There are three letters that always come up whenever the Housatonic River is discussed. The letters are PCB, which stands for polychlorinated biphenyls - a group of about 200 related compounds that have come to define the Housatonic and its future for decades to come.
The PCB molecule, with its pair of carbon ring structures, looks remarkably similar to that of the sugar you sprinkle on your cereal. Yet it ranks as one of the most dreaded pollutants ever produced, both for its toxicity and its resistance to breakdown.
From 1932 to 1977, the General Electric plant in Pittsfield, Mass. - along the upper reaches of the 149-mile river - dumped tons of the clear, yellowish fluid into the Housatonic. GE admits to 20 tons;
river advocates say that number is probably closer to 700 tons. The company also gave away thousands of cubic yards of PCB-contaminated fill that wound up in parking lots, people's yards and even the playground of Pittsfield's Allendale Elementary School. Because of the porous nature of the soil in Pittsfield, the compounds continue to leach into the Housatonic to this day.
PCBs are found in thousands of products, from "carbonless" copy paper to surgical implants. The ones produced at the Pittsfield plant were used in industrial transformers.
PCBs have caused a legacy of contamination that has tainted the entire length of the Housatonic, and will endure for decades - even centuries. According to a study by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, eels caught as far south as Derby have PCB concentrations many times greater than considered safe for human consumption. Tim Gray, of the Housatonic River Alliance, said that he found PCBs in the Housatonic while a student at the University of Massachusetts in 1976.
"At first, the EPA denied it," he said. "Then, they found high PCB levels in milk from cows that graze along the river."
Since then, the two most polluted miles of the Housatonic - where it flows through Pittsfield - have been cleaned up by removing tons of riverbank soil and river bottom silt.
According to Massachusetts DEP Commissioner Laurie Burt, efforts to conduct similar cleanups farther downstream have been met with resistance - even though GE will be picking up the tab.
"South of Pittsfield, the river is absolutely beautiful - a meandering stream - and it does not present a human health risk," she said. "It's still swimmable - a gorgeous area," she said.
This is why many are resistant to GE's dredging plan. Not only would it change the appearance of the river for decades to come, but it would also generate countless dump truck runs to dispose of contaminated soil and silt.
Burt said that other, less invasive alternatives should be explored first, such as the possibility of using bacteria that naturally break down PCBs, and/or cleaning up the "hot spots" and leaving the rest of the river more or less intact.
There's also the fear, she said, of the cure being worse than the disease. "Do you kill this resource in order to save it?"
She also said that in contrast to the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill - in which the Mobil Oil Co. has been roundly criticized for stalling and obfuscating the compensation process - GE seems willing to correct its wrongs on the Housatonic.
"Although we may not agree on how the cleanup should proceed, they are willing to work with us on this," she said, adding that the court-ordered consent decree regarding the PCB cleanup sets up "a pathway to get things done."
Still, river advocates note that the Housatonic, in many places, remains a catch-and-release river, particularly for bass and trout, because PCBs accumulate in animals that are farther up on the food chain.
For example, it's not unusual for ducks, which are river-bottom feeders, to accumulate PCB levels many hundreds of times greater than that considered safe for human consumption...
Full Story: http://www.connpost.com/localnews/ci_9669017