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EPA Suggests 'Mediated Conversations' To Address Housatonic River Cleanup

New England Public Media | By Nancy Eve Cohen
Published April 5, 2018 at 5:52 PM EDT
A warning sign, that was posted in 2016, by opponents to a proposed toxic waste disposal site in the woods, near the Housatonic River in the village of Housatonic, Massachusetts.
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A warning sign posted by opponents to a proposed toxic waste disposal site in the woods, near the Housatonic River in the village of Housatonic, Massachusetts.
Nancy Eve Cohen / NEPR
A stretch of the Housatonic River.
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A stretch of the Housatonic River that under an EPA proposal would be dredged to remove PCBs.
Nancy Eve Cohen / NEPM

The New England EPA is suggesting mediation may help speed up the clean up of the Housatonic River. 

Early this year, the U.S. EPA's Environmental Appeals Board upheld most of the regional EPA's plan to clean up cancer-causing PCBs from the river -- except for disposing them outside of New England in a federally approved site. That would cost about $250 million.

General Electric wants to dispose of the PCBs in the Berkshires. The New England EPA is submitting a stronger argument for out of state disposal.

Alexandra Dunn, the regional head of the EPA, wants to invite stakeholders in the river clean up for mediation this summer -- just as the federal appeals board is reviewing the case.

"If mediated conversations could result in even incremental work that might occur while some of the larger issues are being discussed, that would be progress towards a healthier river," Dunn said.

In the Berkshires this week, Dunn heard from officials in river communities that they don't want to dispose the waste there.
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Regional News ENVIRONMENTINDUSTRYWESTERN MASSACHUSETTSPOLLUTION
Nancy Eve Cohen
Nancy Eve Cohen is a former NEPM senior reporter whose investigative reporting has been recognized with an Edward R. Murrow Regional Award for Hard News, along with awards for features and spot news from the Public Media Journalists Association (PMJA), American Women in Radio & Television and the Society of Professional Journalists.

She has reported on repatriation to Native nations, criminal justice for survivors of child sexual abuse, linguistic and digital barriers to employment, fatal police shootings and efforts to address climate change and protect the environment. She has done extensive reporting on the EPA's Superfund cleanup of the Housatonic River.

Previously, she served as an editor at NPR in Washington D.C., as well as the managing editor of the Northeast Environmental Hub, a collaboration of public radio stations in New York and New England.

Before working in radio, she produced environmental public television documentaries. As part of a camera crew, she also recorded sound for network television news with assignments in Russia, Guatemala, Mexico, Cuba and in Sarajevo during the war in Bosnia.
See stories by Nancy Eve Cohen
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