Perhaps they did and ran into the old “lawyers, guns and money” problem? Any information on that subject would be gratefully appreciated – Hudson

From the Southeast News section of the Insurance Journal

With BP’s offshore oil gusher in the Gulf of Mexico as a backdrop, the Florida Supreme Court ruled that commercial fishermen can sue a company that discharged pollutants into Tampa Bay for lost income and profits even though the fishermen do not actually own any property damaged by the pollution.

Lawyers for the fishermen say the case could set a precedent for future economic damage lawsuits by Floridians against BP for the Deepwater Horizon disaster.

The state’s high court said that commercial fishermen have a right to sue under both statutory law and common law because they have a special protected interest in the marine life that is different from the general public’s interest. The court further ruled that companies with operations that might affect the waters have an independent duty of care to protect the economic interests of commercial fishermen.

The suit was brought by Howard Curd and other Tampa Bay fishermen against Mosaic Fertilizer, LLC, which owned a phospho-gypsum storage area near Archie Creek in Hillsborough County. The storage area included a pond containing hazardous wastewater that was enclosed by dikes.

The Supreme Court opinion, written by Chief Justice Peggy Quince, overruled two lower courts that had denied the fishermen the right to sue. The high court said they misread state law and legislative intent and misapplied the economic loss rule when they ruled against the fishermen.

A lawyer for Curd and the other fishermen, F. Wallace Pope, Jr., of Clearwater, told The Associated Press that the decision sets a precedent for future cases (Let us all hope so – Hudson).

The Florida Supreme Court justices cited cases from other states, including one in New York, where commercial fishermen sued General Electric for discharging polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) into the Hudson River, after which the state banned the sale of striped bass from those waters.

The fishermen claimed that the sale of striped bass accounted for a substantial part of their income and that as commercial fishermen they had a special interest in use of public waters. That special interest, they claimed, was invaded by the defendant’s pollution. The New York court agreed and held that the commercial fishermen did have standing to complain of the pollution of the waters from which they derived their living.

Learn more here…
Visit the Insurance Journal

General Electric’s Credibility Problem
PCBs and You – The Science Behind the Rhetoric

The following is an editorial from the Dallas Morning News

Cracked asphalt provides a stark reminder of the nonexistent margin for error at a controversial radioactive waste dump in West Texas.

When state inspectors visited the site in Andrews County, they found cracks up to an inch wide in asphalt near canisters of radioactive material. While cracked asphalt is fairly inconsequential – and pretty much par for the course – when it comes to our city streets, it can be a dangerous proposition at a radioactive waste dump.

A spokesman for Dallas-based Waste Control Specialists, which operates the low-level radioactive waste site, dismissed the cracks as superficial and said they have been repaired. But as the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has noted, that asphalt pad is an important safeguard against ground contamination.

The TCEQ is rightly seeking more information about the condition and history of the 10-acre asphalt pad. And that’s not the only cause for concern at the site. The TCEQ also plans to issue a notice of violation for storing a concrete canister filled with the hottest low-level radioactive material longer than allowed.

The Andrews County site has received six violation notices during the last six years, as significant questions about its proximity to an aquifer have swirled. The latest problems emerged amid a disconcerting push to significantly expand operations in Andrews County, potentially allowing 36 states to ship low-level waste to Texas. (Crazy, huh? – Hudson)

Fortunately, members of the Texas Low-Level Radioactive Waste Disposal Compact Commission have tapped the brakes and are revamping the plan, which had appeared to be on the fast track for approval. It’s not clear, though, how soon the compact commission might act.

Read more here…
Visit the Dallas Morning News

Jobs – and New York toxic waste – head to Texas
Andrews adds mercury to the toxic mix
Toxic waste in Texas served with a radioactive chaser
Andrews, Texas update (June, 2010)

By JIM PLANCK of Hudson-Catskill Newspapers

CATSKILL – The U.S. Department of Energy has announced that an Environmental Impact Statement, including regional public scoping sessions, is necessary for a proposed 2,000 megawatt high-voltage direct current line from Quebec down to NYC and southwestern Connecticut.

Locally, the line will essentially run under the bed of the Hudson River, between Greene and Columbia counties, after entering the river in Coeymans. At its beginning, the project will tie into a Hydro-Quebec TransEnergie converter station near Montreal and run about 35 miles to the U.S. border.

The cables – there are two pair of them – will then run 111 miles under Lake Champlain, then into the Champlain Canal, where they will skirt two locks using Canadian Pacific Railway rights-of-way, and afterwards going – to avoid the PCB dredging region of the upper Hudson – an additional 46 miles west on CP rail right-of way to Rotterdam, where they will pick up a CSX Railroad right-of-way.

