APNewsBreak: GE says Hudson River PCB dredging has cost $561 million through end of phase 1

APNewsBreak: GE says Hudson dredging cost $561M

ALBANY, N.Y. — General Electric Co. estimated the first phase of its PCB dredging project on the Hudson River cost $561 million, providing first-time cost details of the massive cleanup.

The company provided the planning and performance cost estimate to a panel of experts reviewing the project in response to a request from the panel. The information obtained by The Associated Press on Friday includes money spent in the years leading up to last year’s PCB dredging.

Fairfield, Conn.-based GE reported that the largest chunk of money, $228 million, was spent on dredging, transporting and disposing sediment. Another $130 million was spent to buy equipment and build facilities, including a sprawling plant to treat the contaminated riverbed mud near the dredge site 40 miles north of Albany.

Upriver General Electric plants in Fort Edward and neighboring Hudson Falls discharged wastewater containing PCBs for decades before the popular lubricant and coolant was banned in 1977. PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, are considered probable carcinogens.

The river was declared a federal Superfund site in 1984, and the Environmental Protection Agency is overseeing GE’s work.

Last year’s dredging was a test run for the far larger Phase 2 of the cleanup, a projected five-year project that regulators want to start next year. The panel of independent experts is reviewing the results of the first phase and will make recommendations for Phase 2.

GE has in the past declined to break out details on how much the dredging project costs. There were outside estimates that both phases of the project could cost $500 million when the EPA called for the cleanup in 2002, though more recent estimates put the total cost at over $700 million.

GE spokesman Mark Behan on Friday said the numbers were accurate. He said it’s not possible to provide a cost estimate for the far more expansive Phase 2, noting that the EPA has yet to establish requirements for that phase.

“GE assembled a world-class team to design and conduct the first phase of dredging and to meet the requirements that the EPA set for the project,” Behan said.

Among the other costs reported by GE: design and sampling, $64 million; reimbursements to EPA, $90; other costs such as construction management, property access and administration, $49 million.

EPA spokeswoman Mary Mears said the agency had no comment on GE’s cost numbers. She said the agency’s focus is on the quality of GE’s work.

“We’re not concerned with the cost as long as the responsible party is doing the work and doing it well,” she said.