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EPA To Update Public On Mediation Of Housatonic River Cleanup

A fish advisory near a fishing spot on the Housatonic River.
Nancy Eve Cohen
/
NEPR
A fish advisory near a fishing spot on the Housatonic River.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is inviting the public to weigh in on the cleanup of the Housatonic River at a meeting Monday in Lenox, Massachusetts.

The EPA has billed the meeting (PDF) as a chance for the public to get an update on a mediation process that is aimed at settling a dispute over the best way to dispose of toxic PCBs from the river.

General Electric, which polluted the river with PCBs, wants to build disposal sites in the Berkshires.

The EPA wants to ship the waste to a regulated facility out of state.

John Bickerman of Bickerman Dispute Resolution is facilitating the mediation. He said that so far, participants have agreed only to the ground rules regarding confidentiality.

“In addition, there have been some substantive, very preliminary, substantive conversations — just what parties might be willing to do, and where there is potential areas of compromise,” Bickerman said. “But there is no agreement by any party with any other party at this point.”

Alexandra Dunn, the Regional Administrator for EPA Region 1, said it's important to talk with the public about the mediation early in the process.

“No decisions have been made at this point,” Dunn said. “But we want to be very transparent and share with the public what we’re doing. So that is very clear, and there is no sense that anyone is operating behind a curtain, and non-transparently.”

Dunn said it should be apparent within a few months if those taking part in the mediation will find common ground.

One key party that has decided not to participate in the mediation at this time is the state of Massachusetts. And the Mass DEP is not attending the public meeting.

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.
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