Volume 147, No. 93 covering the 1st Session of the 107th Congress (2001 - 2002) was published by the Congressional Record.
The Congressional Record is a unique source of public documentation. It started in 1873, documenting nearly all the major and minor policies being discussed and debated.
“PCBS IN THE HUDSON RIVER” mentioning the Environmental Protection Agency was published in the Extensions of Remarks section on pages E1284-E1285 on June 29, 2001.
The publication is reproduced in full below:
PCBS IN THE HUDSON RIVER
______
HON. MAURICE D. HINCHEY
of new york
in the house of representatives
Thursday, June 28, 2001
Mr. HINCHEY. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commend to my colleagues the following article written by Ned Sullivan on the issue of PCB contamination in the Hudson River of New York. Ned is the highly respected executive director of Scenic Hudson, Inc., a 37 year-old nonprofit environmental organization dedicated to protecting and enhancing the scenic, natural, historic, agricultural and recreational treasures of the Hudson River and its valley. Ned and I have worked together for many years in pursuit of removing sediment contaminated by polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) from the ``hot spots'' in the upper Hudson River, in order to reduce threats to public health, revive local economies, reopen recreational opportunities along the river. I appreciate Ned's thoughtful analysis of this important issue.
PCBs Pose Major Health Threat to New York City, and Beyond
(By Ned Sullivan)
For decades masses of the invisible, virtually indestructible cancer-causing PCBs that General Electric dumped from its factories on the Upper Hudson have moved down the majestic river, reaching dangerous levels in New York Harbor. They are still coming, clinging fiercely to the river's shifting silt, threatening the health of millions.
There is no question that GE has the responsibility for cleaning up the worst of them at their source, as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has ruled after years of intensive study. In doing so the EPA employed methodologies endorsed by the General Accounting Office (GAO) and worldwide peer review.
GE has mounted a massive advertising and public relations effort aimed at reversing the EPA's decision. It has a force of seventeen high-powered lobbyists hard at work on the matter in Washington. For good measure the company's legal battalions have challenged provisions of the U.S. Superfund cleanup laws as unconstitutional.
However these are the facts of the matter:
According to the EPA, the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (U.S. Public Health Service) and the World Health Organization among others, PCBs are ``an acute and chronic health hazard.'' Humans exposed to the lethal substances are subject to skin, liver and brain cancers; respiratory impairments; severe acne-like skin rashes; impaired immune systems, adult reproductive system damage, and perhaps worst of all neurological defects and developmental disorders in the children of exposed females.
David Carpenter, the highly respected former dean of the School of Public Health at SUNY/Albany, has stated: ``Our understanding of hazards from PCBs is growing much more rapidly than PCB levels are declining. So over time, the net reason for concern has only gotten greater, not less. Any time you decrease the IQ of your next generation, that's the ultimate pollution.''
The PCBs enter the food chain through fish and move upward rapidly through animals and humans. EPA health risk assessments reveal that humans eating just one meal of fish from the Hudson River per week are one thousand times more susceptible to cancer. The risk of other deleterious effects also increases significantly. The New York State Department of Health advises women of childbearing age and children under age 15 not to eat any fish from anywhere in the Hudson.
Unfortunately large numbers of people, including the underprivileged who fish for subsistence and not sport; ethnic groups whose cultures embrace fishing, and even upscale sportspersons whose enjoyment includes cooking the catch, continue to eat Hudson fish in quantity despite the warning signs posted up and down the river.
PCBs build up in the environment, the technical word is bioaccumulate, becoming more concentrated as they move up the food chain to the human level. Less than a month ago, scientists retained by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) released new evidence that the PCBs have been moving from the river's bottom onto land, where they are contaminating soil and animals along the banks, and in residential back yards.
This stands in sharp contrast to the advertising campaign GE has been waging on the upper Hudson, showing abundant, flourishing wildlife flying over and splashing in a sparkling river.
The public has not been taken in by GE's massive disinformation campaign. A statistically valid (plus or minus 3.5 percent) Marist College poll sponsored by Scenic Hudson reveals that 84 percent of those interviewed said the river should be cleaned up. That qualifies as a landslide.
There is no question that the Hudson must be cleaned up. Scenic Hudson has interviewed senior representatives from more than two dozen scientific, academic, governmental and environmental institutions and found every one of them in favor of a cleanup. GE stands alone in insisting that science is on its side.
It is high time General Electric honored its obligations to the public.
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