In response to Tom Reale’s letter to the editor on January 24, I would like to say that it is incredibly unfortunate how many people in this area have fallen for the propaganda posed by General Electric on the dredging of the Hudson issue.

First of all, I would like to comment on the invalidity of the GE television commercials. "Clamshell" diggers are no longer used in the dredging process; obviously, using such a method would cause a greater loss of sediment than the amount collected and probably spread the contamination. Instead, new technologies have been developed which use underwater sediment collecting equipment, and all you can see on the surface of the water is a barge moving it along. Also, it is obvious how little the local people in the commercials really know about the PCB issue. Of course the river water looks clean; that’s not where the problem lies. Because PCBs are hydrophobic ("water-hating"), they prefer to be attached to the sediments at the bottom of the river rather than entrained in the water. So, although PCB levels in the Hudson River water may be decreasing, there are enormous amounts within the sediments, especially in the Fort Edward area.

Secondly, it seems ridiculous to me that the PCBs are "buried under layers of sediment" like some people argue. As M. Bloomfield stated in his article, currents and fluctuations in water flow are constantly stirring up the sediment. General Electric has allowed the PCB contamination to spread for 20+ years. Consequently, rather than the pollution being highly concentrated in a small area, it has spread down something like 40 miles of river. And, as I have learned in my environmental engineering studies, it is much easier (and cheaper!) to perform cleanup on the former than the latter. General Electric should be penalized for the problems they have caused. And of course it is legal for the EPA to demand so. For every environmental site contamination case I have ever been exposed to, those who caused the problem in the first place should be held liable. If the polluter is not known, the owner of the property may be held accountable. Since everyone knows that GE was the principal origin of the Hudson River PCB pollution, they should and will be held responsible for its cleanup.

I will conclude by saying that, yes, GE should be held liable for this mess. Yes, I think they are wasting millions of dollars on advertising that should go toward cleanup efforts. Would you like to take the chance that PCBs may be carcinogenic? Would you eat fish from the Hudson River? Would you allow your children to swim in it? I certainly wouldn’t, and I feel sorry for the people in the advertisements who have been swallowing everything GE has been dishing out. I just hope that the public’s ignorance will not allow GE to get away with this foolishness scot-free.

Lindsay Charniga