From there they double back southeast again, coming through several Albany County towns, including the Town of Coeymans, and entering the Hudson River there, about 14 miles south of Albany. The entry location appears to be in the area of the west side of the Thruway spur bridge.

After entering the river in Coeymans, the cables then go 118 miles to Yonkers, where the pair that is to serve the Metropolitan area will surface and run through a converter station and be turned back into AC current.

The DOE notice announced that an Environmental Impact Statement will be prepared under NEPA, the National Environmental Policy Act – the federal equivalent of New York’s SEQR law – and will require an approval called a Presidential permit. But it also later adds, “It should be noted, however, that although the potential environmental impacts are important, they are not the only criteria that form the basis for the final permitting decision.” It does not state what the other criteria are (Great, eh? – Hudson).

Perhaps the potential environmental impact that will draw much attention is whether or not the project will disturb PCB’s in the mid and lower Hudson River, including locally.

DOE also announced that a total of seven public scoping sessions will be held to invite participation in the process. The public scoping period officially started Friday, June 18, with publication of the notice in the Federal Register, and will run until Aug. 2.

Learn more here…
Visit the Greene County Daily Mail

Are replacements in the wings? Will some hand puppet wearing a goat-boy mask be put up against the wall at dawn? Who’s to say… – Hudson

From Business & Legal Resources

According to General Electric Company, Phase I of the dredging project to remove polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) from the Hudson River stirred up 25 times more PCBs in the water than EPA anticipated, and PCB levels in water increased from 30-50 parts per trillion before dredging to 100-400 parts per trillion during dredging.

GE also noted that these higher PCB concentrations in the water continued even when dredging stopped. Trustees for the project said increased PCB levels in the river following completion of Phase I dredging in 2009 were expected and that EPA should continue the dredging approach in Phase II, scheduled to begin in 2011.

More GE moaning can be found here…

Queensbury Drinking Water Tainted With PCBs?
General Electric’s Credibility Problem
PCBs and You – The Science Behind the Rhetoric
Learn about Bill Hicks and his views on marketing and PR firms

MOREAU – In its last life, the 29-foot skiff worked the Gulf of Mexico, its owner catching crab and shrimp. Now, it plies the Hudson River, slowly towing a $100,000 robotic sensor to take a pulse of the river’s health.

As fog slowly lifted shortly after dawn at the General Electric docks, three researchers were preparing the skiff for a three-day river journey with the sensor, custom-built by the Beacon Institute for Rivers and Estuaries in Dutchess County.

During the 120-mile trip, the submerged sensor — called an acrobat and appearing somewhat like a high-tech, stainless steel flying fish — feeds a continuous stream of data into three laptop computers aboard the bridge.

The goal is to build a real-time snapshot of the river, said Shahidul Islam, project manager at Beacon who programmed the acrobat’s array of sensors. The measurements it takes include dissolved oxygen, concentration of algae-based chlorophyll, conductivity, water temperature, water current speed and depth, petroleum-based hydrocarbons, dissolved organic material, and particle size and concentration.

Read more here…

Learn more about real-time monitoring in the Hudson
Learn more about the Beacon Institute’s collaboration with IBM on real-time monitoring
Quick Facts about REON Sensor Platform Deployment

By BRYON ACKERMAN of the Utica Observer-Dispatch

UTICA – Oneida County Executive Anthony Picente plans to write a letter today formally asking the state Department of Environmental Conservation for an extension until 2020 (Whoa! That seems like an awfully long extension, does it not? – Hudson) to meet the DEC consent order for repairing the sewer system, he said Thursday night at a meeting about the project.

In 2007, the state ordered the Oneida County Sewer District to fix problems along the Sauquoit Creek line, and a consent order was entered into requiring the project to be finished by Oct. 31, 2014. But the financing for the work can’t be obtained (Is it the financing or the number of workers needed? Make up your mind. – Hudson) in that amount of time, and there’s no way to complete all the repairs by then, Picente and engineers working on the project said Thursday.

“Physically, there aren’t enough construction workers in the area (Then get some workers from somewhere else – do you know how many unemployed construction workers there are in New York State right now? – Hudson) to do that amount of work in that little time,” said, said John LaGorga, engineering manager for Stearns and Wheeler / GHD.

Oneida County submitted a project report to the state on July 7 with a plan for addressing the concerns. On Thursday night, Picente, LaGorga and Shumaker Engineering engineer Brian Whittaker put on a presentation about the plan for county legislators, sewer committee members and town and village officials.

The sewer concerns stem from too much storm-water mixing with sewage when it rains. The local sewage treatment plant can’t handle the added volume, so some sewage goes untreated and enters the Mohawk River.

