By 2032, You'll Be Able To Eat Hudson River Fish 1X Every Other Week W/O Health Worries

[hatrack]

Yay.

EDIT

General Electric Co. dumped approximately 1.3 million pounds of PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyl, from capacitor manufacturing plants in Fort Edward and Hudson Falls into the Hudson River during a 30-year span ending in the late 1970s. PCBs are a fire retardant and insulator that is a likely carcinogen.

As a result, GE signed a consent decree with the EPA in 2005 to perform dredging to reduce PCBs in the fish, water and sediment. The plan targeted 2.65 million cubic yards of contaminated sediment along a 40-mile stretch of the river, costing about $1.7 billion according to the EPA. Dredging removed about 310,000 pounds of PCBs from the river.

As part of the efforts, the EPA is required to release reports on its progress every five years. In its second review released Thursday, the EPA found that dredging performed so far is expected to accomplish its long-term goals, but the remedy is "not yet protective of human health and the environment."

The EPA did not recommend further dredging by GE, and "natural attenuation" will accomplish the goals of reduced PCBs, Catherine McCabe, acting regional administrator for EPA Region 2, said. It would take about 8 more years of observation to discern a trend in the Hudson River's recovery, she said. EPA predicts that in 15 years, people will be able to safely eat one fish meal from the Hudson River every two months. In 30 years, people will be able to eat one fish meal every month, McCabe said.

EDIT

http://www.poughkeepsiejournal.com/story/tech/science/environment/2017/06/01/epa-touts-pcb-cleanup-progress-environmental-groups-protest/362394001/

[Zoonart]

1. Yay!...

and you can catch them with your bare hands and cook them over the dog shit fire at your homeless campfire. Fuck GE..."we bring good things to shyte".

[tazkcmo]

2. There's still fish?

I wonder if they took rising sea levels into account. Besides being surprised that there's still fish in that river, I'm skeptical that in 30 years it will still be a fresh water river.

[Jim Lane]

4. One reason there are still fish is that they've evolved.

The PCB pollution created an instructive example of evolution in action, occurring more rapidly than it usually does. The Atlantic tomcod, as a bottom-feeding fish, was heavily affected by the PCBs, which tend to accumulate in bottom sediments. The tomcod population crashed. Thereafter, however, it rebounded. It turns out that a few tomcods happened to have a genetic variation that helped protect them from the harmful effects of PCBs. These few survived the pollution and were the ancestors of most of the tomcods now in the river, a population that is, collectively, far more resistant to the effects of PCBs than are other tomcod populations.

In other words, there was random mutation plus natural selection, just as Darwin explained.

See "Toxic river means rapid evolution for one fish species" for more detail.

[CentralMass]

3. You first ;-)

[eppur_se_muova]

5. ... and they'll be freely available in most ground floor apts in NYC. nt