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Hudson Cleanup Plans Near Completion; EPA Also Releases Community Health and Safety Plan

Release Date: 03/22/2006
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(NEW YORK, NY) Reaching another important milestone in the cleanup of the Hudson River PCBs site, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has received a draft of the final design plan for the first phase of the cleanup project from the General Electric Company (GE). The document, which will be thoroughly reviewed by the Agency, contains key information about the dredging operations to be performed in the Upper Hudson and a detailed layout of the sediment dewatering and transfer facility that will be built in Fort Edward, New York. A community health and safety plan is also included as an appendix to the draft Phase 1 Final Design Report.

The draft final design report received yesterday from GE lays out a construction schedule that differs from EPA’s projected plan to begin dredging in 2007. We are carefully reviewing the construction milestones in the report to see if adjustments can be made that will keep us on track toward a 2007 dredging start date.

EPA is making all of the documents available to the public for review. The public input period for comments on the draft of the Phase 1 Final Design Report, including
the layout and design of the dewatering and transfer facility, will be open until April 24, 2006. The Agency is also concurrently asking for public comments on the Remedial Action Community Health and Safety Plan through April 24. This draft design report for the first phase of Hudson River dredging reflects public input on facility siting, preliminary design plans and the development of stringent performance standards designed to protect communities and to minimize quality of life impacts, actively solicited over a four-year process. EPA will continue these robust outreach efforts to ensure that the project is designed and implemented in a safe, timely and effective manner.

A public meeting on the draft final design report is scheduled for April 4th at 7 p.m. at the Fort Edward Firehouse. This meeting is being held to present the details of the draft final design plans and to highlight changes made to the intermediate design plans. The Draft Final Design Report is available on EPA’s Hudson River project Web site at https://www.epa.gov/hudson.