Lee — About 60 Berkshire County residents braved the cold temperatures of December 3 to gain more information on a plan to remediate the local section of the Housatonic Rest of River area that entails dredging materials laden with polychlorinated biphenyl chemicals (PCBs) from its waters and shoreline.
The entire remediation project stretches from the confluence of the waterway’s east and west branches in Pittsfield through the Long Island Sound in Connecticut, stemming from General Electric Company (GE) depositing the now-banned toxins into the Housatonic River for decades. A 2020 plan provided the remedy: transport the materials harboring the densest PCB concentration out of the area while creating an Upland Disposal Facility (UDF), or toxic-waste repository, over an aquifer in Lee for the lesser contaminated substances.
The evening’s three-hour open house hosted by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)—that is responsible for implementing the remedy—provided a come-and-go opportunity for GE and EPA representatives “to answer specific questions for anybody in the community, whether it’s about the hydraulic dredging, about the UDF, about the truck routes,” EPA Region 1 spokesperson Jo Anne Kittrell said. “There are so many aspects to the work that we’re doing, and we’ve done a lot of different presentations at different meetings throughout the years, but it doesn’t seem like every meeting answers everybody’s question,” she said. “So, EPA and GE decided to come together, put as much information as we could out there, and be available to answer any specific questions people have about how any of this works or how it affects them, how it’s going to inconvenience them, if at all. Anything they want to know.”
Rounding the stations
Held at Lee High School, poster boards highlighted each station, with those stations aimed at walking participants through the remediation process, including identifying how and where the UDF will be constructed as well as the project’s timeline, transportation routes, pertinent sites, and the dewatering and hydraulic dredging methods that will be implemented to withdraw and transport substances from the river.
The materials displayed at the open house can be found here.
The UDF will encompass just over 13 acres and sport an elevation of 1,099 feet above sea level, with the site’s current elevation cited as 960 feet to 1,045 feet above sea level. It will be able to accommodate 1.3 million cubic yards of PCB-laden sediment, with an overall average concentration of less than 25 parts per million.
GE Project Engineer Kevin Mooney was stationed at the display articulating the reaches, or phases, of the project. Reach 5A covers a five-mile stretch running from the confluence of the Housatonic River at Fred Garner Park to the Pittsfield Wastewater Treatment Plant and will be addressed first. Reach 5B runs from the Pittsfield Wastewater Treatment Plant to Roaring Brook, and Reach 5C runs from Roaring Brook to the start of Woods Pond. Reach 6 is Woods Pond, Reach 7 extends from Woods Pond Dam to Rising Pond, and Reach 8 is Rising Pond.
Mark Gravelding, a senior engineer with GE consultant Arcadis, encountered “a wide variety” of inquiries from the public as his station encompassed the UDF’s site preparation plans that were submitted October 8. “These are the initial phases of work that are being done right now… to get ready for the larger construction project that’s going to start next year,” he said.
The preparatory action warranted a short timeline that did not allow for the usual public comment period but ensured a potential rare bat species that roosts from November 1 to March 31 was not affected. According to Gravelding, most of the preparation work has been completed, with utility relocations and a waterline remaining to be connected to feed the construction site. GE is aiming to complete this part of the project before January 1, he said.
Local officials, environmental group representatives, citizens voice mixed opinions on support for project
For Peter Bluhm, a member of the Lee PCB Advisory Committee, the evening followed a tour of the UDF site. According to Bluhm, the guide pointed out where the UDF basin will be constructed, with the site atop what he termed as “very large valleys” that are manmade so that the structure “is sort of half built already because of the gravel mining that’s gone on there over the years.”
While Bluhm noted the UDF site will entail “a huge structure,” the tour added to his confidence in the project, “a minority view on the committee.” “I have, generally, a pretty good peace of mind [about the remediation process],” he said. “My view is that we have now a lot of uncontrolled poisons in our river, Woods Pond. Nobody knows exactly where they are, where they’re highly concentrated, where they’re not. They’re sitting over an aquifer right now, and they’re going to put them in a place where, at least if it works, it will separate this poisonous mud from the groundwater that’s in the aquifer underneath. It seems like it will probably be safer. Personally, I’m glad somebody is doing something about all the poison in the river.”
Bluhm questioned how much of the PCBs would be removed from the waterway in the Rest of River project, from Reaches 5A to 8, with prior EPA representatives having stated that up to 30 percent of the total PCBs existing in the river would be extracted.
