Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are chemicals that were used for many years as a fire preventive and insulator in the manufacture of transformers and capacitors because of their ability to withstand exceptionally high temperatures.  They replaced other materials that had caused both fire and explosions and PCBs were therefore seen as a huge improvement in safety.  Almost every manufacturer of such equipment used PCBs, and in the USA, the General Electric Company (GE) was one of the largest such manufacturers.  GE had been using PCBs in this way for many years and had been routinely discharging PCBs in waste from two manufacturing plants into the Hudson River under licence from New York State authorities.

The first ‘scare’ concerning PCBs occurred as long ago as the 1930s but there was no body of scientific evidence found as to their toxicity.  However, by the mid-1970s, there was sufficient concern about the safety of PCBs that the US government initiated a scientific study into PCBs.  This animal study revealed that PCBs were probably carcinogenic.  (PCBs are now classified as a probable human carcinogen by the World Health Organization.  It is also thought that PCBs can also reduce people’s ability to fight infections, lead to premature birth, and contribute to learning problems.)

The use and disposal of PCBs came under the spotlight in the 1970s, and one result was that in 1975, the US Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) started proceedings against GE on state pollution charges in New York State.  In 1976, the DEC ruled that PCB contamination represented ‘both corporate abuse and regulatory failure’.  GE and New York State settled the case by paying US$6 million (and stopping the discharge).  GE paid US$3.5 million for cleaning up the river and to support State research into PCBs.

The 1970s studies into PCBs had been carried out on animals, and GE must have realized that US$3.5 million was a tiny settlement in comparison to what might have to be paid out for claims made by injured workers.  GE therefore carried out lengthy and costly research into over 7,000 workers at the two plants.  The research was not concluded until the late 1990s. Jack Welch, former CEO of GE wrote:

 ‘GE has more Superfund sites than any other company. (In 1980, Congress passed a law to address the cleanup of sites where wastes had been disposed in the past. This law was known as the Superfund Act.)  The implication is that we did something wrong.  We do have a large number of these sites, 85 to be exact.  But the number has everything to do with our longevity and our size. GE was founded in 1892 and has more factories in more towns than any other company in the world . . . . GE has taken its responsibility for these sites seriously.  We’ve spent almost (US)$1 billion in the last decade on their cleanup.’

(from “Jack: What I’ve Learned Leading a Great Company and Great People”, J. Welch with J.A. Byrne, Headline Book Publishing 2001.)

That is US$1 billion that might have been invested otherwise or paid to shareholders in dividend!

However, the Hudson River matter did not end with the 1976 settlement.  Eventually, PCBs were banned in the USA by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1979.  It was found that PCBs build up in the environment, increasing in concentration up the food chain. So where fish are exposed to PCBs and where they may also be consumed by humans (as in the Hudson River), there are potential risks – and the environmental arguments take on both social and political dimensions.  Scientific advances and further studies made it possible to ‘fingerprint’ PCBs in the Hudson River and this revealed that:

• PCBs were travelling large distances (100 miles) along the river bed where it was previously thought that they were lying undisturbed  
  

• While dechlorination (removing the dangerous parts of a PCB’s molecular structure) was naturally occurring as expected in the upper Hudson River, it was only changing one PCB into another.  In other words, the assumption of 1976 that the river would ‘clean itself’ was erroneous.

In 1999, the EPA issued two ‘Human Health Risk Assessments’ and two ‘Ecological Risk Assessments’ for the Hudson River showing that the risks to human health and the environment were above Superfund limits.  (In fact, these reports were just two of 37 reports and studies completed by the EPA on PCBs in the Hudson River from 1991 to 2001.)

The cost to the community (tax payer) is summarized in the EPA’s preferred solution to the problem:

‘The Agency’s preferred remedy includes targeted dredging of areas in the Upper Hudson River between Fort Edward and Troy, totalling 2.65 million cubic yards. The dredged material will be shipped to existing licensed landfills outside of the Hudson River Valley for disposal.  The estimated cost is $460 million.  Construction is planned to take five years.’

 And that isn’t the end of the matter either!  GE have continued to fight the EPA’s plans.  To quote Jack Welch again:

 ‘After doing all this, dredging won’t get PCBs out of the Hudson.  It will cause resuspension of buried PCBs that will flow down river. . . . It would be an environmental disaster. . . . .GE has spent more than $200 million on research, investigation and cleanup. . . .We think we now have the technology to reduce the daily seepage (of PCBs from the bedrock at old manufacturing sites) to zero. . . . This isn’t about money . . . . Unfortunately, the issue is no longer about PCBs, human health, and science.  This isn’t about what’s best for the Hudson River.  It’s about politics and punishing a successful company.’  

GE have spent millions of dollars on an information and community campaign in the Hudson River Valley in support of opposition to the EPA’s proposed plans.