Why America Killed Its Greatest River

For thirty years, General Electric discharged PCBs into the Hudson River from its capacitor plants at Fort Edward and Hudson Falls — and New York State gave them the permits to do it. When the contamination finally made headlines in 1975, GE settled for $4 million. The commercial fishing industry that had sustained Hudson Valley towns for generations was shut down almost overnight. The river that once carried 4.3 million pounds of shad in a single season became one of the largest Superfund sites in America. This is the story of the people who fought back — a Sports Illustrated writer who tested the fish, a folk singer who built a boat, and a small group of citizens who took on Consolidated Edison at Storm King Mountain and changed American environmental law forever. It's also the story of a corporation that spent decades and hundreds of millions of dollars arguing that the best thing to do about a poisoned river was nothing at all. GE eventually paid an estimated $1.7 billion to dredge the upper Hudson between 2009 and 2015. Whether it was enough is still being argued. The Hudson River is not dead. But it remembers. Sources: U.S. EPA, "Hudson River PCBs Superfund Site — Actions Prior to EPA's February 2002 Record of Decision," epa.gov New York State DEC, "PCB Contamination of the Hudson River: State Directives to Limit or Ban Consumption of Hudson River Fish," dec.ny.gov Robert H. Boyle, The Hudson River: A Natural and Unnatural History (W.W. Norton, 1969; revised edition 1979) Scenic Hudson Preservation Conference v. Federal Power Commission, 354 F.2d 608 (2d Cir. 1965), archived at the Marist College Environmental History Project Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, Inc., "Hudson River PCB Contamination," clearwater.org HISTORY.com, "GE Finally Initiates Cleanup of Polluted Hudson River," May 15, 2009 entry, history.com