EPA Lead Project Manager Josh Fontaine, who assumed his position following Tagliaferro’s retirement earlier this year, could not confirm those amounts. “The percentage is difficult to quantify because there is a lot of evaluation that is occurring before we do our designs, so the exact concentrations of such PCBs in place still need to be evaluated,” he said. “We’re doing extensive pre-investigation design plans to sample additional material to determine the quantity of PCBs which will help determine the design for each specific reach.”
For the upper two-mile Pittsfield portion of the waterway already remediated, Fontaine said the capping and removal of contaminated materials “has been effective” as illustrated by a showing of “incredible reductions in over 90 percent in different biota.”
“That’s good news to me,” Bluhm said.
Pittsfield resident Jane Winn, who is the retired founding executive director of the Berkshire Environmental Action Team, grew up on the Housatonic River’s main stem “back when it was so polluted that you held your breath going over a river bridge.” “Generally, I am very pleased that all of that contamination is going to be out of the river, which is right now an unlined, uncapped waste site, and we’re going to have it into a very well-lined disposal facility,” she said. “You look at the river in Pittsfield, the difference after the remediation—the macroinvertebrates, the critters that all of the fish eat—are so much better,” Winn said of the waterway portions that have already been remediated. “[The] species that require a healthy river to live. And, they’re there now and they weren’t before. And I would not have believed you could see that dramatic of a difference.”
Sara Parker’s hamlet of Housatonic is included in Reach 8 of the Rest of River cleanup. As chair of the Housatonic Improvement Committee, she attended the open house “to make sure that I was as informed as possible for the community members that we are trying to serve.” “Based on this event, the EPA is trying to make sure the community is informed,” she said. “Specifically, with Reach 8, we’re about eight years out from this very much impacting our community on a day-to-day basis.”
Parker stated her desire for more community members to become educated about the project, as with the open house. “We have the opportunity to really engage on a deeper level with the EPA, and if community members knew that, then they might have a more dynamic view of how things might impact their day-to-day lives.”
Residents David Carrington and Caroline Young were “interested in the outcome” of the remediation project, Carrington said, and oppose its dewatering component. They advocated for a different plan to remove the PCBs from Woods Pond, one that would not involve water extraction, allowing the UDF site to serve the community as a science and nature park. “We have the ideal solution to eliminate the [UDF] dump, which is of no value, zero value to the Berkshires,” Carrington said. He and Young promoted a project that would drain Woods Pond and use excavators to scoop the toxic material out, removing it from the area.
However, to date, the project timeline has been chugging along, as legal efforts to undo the 2020 agreement and remediation plan have failed despite Lee officials’ criticism of the program for its threats to the health of residents and their quality of life.
Lee Select Board member Robert “Bob” Jones was “not impressed” by the presentation, calling out GE and the EPA for switching their positions regarding the safety of the river. “Back in 2020, we were told, ‘This [remediation] had to happen; there had to be a toxic-waste dump; the Housatonic River was an open toxic waste pit in itself; it was a hazard to people’s health, a danger to the communities along the river,’” he said. “Last year, we now find out from the EPA, ‘Oh, you can swim in the river if you want, you just can’t touch the sediment; oh, you can canoe or kayak in the river if you want; you can fish in the river, just don’t eat the fish.’”
Former EPA Project Manager Dean Tagliaferro touted that residents could safely use the waterway for recreation, without significant risks for some activities such as swimming.
Jones also referred to the recent release of a Massachusetts Department of Public Health study that showed no correlation between toxins in the Housatonic River and cancers found in residents living along the waterway, a finding questioned by local officials and residents. “So, we’ve gone from ‘the Housatonic River is a danger to all of us’ to ‘the Housatonic River is just fine and has nothing to do with the cancer rate whatsoever,’” he said. “That’s where we’ve gone in six years. My question is for the EPA and for GE: So why do we need a toxic-waste dump anywhere in Berkshire County.”
Jones suggested that the funds going towards the UDF buildout be put into an escrow account and, as new bioremediation technologies emerge, employ them with those monies.
“In the end, for all of these placards and all of the narratives here tonight, in the end, you and I and our grandchildren will never be able to swim in the Housatonic River, will never be able to eat the fish, and can never kayak or canoe on the Housatonic River without fear of inhaling these [PCBs],” Jones said. “There are better ways of doing this. I just find this a complete charade.”
