A stretch of the Housatonic River winds through Lenox. Legal filings are stacking up at the Environmental Appeals Board in Washington, D.C., as fights continue over the nature of the long-awaited Rest of River cleanup project. Photos by STEPHANIE ZOLLSHAN â THE BERKSHIRE EAGLE
LEE â âIpse dixit.â Thatâs the Latin phrase lawyers for a group of elected officials use to rebut claims that Berkshires residents âoverwhelminglyâ oppose a proposed PCB landfill in Lee.
It means âdogmatic and unproven.â
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As briefs begin to stack up at the Environmental Appeals Board in Washington, D.C., the legal players are front-loading their arguments.
EPA Finalizes Landmark Cleanup Plan For Housatonic River
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has issued a Revised Final Permit for the
Rest of River cleanup plan of the Housatonic River. The Revised Final Permit, issued under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), spells out the required cleanup measures to be followed by General Electric Company (GE) to remove contamination caused by polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). The Revised Final RCRA Permit Modification (Revised Final Permit) updates EPA s 2016 cleanup plan for the river, its floodplains and other surrounding areas.
EPA s remedy as outlined in the Revised Final Permit is protective of human health and the environment and will result in more contaminated sediment removed from the river and surrounding areas than EPA s previous 2016 decision. The cleanup plan has specific provisions to expedite cleanup, significantly enhance the PCB removal in the cleanup, and provide for safe, effective disposal of th
LENOX â It appears to be the final answer: The Environmental Protection Agency is going ahead with the Rest of River settlement requiring General Electric to clean up the Housatonic River from the toxic PCB pollution it deposited there over four decades ending in the late 1970s.
The EPA unveiled the plan last February, at an event in the Lenox railroad station. A hue and cry followed when some, probably many, Lee and Lenox Dale residents saw that the less-toxic sediment would be stored in the grandly titled Upland Disposal Facility, aka The Dump, as opponents called it.
Despite months of meetings and public comment, the final revised plan is basically the same as the cleanup permit released then. The Housatonic River Initiative, led by Tim Gray, plans an appeal to an EPA review board in Washington, D.C., with the help of attorneys working pro bono, seeking a better deal that takes more PCBs out of the river and ships all the toxins out of Massachusetts. The opposition is also
EPA Finalizes Landmark Cleanup Plan for Housatonic River | U S EPA News Releases epa.gov - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from epa.gov Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
A Revised Final Permit for the Rest of River cleanup plan has been issued under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act spells out the required cleanup measures to be followed by General Electric Co. to remove contamination caused by polychlorinated biphenyls used in the manufacture of transformers at its former Pittsfield plant. The final permit updates EPA s 2016 cleanup plan for the river, its floodplains and other surrounding areas. The permit requires GE to clean up contamination in river sediment, banks, and floodplain soil that pose unacceptable risks to human health and to the environment. The excavated material will be disposed of in two ways: materials with the highest concentrations of PCBs will be transported off-site for disposal at existing licensed disposal facilities, and the remaining lower-level PCB materials will be consolidated on-site at a location in Lee.