Trainloads of toxic sludge to begin arriving in Texas
June 21, 2009
The first trainloads of PCB-tainted sludge dredged from the Hudson River will arrive this month and, in the eyes of critics, turn a stretch of West Texas into New York’s "pay toilet."
Written by Betsy Blaney, Fort Worth Star Telgram
LUBBOCK — The first trainloads of PCB-tainted sludge dredged from the Hudson River will arrive this month and, in the eyes of critics, turn a stretch of West Texas into New York’s "pay toilet."
They say burying dirt so toxic that General Electric Co. will spend at least six years and an estimated $750 million to dredge it up will create a new mess for future generations to clean up.
But for the 15 jobs and bit of money it’ll bring local businesses, the folks who live near the site are willing to take the risk, however remote, of tainting the area’s groundwater with somebody else’s trash.
"The city is not against it, and the city is not in an uproar," said Matt White, mayor of nearby Eunice, N.M. "It is a big impact on our city and definitely positive . . . so we’re very comfortable with it."
The deal has the blessing of government officials in both states, and New York environmental groups who have lobbied for decades for the removal of the sludge say it will substantially lower the risk of PCBs — a likely carcinogen in high doses in humans — getting into the food chain.
White said that the process is completely safe and that there’s no risk to Eunice’s 3,000 residents in bringing the contaminated dirt into their back yard.
And the Dallas-based company that operates the disposal site, Waste Control Specialists, stands to make tens of millions of dollars, according to a company spokesman who declined to give an exact dollar amount.
PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, are a family of chemicals that were commonly used as coolants and lubricants in electrical transformers before they were banned in 1977. GE plants in upstate New York discharged wastewater containing PCBs into the Hudson River for decades.
Waste Control plans to bury the tainted soil on top of 800 feet of clay and cover it with plastic lining and uncontaminated soil. It also stores radioactive waste at the site.
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