Lee — Created on October 18, 1972, the Clean Water Act is intended to regulate pollutants discharged into the nation’s waterways, specifying quality standards to be maintained. On its 52nd anniversary, Lee paid homage to the legislation with a celebration, of sorts, in the town center as local officials take on the spinoff companies of manufacturing giants General Electric Company (GE) and Monsanto, defendants in a lawsuit filed by the municipality earlier this year.
The March 13 civil action alleges that a conspiracy existed between the corporate magnates to indemnify Monsanto for any resulting harm to people and the environment stemming from its sale to GE of the now-banned polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), with those toxins causing irreprehensible damage to the Housatonic River, as well as endangering residents. The suit also alleges both companies knew of the risks associated with these products tagged as “forever” chemicals due to their lasting nature and inability to break down.
“Unfortunately, 52 years later I stand here less than 100 feet from the Housatonic River that is still polluted by PCBs from General Electric,” said Town Administrator Christopher Brittain.
For decades, GE deposited PCBs manufactured by Monsanto from its Pittsfield plant into the Housatonic River. A 2020 agreement set out a remediation plan that includes constructing an upland disposal facility (UDF), or waste landfill, in Lee to house the least toxic materials dredged from the waterway while sending the removed soil and sediment with higher concentrations of PCBs out of the area. Lee officials and residents oppose the UDF within the town’s borders and have long maintained that the settlement was made behind closed doors, in negotiations conducted between the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and representatives from the affected towns of Great Barrington, Lee, Lenox, Sheffield, and Stockbridge.
A prior cleanup plan for the waterway proposed in 2016 sought to cart all the dredged PCB-laden materials out of the area. Brittain said GE nixed that project. “GE, with earnings over $11 billion a year, appealed this cleanup plan to save the corporation money,” he said. “Let me say that again. A company that earns over $11 billion a year and dumped 600,000 pounds of PCBs into the river chose to save money rather than do the right thing for the people of the Berkshires.”
Select Board Chair Gordon Bailey presented the proclamation associated with the celebration, naming October 18 as Save the Housatonic Day in Lee, noting the crucial waterway that flows through the town and the need for its adequate remediation. The program also served as an official launch to savethehousatonic.com, with the website enabled to inform residents and others of the town’s plight and advances.
Select Board member Robert “Bob” Jones read a statement that emanated from Caplan Communications, a Washington, D.C. firm employed by the town, based on interviews with residents, experts, and local officials. A video of that statement can be seen here.
“Speaking personally, I want you to know that what is often referred to as the Rest of the River, or the cleanup of the river, is no clean up whatsoever,” he said of the 2020 remediation plan. “It is simply moving toxic material from one place to another.”
Jones added that the PCBs currently in the waterway aren’t being neutralized or destroyed, with the project able to remove only 20 percent of the embedded toxins. “In terms of restoring or maintaining the physical, chemical, and biological integrity of the nation’s waters, this agreement falls far short of what the Clean Water Act envisioned for us,” he said.
The statement Jones recited provided historical evidence of the Housatonic River as a “once-vital resource” in the area, offering fishing and recreational activities to the community. From 1930 to 1977, however, GE “knowingly polluted the river with toxic PCB chemicals supplied by Monsanto,” with those substances responsible for cancer and other human health hazards, he stated. According to Jones, Monsanto was aware of the risks from PCBs as early as 1944 when it began tracking cases of liver damage in its employees, despite the availability of other products, including a more costly mineral oil.
“We, not GE, continue to pay for their toxic legacy today,” he stated.
Calling on GE and Monsanto to take responsibility for their actions and restore the waterway, Jones said “the technology to destroy PCBs exists.” “Choosing to engage constructively and invest in the best available technologies to destroy the PCBs, GE can demonstrate its commitment to corporate accountability and environmental stewardship,” he said.
Marilyn Wyatt, a representative of the Lee PCB Advisory Committee that was created earlier this year, spoke to recent advancements in treating PCBs, noting a process using “bioremediation” that relies on naturally occurring organisms to reduce PCB toxicity by 50 percent or more in a very short amount of time.
“These new approaches rest on the discovery that certain types of bacteria can actually feed off of PCBs, and in so doing, they break down the tight chemical bonds that hold PCBs together, rendering them less concentrated and less toxic,” she said. According to Wyatt, various forms of this treatment have been used successfully in labs and small-scale sites, with the Housatonic River’s Superfund industrial-scale project being a true test for the program.
The 2020 Rest of River settlement obliges GE to seek out novel forms of remediation, including bioremediation, with the company recently posting a “Challenge” prompting qualified applicants to submit “inexpensive and efficient method[s]” for reducing PCBs in the soil and sediment in exchange for grant funds. The program, that began taking submissions September 11 and will culminate November 12, was applauded by Wyatt.
“The UDF offers a test case for bioremediation on a significant scale,” she said. “By spring 2026, if the solution is successful, there could be a concrete plan for using bioremediation on a large scale at the UDF. Bioremediation like this could turn into a huge step forward in treating PCBs, converting them from forever chemicals into something much less threatening.”
However, Jones was skeptical the Challenge would bring forth realized results. “The Challenge is a nice idea,” he said. “Whether they [the EPA] actually implement any of the remediation efforts that are brought forward, that remains to be seen.”
Select Board member Sean Regnier advocated the community coming together at events such as Save the Housatonic Day to show support for Lee’s efforts and address the concerns of its citizens.
Answering to GE’s Revised Transportation and Disposal Plan
Two days after GE released its Revised On-Site and Off-Site Transportation and Disposal Plan, Leigh Davis, vice chair of the Great Barrington Selectboard and Democratic nominee for state representative in the 3rd Berkshire District, asked the Lee Select Board to comment on the proposal, with its 400-plus pages having dropped October 15. The new plan touts a hybrid rail/truck and hydraulic pumping proposal, culminating in fewer truck trips. Trucking was the primary transportation mode specified for the dredged contaminated materials in the company’s original October 31 submission and was cited as a safety issue for Berkshire citizens and officials who live in the paths of those routes. Lenox Dale’s Danny Farmer also voiced concern over the number of trucks “roaming the streets” in the cleanup process and “how that’s going to affect the quality of life” of area residents.
“We won some battles here, and it’s somewhat of a coup, a small coup, that we’ve come up with in terms of the transportation plan, but we’re not finished yet,” Jones responded of the revision’s reduction in the number of truck routes.
He said the release isn’t a cleanup of the river. “If we can prevail in this lawsuit with Monsanto and GE, I would like the opportunity for this town and other towns to sit down at the table with them and actually pound out an agreement—economically viable but an actual cleanup of the river so that it’s swimmable and fishable for future generations because the current plan, the Rest of River plan, your kids, your grandkids, and their grandkids are going to have the same problem we’re facing today,” Jones said.
Davis, who has attended past sessions of the Lee PCB Advisory Committee, commended the Select Board and citizens attending the event. “I think this was a very, very important step in highlighting the issues surrounding the Rest of River and what the town of Lee is going through,” she said.
