Q. What are PCB’s?
A. PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) are a group of synthetic oil-like
chemicals of the organochlorine family. Until their toxic nature was
recognized and their use was banned in the 1970’s, they were widely used
as insulation in electrical equipment, particularly transformers.
Reputable chemists have since concluded that “it was probably a
‘mistake’ ever to make or use PCBs”.
Q. Why are they dangerous?
A. They are serious poisons which have been shown to cause damage to
the reproductive, neurological and immune systems of wildlife and humans
and are known to cause cancer. Specifically, because PCBs in the body
mimic estrogen, women of child-bearing age and their infants are
particularly susceptible to a variety of development and reproductive
disorders. A National Academy of Sciences committee has stated that
“PCBs pose the largest potential carcinogenic risk of any environmental
contaminant for which measurements exist.”
Q. Where are they?
A. There are numerous known contaminated sites around the U. S. Among
the most dangerous of these, and of particular concern to residents of
the Hudson Valley, are the forty “hot spots” in the Hudson River
resulting from the dumping and leakage from General Electric plants at
Fort Edward and Hudson Falls. There are PCBs in Hudson River water,
biota, and sediment from Hudson Falls to New York City – 200 miles that
comprise the nation’s largest Superfund site.
Q. How did PCB’s get into the water?
A. During the period when they were used, General Electric legally
dumped some 1.5 million pounds of PCBs into the Hudson River, and
unknowingly saturated the bedrock beneath both sites with at least that
much again. Pure PCBs are oozing out of the bedrock to this day,
constantly recontaminating the river.
Q. Isn’t this just a local problem?
A. No. Once bottom-dwelling organisms absorb the material it is passed
along up the food chain. Insoluble in water, PCBs are not readily
excreted and remain, in ever-increasing concentrations, lodged in the
fatty body tissues of fish as they grow. As one consequence, a
once-thriving commercial fishing industry in the Hudson Valley, earning
about $40 million annually, is now all but dead. Almost all of the
river-dwelling fish are migratory, and the effects are such that the New
York State Department of Health has issued an advisory telling people to
severely limit their consumption, even of fish caught recreationally in
the Hudson. Women of child-bearing age and children under fifteen are
advised to eat none at all. Since subsistence fishing is common in the
lower reaches of the river, there are particular concerns in these
areas. Further, unless the contaminated material is removed, there is
an ever-increasing risk that, while remaining dangerous, it will be
dispersed gradually, carried downstream, and thus become irrecoverable.