GE’s current proposal heavily relies on truck transportation for its on-site disposal options, while also failing to provide a clear roadmap on how it plans to handle material cleaned up from further downstream.
In 2024, I plan to encourage my town leaders to keep top of mind that our health and economic future is at stake in the Housatonic Rest of River cleanup plan.
School committee member Dennis Sears of Sheffield said voting to pass over the warrant item on funding the district and actually voting against it would be a distinction without a difference. And he suggested a vote on the budget would empower the town.
The fact is our region of the EPA has demonstrated its bias towards landfilling and once again will allow yet another massive PCB-dump in Berkshire County. That a handful of local officials have substituted their limited judgment for the desires of an entire diverse community is a travesty.
As written, the initiative would only require governments and business entities to comply with the rights of the Housatonic River as established by the initiative. No lawsuits could be filed against individual residents.
"We’ll have to see what happens with the signed settlement. We can’t rest easy just yet. We hope there are not going to be any appeals. We hope EPA moves forward to issue a new permit based on the settlement agreement.”
-- Great Barrington Town Manager and Director of Planning & Community Development Chris Rembold
The good news is the bridge will remain open to two-way traffic during construction. The lanes will be narrowed to provide adequate workspace safety and staging areas for materials.
The track, which is located in the town of Salisbury, remains prohibited from holding races on Sundays — evidently the only such facility in the nation facing that prohibition.
The National Weather Service reported that debris was carried more than 45 miles to the northeast in Belchertown, where a fairgrounds racing ticket was found along with white corrugated plastic roofing material.
“There is no failsafe technology. In fact, we think the best technology for this level of PCBs is landfilling, because if we use one of these other technologies we might knock it down from 20 ppm to 5 ppm, or even 1 ppm, it still needs to be put somewhere. You still need a landfill.”
-- Bryan Olson, director of the Superfund and Emergency Management Division of the Environmental Protection Agency
The questions I pose are prompted from years working to create strong coalitions to fight General Electric - a rare coalition of former GE workers, sportsmen and women, local Lakewood homeowners whose front- and backyards were contaminated with high levels of PCBs, and environmentalists.
For more than three decades, the EPA has been negotiating with GE toward a goal of cleaning up the Housatonic River. The Rest of River settlement is the latest attempt at fulfilling that goal.
The only way for the item calling for withdrawal to be placed on the warrant is for the selectmen to put it there, even though they were the ones who signed the settlement on behalf of the town in the first place.
The parties know that this cleanup could be better, but they have balanced the waste reduction improvement, the monetary compensation and expeditious start of cleanup against the risks of continued litigation.
Opponents of the recent settlement between General Electric, the Environmental Protection Agency and five South County towns to clean up PCBs in the Housatonic River reveal plans to stop a planned PCB landfill in Lee.
