The dredging plan for the Hudson River in New York State  

I was so glad to support the Environmental Protection Agency's plan to dredge/clean out the Hudson River. After all the arguments and eventual examinations, the General Electric will plan to dredge the Hudson River. It will stretch from Albany to Fort Edward, NY. Right now they are building the transportation and processing facility along the wharf that is along the Champlain Canal. I expect the dredging to begin in early 2009. The facility is to include certain buildings that receive dredged sediments, filter out clean water to be dumped back into the canal, take out whatever clean sediments that are not PCB-affected, and finally transfer the PCB-borne sediment onto railcars; gondola cars. I know that the new rail yard has been established. The facility will stretch from the south of Rt 196 down to the last lock nearest to the East St bridge, leading to the Ft Edward village. The new rail yard will intersect the existing rail yard in Ft Edward. On the Hudson River there will be barges assisted by tug boats during the dredging work. The Champlain Canal was widened to build the wharf to dock three barges that ship the dredge sediment to the facility. That way the canal will still have boats passing by. Well, the river itself had PCBs in there since the 40s. Now we are to support the plan of the river returning to its original state. We want the PCBs out of the river. I understand that some people oppose the plan. They say that they should've left the river alone. Well, I think it is the best idea to dredge the river to make it clean and free of chemicals again. Once areas of the river is cleaned out, the GE will do something to restore life in the river; habitats and plants underwater. Once the gondola rail cars are full, they will travel to Andrews, Texas to have the PCB-saturated sediments properly disposed of. The company that handles this is Waste Control Specialists; federally permitted. The Canadian Pacific Railway, CSX Corp, Union Pacific, and finally the Texas-New Mexico Rail will do the transportation of the sediments. For more information, just go to www.hudsondredging.com.