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eluded a “no - action” plan, seemed to be dredging the river’s “hot spots,” or areas of heavy concentration that were not subject to a natural cleansing by river erosion. Those areas near the main channel which experienced a constant heavy water flow, would eventually purge themselves of the contaminant, Werner said.
“The PCB wouldn’t actuallly be degraded,” she explained, “it would just be flushed out of the river.”
However, areas out of the main channel and deep pockets in the river would not have the advantage of this natural cleansing process. In addition to these spots, Werner said, land downstream from the discharging plants was also showing a problem. A dam was dismantled in 1973, increasing the surface land. Later, samples of the ground which once lay beneath the waters of the dam, revealed highly contaminated soil now on dry land. It was obvious that this land also needed to be removed.
Now, 12 years after the initial discovery of the contaminant, the DEC is ready to go on its PCB removal project. Three hundred and sixty cubic yards of sediment containing over 26,000 pounds of PCB’s will be dredged from the riverbed and stored in hazardous waste containment units. Pits dug into the ground and lined with three impermeable sheaths, these units are filled and then capped with water resistant clay.
Grass, planted on the cap, camoflages the deadly waste hidden below. Under the units, special filtration machines are waiting to catch any rainwater that might percolate through the containment, and filter and treat it before it is released into the surrounding area.
There’s only one thing holding the project back. The funds are there, the engineering and research are complete, but the DEC just can’t find a suitable dump site. The first site. Site G, was rejected as being too close to human habitation, and the project is now considering another, larger site. Site 10. If the state government agrees on Site 10, dredging will begin in 1991 and be completed by 1994.
The entire cost of the program will be about $250 million dollars; however, Werner said that if the DEC is also directed to research a permanent method of detoxifying the contaminated sediment, the years will stretch out and the cost could approach half a billion dollars.
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