Background:-

The main aim of this report is discussing a brief regarding the cleaning process of Hudson River polychlorinated biphenyls. The Hudson River is deeply associated with the history of America. The Hudson River played an essential role throughout the time of the industrial revolution as it helped Henry Hudson to who was in search of a northwest passage for a proper transportation route. The industries were grown in this region which created new jobs and communities, which was possible as Hudson River provided an appropriate facility of transportation in this region. The Hudson River is approximately 315 miles long, and 200 miles is classified as Superfund site by EPA. In the current aspect, Hudson River is facing a high amount of pollution due to large amount of discharge of PCBs into it.

The PCBs or the Polychlorinated Biphenyls is a fire preventive solution and an insulator which are using in the electrical device manufacturing sector. It has been expecting that around 1.3 million of PCBs were settled directly to Hudson River from the General Electric capacitor manufacturing plant  (Xi et al. 2015). There was not only affecting the environment condition but also creating health-related concerns. PCBs were dumped into the river, and ultimately it was mixing up with the food chain. Due to discharge of PCBs into the river, fishes were becoming contaminated. The humans were consuming these fishes the PCBs were accumulating within the body of the humans, and these were creating huge health-related risks with for the humans.

Cleaning process:-

How:-

GE did the cleaning process through a legal agreement. Also, the New York State Department of Environmental Conversation was a support agency for this project. As this project was a long term project, there is a long period for the natural recovery of the River. For this, operation, maintenance and monitoring programs were implemented, which was including water column monitoring, supervision, fish observing, sediment checking, cap observing and environment monitoring. Also, the five-year review process is initiated to monitor the river cleaning process accurately.

Who:-

A brief study has been done on the Hudson River where evaluation has been done over the sediment, fish, water quality and air quality.  It has been observing that Hudson River was not washing itself and the PCBs in the residue can create serious fitness issues for the humans, and this reason, cleaning of the PCBs in Hudson River was so important. To initiate the cleaning process first a Record of Decision was issued by EPA where PCBs Superfund sites were targeting. These areas were targeted through multi-year sediment sampling, and it was deciding that dredging will be done for these areas.

When:-

For initiating the cleaning process, the whole Hudson River was separated into parts which were upper Hudson River and the Lower Hudson River. For the dredging project, the Upper Hudson River was further divided by EPA into three vital sections. The dredging process started in for the river bottom sediment in 2009 and finished within the fall of 2015. Dredging was executed in two phases. Aquatic plants were also repopulated in some of the areas and habitant reconstruction stated after the degrading process.  (Wang et al. 2015).  In 2010 December, GE decided to pay for the second part of clean-up. GE showed all of the related efforts with the US environment protection agency’s error  (“Hudson River Cleanup | Hudson River PCBs Superfund Site | US EPA” 2019). GE directed both stages of the clean-up under the terms of a 2006 mid-November of the authorized contract (“Hudson River Cleanup | Hudson River PCBs Superfund Site | US EPA” 2019).

Regulation:-

The regulation of these river clean-up process is depended on the maintenance, operation, and observing programs were executed which was counting the monitoring process like habitat, fish and sediment etc. Also, it takes some times for the evaluation process is started to the proper monitoring of the river cleaning process.

Cost:-

According to the publisher, the dredging project is the supreme hostile ecological effort ever projected to clean up a river (“Hudson River Clean-up | Hudson River PCBs Superfund Site | US EPA” 2019). It will cost GE about $450,000,000 to $460,000,000. In 2001-02, EPA broadcast an additional 2,630,000 cubic yards of dirty remains in the upper Hudson River would be detached.