EPA News Release:

EPA Begins Third Five-Year Review of Upper Hudson River PCB Cleanup

Contact: Larisa Romanowski, (518) 407-0400, romanowski.larisa@epa.gov

ALBANY, NY (April 19, 2022) – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has initiated its third five-year review of the cleanup of the Hudson River PCBs Superfund site, which extends from Hudson Falls, New York, to New York City. Dredging to remove polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) from a 40-mile stretch of the upper Hudson River between Fort Edward and Troy, New York, was completed in 2015. The cleanup was conducted by General Electric (GE) Company under the oversight of and a legal agreement with EPA.

The purpose of this five-year review, which is legally required under the Superfund law every five years after the start of on-site construction at a site, is to ensure that the cleanup is working as intended and protective of people’s health and the environment.

“As we continue our work to monitor and assess the upper Hudson, move forward with the Hudson River floodplain investigation and evaluate how best to assess the lower Hudson, EPA is committed to continuing to fully engage our state and federal partners and the site’s Community Advisory Group during the five-year review process,” said EPA Regional Administrator, Lisa F. Garcia. “It has been EPA’s long-standing experience on this iconic site that engagement from the public has strengthened our work and served well communities up and down the Hudson.”

EPA will, in part, be evaluating new data collected since the second five-year review was conducted in 2017. As part of the upcoming five-year review, EPA will review the fish, water and sediment data collected between 2017 and 2021. This five-year review will be one of many future reviews and will not serve as the final assessment of the cleanup, rather, it will evaluate whether the stated goals of the cleanup are being met, or are expected to be met, based on the available data.

In the second five-year review report, issued in 2019, EPA deferred a determination about the protectiveness of the cleanup remedy in the Upper Hudson River until additional Hudson River fish tissue data could be gathered. As described in the second five-year review, it is anticipated that additional years of data may be needed to determine the rate of fish recovery with statistical confidence. Lowering PCB levels in fish tissue is the key objective of the cleanup remedy selected in 2002 by EPA.

The Operation, Maintenance & Monitoring phase of the upper Hudson cleanup will continue. During this phase, there is ongoing monitoring to track the ongoing recovery of the river. EPA will also continue to conduct periodic five-year reviews.

The upcoming five-year review will also include a review of actions taken as a result of a 1984 cleanup plan for the areas of PCB-contaminated sediment upstream of the areas targeted for dredging. These areas, known as the remnant deposits, became exposed after the river water level dropped following removal of the Fort Edward Dam in 1973. These areas are now capped, maintained, and monitored.

EPA’s other activities to address contamination in the Upper Hudson include an ongoing comprehensive floodplain investigation to evaluate and address PCB contamination that may be present in sediment carried onto low-lying shoreline areas in the Upper Hudson River. EPA is also continuing its plans for supplemental studies in the Lower Hudson River.

EPA expects to release the third five-year review report in fall 2022 and will make it available for public input. Prior to issuing the report, EPA also will present on the progress of the review to the site’s Community Advisory Group (CAG). CAG meetings are open to the public and information about the meetings will be announced in advance. EPA anticipates the third five-year review report will be completed by spring 2023. The five-year review report will be available on EPA’s Hudson River webpage.

Between the 1940’s and 1970’s, GE discharged PCBs into the Hudson River from its two former capacitor manufacturing plants in Fort Edward and Hudson Falls, New York. In 2002, EPA issued a Record of Decision calling for the targeted environmental dredging of approximately 2.65 million cubic yards of PCB-contaminated sediment from a 40-mile stretch of the Upper Hudson River between Fort Edward and Troy, NY, followed by a period of monitored natural recovery predicted to extend more than five decades. The dredging and capping work in the Upper Hudson River was conducted between 2009 and 2015. 

For more information about the Hudson River PCBs Superfund site, visit the EPA Hudson River webpage.

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