page_title: Pollution of the Hudson River
section_title: Cleanup
hierarchical_section_title: Pollution of the Hudson River / Cleanup
caption_attribution_description: English: General Electric Co. (GE) dredging PCBs on Hudson River.
context_page_description: Between 1947 and 1977, General Electric polluted the Hudson River by discharging polychlorinated biphenyls, causing a range of harmful effects to wildlife and people who eat fish from the river or drink the water. Other kinds of pollution, including mercury contamination and cities discharging untreated sewage, have also caused problems in the river.
  In response to this contamination, activists protested in various ways; for instance, musician Pete Seeger founded the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater and the Clearwater Festival to draw attention to the problem. Environmental activism led to passage of the federal Clean Water Act in 1972, as well as federal government designation of the river as a Superfund site in 1984.
  Extensive remediation actions on the river began in the 1970s with the implementation of wastewater discharge permits and consequent reduction of wastewater discharges, and sediment removal operations, which have continued into the 21st century.
context_section_description: In 1966, Pete Seeger and Toshi Seeger founded Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, an environmental education organization and an actual boat (a sloop), that promotes awareness of the river and its history. Clearwater gained national recognition for its activism starting in the 1970s to force a clean-up of PCB contamination of the Hudson caused by GE and other companies. Other specific Hudson watershed problems with which Clearwater is concerned are development pressures in the southern half of the Hudson Valley, pesticide runoff, the Manhattan west side waterfront, Indian Point nuclear reactors, and New York/New Jersey Harbor dredge spoil disposal.
  In 1972 Congress passed the Clean Water Act and established a nationwide discharge permit system for all surface waters. All Hudson River point source dischargers were required to obtain permits issued by NYSDEC. The restrictions in these permits led to an overall reduction in pollutant loadings to the river, as factories, power plants and municipalities installed or improved their wastewater treatment systems or made other plant modifications to reduce pollution. Among the prominent sewage plant upgrades was the completion of the North River Wastewater Treatment Plant in Manhattan, where 150 million gallons per day of untreated sewage was discharged to the river until the plant opened in 1986. However, persistent pollutants such as PCBs and heavy metals, that had been discharged prior to implementation of the new permit requirements, remained in the sediments of the river.
  In 1980, Consolidated Edison (Con Ed) agreed to drop its 17-year fight to build a pumped-storage hydroelectricity facility on Storm King Mountain, after a legal challenge by the non-profit environmental organization Scenic Hudson. The actions of local citizen organizations that led to the Con Ed decision spurred the creation of Riverkeeper, a non-profit environmental organization that grew into a global umbrella organization, the Waterkeeper Alliance.
  Among the initial attempts to clean up the upper Hudson River was the removal in 1977–78 of 180,000 cubic yards (140,000 m³) of contaminated river sediments near Fort Edward. In 1984, EPA declared a 200-mile (320 km) stretch of the river, from Hudson Falls to New York City, to be a Superfund site requiring cleanup. This hazardous waste site is considered to be one of the largest in the nation. There have been many programs of remediation work to reduce the PCB pollution. In 1991, further PCB pollution was found at Bakers Falls, near the former GE Hudson Falls factory, and a program of remediation was started. In August 1995, a 40-mile (64 km) reach of the upper Hudson was reopened to fishing, but only on a catch-and-release basis. Removal of contaminated soil from Rogers Island was completed in December 1999.
  In 2001, after a ten-year study of PCB contamination in the Hudson River, EPA proposed a plan to clean up the river by dredging more than 100,000 pounds (45,000 kg) of PCBs. The worst PCB hotspots are targeted for remediation by removing and disposing of more than 2.6 million cubic yards of contaminated sediment. The dredging project is the most aggressive environmental effort ever proposed to clean up a river, and will cost GE about $460,000,000. In 2002, EPA announced a further 2,650,000 cubic yards (2,030,000 m³) of contaminated sediments in the upper Hudson River would be removed.
  GE began sediment dredging operations to clean up the PCBs on May 15, 2009. This stage (Phase One) of the cleanup was completed in October 2009, and was responsible for the removal of approximately 300,000 cubic yards (230,000 m³) of contaminated sediment, which was more than the targeted amount. Over 620 barges filled with sediment were transported to the processing facility on the Champlain Canal, and over 80 rail cars transported the dredged sediment to a waste facility in Andrews, Texas. The true scope of Phase One was about 100,000 cubic yards (76,000 m³) more than planned, and Phase Two was to be expanded as a consequence. Phase Two of the cleanup project, led by GE and mon
caption: GE dredging operation in 2012
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