US EPA officials held an informal meeting in Poughkeepsie, New York this past Wednesday evening 25 March to brief residents of nearby Hudson River communities about a pilot project to be undertaken by the General Electric Company to dredge PCB-contaminated sediments from selected 'hotspots' (www.midhudsonnews.com/News/2009/March09/26/PCB_info-26Mar09.html).
According to midhudsonnews.com, EPA asserted that "there is virtually no PCB problem in the Hudson River in the Mid-Hudson Valley region. That was, indeed, the conclusion of a US EPA health risk assessment of PCBs in the Hudson River. That assessment, however, was shown to be biased in a dredging-friendly direction. For information about potential risks to public health posed by PCB dredging, see www.ramtrac.com/PUBLICATIONS.html. Click on publication number 34. This fully peer-reviewed article documents a consistent pattern of health risk underestimation that clearly constitutes bias in the US EPA health risk assessment of PCBs in the Hudson River. It documents, further, that airborne PCB risks to public health potentially associated with dredging may be significant, but were virtually overlooked by the EPA.
Copyright © 2009 by The Center for Health Risk Assessment and Management, a Division of RAM TRAC Corporation
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