Housatonic-River.com

What the river bottom looked like before clean up and then 5 and 10 year restoration pictures

timgray — Sat, 12 May 2012 23:48:40 +0000

There is a different side to the story when you hear people writing that the clean up didn’t work in the Pittsfield two mile stretch of the

Housatonic River. Here is what was
table in Pittsfield, Mass." src="http://housatonic-river.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/pcbs-pittsfield-300x226.jpg" alt="PCBs under the water table in Pittsfield, Mass." width="300" height="226" />found during remediation. This is Dense Nonaqueous Phase Liquid. A mixture of PCBs and other toxic chemicals under the water table. Some of these plumes that were discovered during the clean up had PCB concentrations thousands of times what EPA considers safe. GE and Mass DEP are using this stretch of the river to imply the clean up destroyed the river.

Housatonic river restored after PCBs removal

years after PCB cleanup" src="http://housatonic-river.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/after-trees-300x207.jpg" alt="Housatonic River five years after PCB cleanup" width="300" height="207" />

10 years restoration

Other parties to this discussion don’t show pictures after restoration has been allowed to take hold. They only show you the river during and immediately after dredging. Restoration takes time!The picture on the left shows the first half mile with 10 years of growth. Below is a picture of the second mile and a half clean up with five years of growth. So do we clean the PCBs and restore the river or leave the PCBs where they are?

years after PCB cleanup" src="http://housatonic-river.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/after-riverbend-300x248.jpg" alt="Housatonic River tens years after PCB cleanup" width="300" height="248" />

5 years restoration

PCB Clean up goals for the Housatonic

timgray — Sat, 12 May 2012 23:45:08 +0000

HRI favors a plan for the cleanup of the Housatonic River that will meets these goals:

No more toxic waste dumps in the Berkshires
Maximum removal of PCBs, including in Connecticut
Maximum community involvement throughout the clean-up
Openness to explore and utilize alternative technologies
Flexibility to modify clean-up plans as needed. (adaptive management)

Good Things to Life: GE, PCBs, and Our Town

Tim Gray — Sat, 14 Apr 2012 16:16:00 +0000

PCBs and Wildlife Panel

timgray — Sat, 17 Mar 2012 00:06:10 +0000

General Electric says
“Don’t Destroy the River to Clean It”

The Housatonic River Initiative invites you to a a community

forum on PCBs and the Risks To Wildlife

Thursday April 5th, 7-9:30 PM, Lenox Town Hall

Why Does the USEPA want to clean the PCBs from Housatonic River?
What is the scientific peer reviewed Housatonic River Ecological Risk Assessment?
What are PCBs doing to the global environment?
Why are environmental agencies cleaning up PCBs around the globe?
Learn why PCBs are widely distributed in soil, water, air, wildlife, and humans

Panel Members

Biography:. Dr. David Carpenter, a neurotoxicologist is a professor in the Department of Environmental Health and Toxicology in the School of Public Health at State University of New York, Albany. He previously served as director of the Wadsworth Laboratory of the New York State Department of Health. He has worked successfully with many communities across the country to help them assess the degree of human exposure to a range of contaminants, including vast experience with PCBs. Carpenter, who received his doctorate from Harvard Medical School, has 220 publications, 37 reviews and book chapters and 12 other publications to his credit.

*Dr. Peter L. deFur* has extensive experience in ecological risk assessment regulations, guidance and policy. He has been chair of the Board of the Science and Environmental Health Network (SEHN), President of the Association for Science in the Public Interest, and recently completed a term on the National Research Council Board on Environmental Studies and Toxicology (BEST). He also served on EPA’s Endocrine Disruptor Screening and Testing Advisory Committee. He received his Ph.D. in Biology (1980) from the University of Calgary, Alberta. He was a postdoctoral fellow in neurophysiology in the Department of Medicine at the University of Calgary. Peter has extensive experience in risk assessment and ecological risk assessment regulations, guidance and policy. He served on the National Academy of Science Risk Characterization Committee, numerous scientific reviews of EPA ecological and human health risk assessments, and EPA’s Ecological Risk Assessment Guidelines. He has also served on three federal advisory committees for EPA’s Endocrine Disruptor Screening and Testing Program.

Thomas Tyning is a professional naturalist and writer. He is currently a Professor of Environmental Science at Berkshire Community College. Recently he was the Field Herpetologist with the Massachusetts Audubon Society where he has worked for 24 years. He is also an adjunct faculty member at Springfield College and Antioch New England Graduate School where he teaches Amphibian Biology, Herpetology, Field Entomology, Field Ornithology and other courses. For the past 24 years he has written a weekly newspaper column about nature for the Springfield (MA) Union-News and Stokes Nature Guides series (Little, Brown and Co.). Tom leads natural history tours to such places as Galapagos Islands, Costa Rica, Venezuela, the Amazon River Basin, South Florida’s Everglades, Newfoundland and eastern Canada, and the desert Southwest. His graduate work from the University of Massachusetts (Amherst) focused on the biology and conservation of the Timber rattlesnake.

