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A gate leading to the former GE site in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.NEPM's Nancy Cohen explores the economic and environmental legacy General Electric left behind in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, where only a small staff for the company remains.

Residents, Advocates Push For Vote On PCB Dump In Berkshires

Some Berkshire County residents say they should have more of a say in whether PCBs will be buried in a disposal site in the region. 

A now-closed General Electric plant in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, released the toxin — which can cause cancer — into the Housatonic River.

The selectboards of municipalities on the river — along with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and GE — approved a plan to ship sediment with the highest concentrations of PCBs out of state, and put lower concentrations in a new disposal site in Lee.

Andrea Wadsworth filed a petition to give Lee's Town Meeting the chance to vote on the agreement in May.

"The passion, the concern, the stories people had about cancer and the effect on their children and economic development — all of those things should have been vetted before a signature was put on a piece of paper," Wadsworth said.

The town lawyer for Lee did not return calls on whether a town meeting vote could alter the selectboard's approval of the agreement. 

The EPA said there are safeguards in place to make sure what's put in the Lee dump is not highly toxic.

Tim Gray of the Housatonic River Initiative said Berkshire County residents should have the chance to discuss and weigh in on the disposal site.

"We vote on sandwich signs. We vote on pot shops," Gray said. "This is a toxic dump. And there's been no vote, which is pretty astounding."

The Housatonic Rest of River Municipal Committee — which had representatives from Lenox, Lee, Stockbridge, Great Barrington and Sheffield — voted for the plan as part of  mediated agreement. As part of the settlement, GE is giving $63 million to Pittsfield and the five towns.

The EPA plans to ask for public comments this summer. The agency could alter the cleanup deal based on those comments.

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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