Read the entire article…
Visit the Utica Observer-Dispatch

BEACON, NY (6/25) – Beacon Institute for Rivers and Estuaries announced that it has deployed its first of many real-time monitoring stations that will monitor the northern reaches of the Hudson River. Launched in cooperation with General Electric (Huh? What happened to IBM? – Hudson), the new data collection platform, designated “B2,” is the latest addition to Beacon Institute’s River and Estuary Observatory Network (REON).

REON provides minute-to-minute data regarding the physical, chemical and biological conditions of New York’s Hudson and St. Lawrence Rivers via an integrated network of sensors, robotics and computational technology distributed throughout both rivers.

B2 is deployed just north of the Thompson Island Dam (view real-time data from Fort Edward here) in the vicinity of the first phase of the Upper Hudson River Dredging Project performed by GE last year, B2 was designed and engineered by Beacon Institute’s Chief Research and Education Officer, James S. Bonner, Ph.D, P.E. and his REON research team from Clarkson University. GE provided additional equipment and logistical support for the deployment. (Learn more about the Beacon Institute’s collaboration with IBM on real-time monitoring of the Hudson – Hudson)

Beacon Institute and GE entered into the scientific and technical collaboration to enhance monitoring of the upper Hudson, in particular the movement of sediments and particles that are naturally suspended in the river. Data collected in the research effort will be made available publicly, and will be shared with state and federal regulatory agencies.

“The upper Hudson is more than a site for remedial PCB dredging,” said John Cronin, Director and CEO of Beacon Institute, a thought leader on water issues who lectures nationally on our environmental future. “It has its own ecological, hydrological and chemical characteristics, which deserve independent full-time observation.”

Cronin continued. “Few people realize that the acreage of the Hudson River watershed is greatest north of Albany, and that the largest freshwater input to the river comes from this area. We plan continued significant deployments in the upper Hudson. Our scientific collaboration with GE is our next step in creating a ’source-to-sea’ real-time monitoring network that will observe and monitor changes in the entire watershed.”

Learn more…
Visit Dredging Today
View real-time data from Fort Edward here

Learn more about the Beacon Institute’s collaboration with IBM on real-time monitoring of the Hudson
Quick Facts about REON Sensor Platform Deployment

What’s more repugnant, that General Electric wants out of any commitment to clean up all of its toxic messes or that it tries to hide the fact it wants out through semantics and legalese? We’ll tally any votes received and let y’all know the consensus (Note: hand puppets are NOT allowed to vote).

Speaking of hand puppets, how do GE’s minions sleep? Fitfully with nightmares about their own children developing oozing lesions, cancerous growths and debilitating cognitive problems after environmental exposure to PCBs? Nope; just like little babies, I reckon. It’s sick, really… Reminds me of Bill Hicks and his views on marketing and PR firms.

Fascinating relevant fact of the day: General Electric is a responsible party in 52 active Superfund sites across the country (per the Environmental Protection Agency as sourced from The New York Times) – Hudson

By MARY ESCH of Associated Press

ALBANY, N.Y. (6/29) – A federal appeals court rejected General Electric Co.’s claim that the Environmental Protection Agency’s unilateral authority to order pollution cleanups under the Superfund law is unconstitutional. (Unconstitutional? That was quite a stretch. Smacks of desperation, methinks. – Hudson)

GE sued in 2000, just before the EPA determined the company was responsible for cleanup of 200 miles of the Hudson River from Manhattan northward and that it should dredge PCB-contaminated sediments along a 40-mile stretch of the Hudson north of Albany. (Interesting timing for the lawsuit, don’t you think? – Hudson)

“GE is reviewing the court’s opinion and reviewing its options,” company spokesman Mark Behan said. He said the case was not brought as a challenge to the Hudson River dredging project (Wow! Really?! That took some cojones to say with a straight face, eh? Way to earn the big bucks, hand puppets! – Hudson).

“This ruling removes any doubt that EPA can require GE to finish the job of cleaning up the Hudson, and the same goes for all Superfund polluters across the country,” said Lawrence Levine, an attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council, which filed a legal brief in support of the EPA in the case.

“Because the suit was pending for so long, it cast a cloud over what could be done at Superfund sites nationwide, but today’s ruling makes it clear that EPA has this authority,” Levine said.

Read more here…
Visit the Associated Press
Read the Albany Times Union’s positive take on the verdict

Learn more about Bill Hicks and his views on marketing and PR firms
General Electric’s Credibility Problem
Queensbury Drinking Water Tainted With PCBs?
PCBs and You – The Science Behind the Rhetoric

BUCHANAN – Nuclear plant operators, government officials and the public will begin a debate this week about whether the Indian Point nuclear plant should install a closed-loop cooling system or risk being decommissioned.

