’s history on the Hudson, but about the present and the future. It’s about damage to the river, from the Capital Region to the Atlantic Ocean, that may take years to understand. It’s about policy decisions that are being made, right now, by New York state to cut back on environmental protection. It’s 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 public’s 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/

Latest Discussions»Region Forums»New York»editorial: GE s legacy on...