For more info call 413-446-2520 or email housriverkeeper@gmail.com

PCB clean up goals for the Housatonic River

timgray — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 19:53:50 +0000

HRI favors a plan for the cleanup of the Housatonic River that will meets these goals:

No more toxic waste dumps in the Berkshires
Maximum removal of PCBs, including in Connecticut
Maximum community involvement throughout the clean-up
Openness to explore and utilize alternative technologies
Flexibility to modify clean-up plans as needed. (adaptive management)

WHAT THE RIVER BOTTOM LOOKED LIKE BEFORE CLEAN UP AND AT THE 5 AND TEN YEAR RESTORATION POINTS

timgray — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 19:15:22 +0000

There is a different side to the story when you hear people writing that the clean up didn’t work in the Pittsfield two mile stretch of the

Housatonic River. Here is what was table in Pittsfield, Mass." src="http://housatonic-river.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/pcbs-pittsfield-300x226.jpg" alt="PCBs under the water table in Pittsfield, Mass." width="300" height="226" />found during remediation. This is Dense Nonaqueous Phase Liquid. A mixture of PCBs and other toxic chemicals under the water table. Some of these plumes that were discovered during the clean up had PCB concentrations thousands of times what EPA considers safe. GE and Mass DEP are using this stretch of the river to imply the clean up destroyed the river.

Housatonic river restored after PCBs removal

years after PCB cleanup" src="http://housatonic-river.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/after-trees-300x207.jpg" alt="Housatonic River five years after PCB cleanup" width="300" height="207" />Other parties to this discussion don’t show pictures after restoration has been allowed to take hold. They only show you the river during and immediately after dredging. Restoration takes time!The picture on the left shows the first half mile with 10 years of growth. Below is a picture of the second mile and a half clean up with five years of growth. So do we clean the PCBs and restore the river or leave the PCBs where they are?

years after PCB cleanup" src="http://housatonic-river.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2011/02/after-riverbend-300x248.jpg" alt="Housatonic River tens years after PCB cleanup" width="300" height="248" />

Reasons to protect wildlife and support a clean up

timgray — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 19:12:33 +0000

Reasons to protect wildlife and support a clean up

Housatonic River fish have some of the highest levels of PCBs ever recorded

A study from the 1990’s revealed large intakes of PCBs above safe eating levels into 6 month old “young of the year” perch

A wood duck tested from the Housatonic had 3700 parts per million when adjusted for fat content. Under federal law, soil over 50 parts per million has to be disposed of in a lined regulated hazardous waste landfill. This has been characterized as one of the highest levels of PCBs ever found in waterfowl.

____________________________________________________________________

Findings From the GE/EPA scientific peer reviewed Housatonic Ecological Risk Assessment

50% of mink young died within 6 weeks when fed a diet of fish with only 4 parts per million PCB harvested from the Housatonic River. Many Housatonic river fish have higher levels. Jaw lesions were observed in the other developing young that did survive, which results n eventual loss of teeth, leading to anorexia and eventual death.

:Benthic invertebrate mortality and impaired development

Reduced survival of larval fish and various deformities including swim bladders that were malformed or formed out side the body cavity

Frogs with abnormal egg masses, malformations, impacts to metamorphosis and sex changes

____________________________________________________________________

PCBs are one of the most prevalent toxic chemicals in the world’s food chain. This is why most countries in the world are cleaning them up. Polar bears, whales, ocean fish, and other wildlife are all being affected.

The striped bass and shad fishing industry were wiped out because of PCBs traveling down the Hudson and Housatonic River into Long Island Sound.

Signs posted by the Mass Department of Public Health state

DO NOT EAT FISH, FROGS, TURTLES, WOOD DUCKS, OR MALLARD DUCKS FROM THIS RIVER

There may be only one chance in history to have the PCBs cleaned up as it took close to twenty years to rise to the top of EPA’s priority list. Most communities welcome the clean up.

The PCB clean up will be the biggest jobs program to come to Berkshire County in years.

The PCB Wars

timgray — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 19:00:07 +0000

In a recent article, HRI co-founder Mickey Friedman writes that Massachusetts Congressman John Olver, Sen. Scott Brown, General Electric, and officials at the Massachusetts Executive Office of Environmental Affairs are all “… trying to intervene in EPA’s internal process and delay a cleanup decision for the “Rest of the River.” The “Rest of the River” is the name given by the EPA to the PCB-contaminated Housatonic south of the confluence of the East and West branches. The heavily-contaminated first two-mile section of the River in Pittsfield has already been cleaned.

