HUDSON RIVER EMITS CANCER-CAUSING FUMES

by Corrine Hicks

General Electric, a company which has blithely denied the significance of high concentrations of PCB's in the Hudson River, now faces serious criticisms based on new extensive and expensive ($16 million) studies that fault it for having carelessly dumped a toxic, cancer-causing agent into the environment. PCB's, polychlorinated biphenyls, are oily compounds used to insulate electrical equipment. Use of the compound is now forbidden because it has been determined it causes cancer in humans and birthing irregularities among birds and animals.

The new studies, conducted over seven years by New York and Federal scientists, reveal that the shores as well as the bottom of the Hudson River are coated with PCB's. General Electric had claimed the river would naturally wash out any remnants of PCB's, though, as the new studies show, this is patently false. Large concentrations of PCB's are found on the Hudson's mud flats and are evaporating, spreading the cancerous fumes in the air.

General Electric, according to investigators, is the singular company responsible for having dumped the greater amount of the highly toxic substance into the Hudson. The company, reacting in alarm to the latest posted findings, insists its own studies show different results and says state and federal environmental watchdogs are making an "unsupported speculation."

A number of medical studies are now in progress to determine if the loosed PCB is causing cancer in New Yorkers. In the Great Lakes area and in upstate New York, doctors' studies do show that medical problems are, in fact, being caused. The current report is contained in three alarming volumes published February 19 by the Federal Environmental Protection Agency.

Clouds of PCB's have risen into the air, says the report, after rain-swollen tides move swiftly over mud flats and loose the toxins into the atmosphere. This finding, say federal scientists, conflicts sharply with General Electric's insistent claim that buried deposits are unlikely to move beyond their burial sites.

Environmental groups are much heartened by the government-sponsored charges. For some time they have claimed that a major dredging of the Hudson will be necessary if the toxic deposits are to be properly removed. A spokesperson for the Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, a private environmental group, says the new study "explodes every one of the myths G.E. has been spreading."

Once PCB's have been loosed into the air, they can travel anywhere in the world, according to scientists who have discovered traces in the arctic snows. A Federal Fish and Wildlife study says concentration levels of PCB's in birds living along the river is significantly higher than in birds elsewhere. It is possible, many believe, that if this is true of wildlife, it may also be true of humans who make their homes in the same locales.