That discussion will start at hearings on Tuesday and Wednesday. A decision on Indian Point’s infrastructure and future could take years. Indian Point’s drive toward extending its operating license through 2035 hit a bump – or possibly a wall – in April, when the state ruled against its application for a water-quality certificate.

The public can share its opinion on Indian Point in two ways:
1) Two public hearings will be held Tuesday at Colonial Terrace, 119 Oregon Road, Cortlandt Manor. The hearings are scheduled for 2 p.m. and 7 p.m.
2) Written comments will also be accepted. Send them to Administrative Law Judge Maria E. Villa, NYSDEC Office of Hearings and Mediation Services, 625 Broadway, First Floor, Albany, NY 12233-1550.

Note: Wednesday’s hearings, at the DEC Region 3 headquarters in New Paltz, are meant only for groups requesting interested-party status in the ongoing deliberations.

The federal Clean Water Act says operations that discharge into a navigable body of water, like Indian Point does into the Hudson River, cannot receive a federal license unless the state OKs a water-quality certificate.

New York’s denial of that certificate said Indian Point has leaked nuclear waste into the Hudson River — but it focused largely on Indian Point’s cooling system, which pulls up to 2.5 billion gallons of water from the river each day to cool the plant.

Read the entire story…
Visit the Times Herald-Record

What would “The Outlaw Josey Wales” have to say? Hmmm.. What was that line again? Oh yeah, that’s right. “Don’t piss down my back and tell me it’s raining.” What a great line of dialogue…

The following is presented just in case anyone – that would be you, hand puppets – is at all unclear on how or why the Hudson River is NOT an environmental success story. Consider this the “unspun” version of reality. Enjoy – Hudson

From the Environmental Protection Agency.

PCBs have been demonstrated to cause cancer, as well as a variety of other adverse health effects on the immune system, reproductive system, nervous system, and endocrine system.

It is also very important to note that the composition of PCB mixtures changes following their release into the environment. The types of PCBs that tend to bioaccumulate in fish and other animals and bind to sediments happen to be the most carcinogenic components of PCB mixtures. As a result, people who ingest PCB-contaminated fish or other animal products and contact PCB-contaminated sediment may be exposed to PCB mixtures that are even more toxic than the PCB mixtures contacted by workers and released into the environment.

PCBs belong to a broad family of man-made organic chemicals known as chlorinated hydrocarbons. PCBs were domestically manufactured from 1929 until their manufacture was banned in 1979. They have a range of toxicity and vary in consistency from thin, light-colored liquids to yellow or black waxy solids.

Due to their non-flammability, chemical stability, high boiling point, and electrical insulating properties, PCBs were used in hundreds of industrial and commercial applications including electrical, heat transfer, and hydraulic equipment; as plasticizers in paints, plastics, and rubber products; in pigments, dyes, and carbonless copy paper; and many other industrial applications.

Commercial Use of PCBs: Although no longer commercially produced in the United States, PCBs may be present in products and materials produced before the 1979 PCB ban (and, of course, in and along the Hudson River thanks to the good folks at General Electric. And let’s not forget – Hudson River PCBs will NOT go away on their own. – Hudson)

Products that may contain PCBs include:
Transformers and capacitors; other electrical equipment including voltage regulators, switches, reclosers, bushings, and electromagnets; oil used in motors and hydraulic systems; old electrical devices or appliances containing PCB capacitors; fluorescent light ballasts; cable insulation; thermal insulation material including fiberglass, felt, foam, and cork; adhesives and tapes; oil-based paint; caulking; plastics; carbonless copy paper; floor finish. (How many of these products are in YOUR home? – Hudson)

PCBs have been demonstrated to cause a variety of adverse health effects. PCBs have been shown to cause cancer in animals. An industry-sponsored peer-reviewed rat study, characterized as the “gold standard study” by one peer reviewer, demonstrated that every commercial PCB mixture tested caused cancer.

In addition to the animal studies, a number of epidemiological studies of workers exposed to PCBs have been performed. Studies of PCB workers found increases in rare liver cancers and malignant melanoma.

A variety of other non-cancer effects of PCBs have been reported in animals and humans including effects on the immune system, reproductive system, nervous system, and endocrine system.

The animal studies were not able to identify a level of PCB exposure that did not cause effects on the immune system. The different health effects of PCBs may be interrelated, as alterations in one system may have significant implications for the other regulatory systems of the body.

Learn more here…
Visit the Environmental Protection Agency

General Electric’s Credibility Problem
General Electric, Hudson River PCBs and… The Outlaw Josey Wales?
PCBs and You – The Science Behind the Rhetoric