Read full article: The PCB Wars: The Commonwealth et al vs. EPA

The Fish, the Ducks, & the Clucks by Mickey Friedman

timgray — Fri, 21 Oct 2011 16:08:25 +0000

The Fish, the Ducks, & the Clucks

The Fish are the fish that swim the Housatonic River; the Ducks are the ducks that travel the flyway, stopping to live for a bit in the Housatonic. And the Clucks, well read on, and make your own decision.

The men and women of the Commonwealth whose jobs are to protect our environment came to town the other day to explain their plan for the Housatonic River. The fish and ducks couldn’t make the meeting. But the Lenox Town Hall was packed with people, many vigorously endorsing a more comprehensive cleanup, some enthusiastically supporting the state’s proposal for a cleanup of Woods Pond, but a plan that leaves most of the river and floodplain the way it is.

Some of the toxic PCBs the State thinks we should leave in the floodplain because we shouldn’t destroy the river to save it. Because saving it is worse than not saving it. Because actually saving it is something only the EPA wants to do.

“Cluck,” by the way, as in “dumb cluck,” is a word often used on the street to describe someone who is more stupid or foolish than detestable.

Kenneth Kimmel, the Commissioner of the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and Mary Griffin, the Commissioner of Massachusetts Department of Fish and Game (DFG) brought some DFG staff scientists to help us understand their plan.

That the DEP and DFG presentation impressed some people is a testament to the fact that it is a royal pain in the ass to read all the thick and very boring scientific reports the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Army Corps of Engineers have assembled the last twenty years. Not even the crack commentators at the Berkshire Eagle have the time to tackle those reports. Thankfully, the Commonwealth decided to offer some easy-to-digest, non-scientific non-facts.

Governor Patrick’s team made several points. One: you can’t really effectively clean the areas where most of the PCBs are because those are environmentally sensitive areas – and that’s where all the fragile, endangered species hang out. That’s the section of the Housatonic River which bends and curves – the fancy scientific term is “meanders.” It’s where 75% of the PCBs are: in the meandering river and on the riverbanks and in the adjacent floodplain. Too complicated. We can’t clean it without destroying it. The same thing GE says.

The DEP and the DFG said that again and again, and never offered any tiresome, ever-so complicated scientific evidence to support their opinion. Which could have taken some time. The EPA has wasted hours and hours demonstrating how people clean ecologically-sensitive meandering rivers all over the country. And then successfully restores them.

Two: just in case the audience was confused about what these folks did, thinking maybe the Department of Fish and Game cared about the fish and game, they talked about their mission. Turns out they don’t really concern themselves with an individual fish or individual duck. They focus on “populations.”

Good to know. Especially if you’re an individual fish, like a white sucker or largemouth bass, or your basic wood duck or mallard or osprey. If your fish or duck body is riddled with PCBs, don’t waste your time calling the Department of Fish and Game. Think about how much time and money they’re saving at DFG by dodging those phone calls? Considering we’ve got a river filled with potentially-complaining contaminated ducks with time on their feet hanging in the Housatonic.

This is what the Commonwealth of Massachusetts wants you to know about the contaminated fish and ducks just in case they get their way and we don’t clean up most of the river.

Unfortunately, those time-wasting folks at the EPA discovered with all their tests that fish in the Housatonic have some of the highest levels of PCBs in the country, up to 100 times more than the limits set by the US Food and Drug Administration. And that our ducks have PCB levels that are 200 times higher than the national tolerance level.

That could have presented a real problem. But because there are a lot of fish still swimming and a lot of ducks still flying, DFG says we have a “population.” Which is good. So chill. Lucky for us the fish and ducks are only contaminated, not dead.

Three: the government folks told us it’s much better not to eat any fish at all, than to eat seven meals of fish a year. Because even the most stringent of GE cleanup plans wouldn’t allow us to eat unlimited numbers of fish, only seven meals. And that would be so confusing, we probably wouldn’t remember to stop at seven meals. We might eat eight meals or maybe nine meals and then we’d be in trouble. Why? Because while the “population” of fish is healthy, that individual fish is really sick, and eating that fish is a really bad idea because we’d be eating PCBs.

Seems the folks from Boston suspect we’re all a bit slow out here. Probably from eating those contaminated fish or those contaminated ducks. Maybe from breathing in the PCBs which come from the contaminated floodplain and the contaminated river sediment that we shouldn’t clean. We’re so brain-damaged, we think that the entire river system should be cleaned. Which makes us the clucks. And them, the Department of Environmental Protection.

The PCB Wars: The Commonwealth et al vs. EPA

timgray — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 16:19:19 +0000

Read full article: The PCB Wars: The Commonwealth et al vs. EPA