PITTSFIELD - Located one mile from downtown Pittsfield, Canoe Meadows Wildlife Sanctuary contains 262 acres of fields, wetlands, woods and croplands, and three miles of nature trails that are adjacent to the Housatonic River. Beavers, otters and wild turkeys live here. Several varieties of birds, including bobolinks, ospreys and great blue herons, can be seen at various times of the year. The Massachusetts Audubon Society considers Canoe Meadows to be one of this area's most productive birding locations.

But this scenic area also is home to PCBs. It's part of the five-mile area between Fred Garner River Park on Pomeroy Avenue and Woods Pond in Lenox that General Electric Co. now plans to dredge for PCB contamination. PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, are considered a probable cause of cancer.

GE recently released a proposal that would place the roughly 227,000 cubic yards of polluted sediment that it plans to dredge from this five-mile section of the river in a still-yet-to-be determined location near the river.

The City Council responded last week by unanimously approving a petition opposing the establishment of another landfill in either Pittsfield

or Berkshire County. The consent decree that required GE to clean up PCB contamination in Pittsfield allowed for the formation of two current landfills - Hill 78 behind Allendale Elementary School and Building 71 on New York Avenue. Opposition to those two areas from city residents has been loud and fierce at times, and Mayor James M. Ruberto already has publicly stated his opposition to another landfill within the city limits.

Leaving an area such as Canoe Meadows in its current state is one reason why the petition was filed, said Ward 4 Councilor Michael L. Ward, who submitted the document with Councilor at large Kevin J. Sherman.

"This is a whole different section of river," Ward said. "It's a totally wild area, where you have a fragile ecosystem."

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