In the span of a week this September, the administration of New York Governor Andrew Cuomo and Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, and U.S. Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, took major steps to halt serious threats facing the Hudson River. These include requirements for rigorous environmental reviews of a proposed oil pipeline and of continued transport of crude oil through the Port of Albany, and strong calls for additional cleanup by General Electric of the PCB-contaminated upper Hudson River. Together, these actions mark a breakthrough in efforts to restore the environmental and economic health of this iconic waterway.
First, on September 15 the state Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) issued a “positive declaration” concerning plans by Pilgrim Pipelines LLC to construct two side-by-side pipelines that would carry up to 16.8 million gallons of volatile petroleum products each day between the Port of Albany and Linden, New Jersey—a straight shot through the Hudson River Valley. This means the project must undergo a full environmental review to determine if it can receive the permits its proponents seek.
Already, the Hudson Valley has become a crude oil superhighway, with billions of gallons of processed Bakken crude “flowing” downriver from Albany each year in barges or poorly designed railcars prone to puncture and explosion. The region’s emergency response plans are inadequate to handle a spill from current levels of crude passing through or offshore of riverfront communities. The pipelines would magnify the potential for a catastrophe.
What’s at risk if this pipelines project moves forward? On their way through 29 valley communities the lines would span 19 prime destinations for outdoor recreation; every tributary on the Hudson River’s western side as well as the Hudson itself, which the pipelines would cross twice; drinking water sources upon which millions of people depend; 100 farms that supply fresh, local food to valley and New York City residents; and 9.2 miles of wetlands that provide globally important habitat.
The need for the environmental review is obvious when you consider that a pipeline break would release 168,000 gallons of crude oil—if safety protocols work. If they don’t, over 357,000 gallons of crude could spill hourly. Exacerbating the situation, U.S. pipelines aren’t routinely inspected by federal authorities, and it can take hours to detect a spill when protocols fail. Often, it is citizens who report spills, rather than the operators whose high-tech monitors are supposed to detect them and shut down the flow of petroleum product.
Michigan’s Kalamazoo River offers an excellent case study of what’s at stake. Cleaning up the 1.1 million gallons of crude that leaked from a pipeline beneath this waterway in 2009 cost $2 billion and denied public access to a 35-mile stretch of the river for four years. The 150-mile portion of the Hudson River affected by the Pilgrim Pipelines is tidal, meaning spilled petroleum would flow up and down with the tides, potentially contaminating waterfronts, wetlands, parks and tributaries from Albany to New York Harbor.
In another show of the strong leadership of DEC Commissioner Basil Seggos, the agency on September 16 ordered the air emissions permit renewal submitted by Global Companies for its riverfront plant in Albany to be treated as an entirely new application, restarting environmental review of this operation where crude oil from North Dakota’s Bakken fields is processed before being pumped into barges and railcars to begin its downriver journey. Global was hoping the renewal would be pro forma, so it could move ahead quickly with expansion plans that would enable the processing of heavy tar sands crude oil. Tar sands crude is even harder to clean up than Bakken crude because it sinks if spilled.
Global already is facing a lawsuit, filed earlier this year by Earth-Justice, Scenic Hudson and partners, which contends the company failed to obtain a required air pollution permit and institute necessary pollution controls before modifying its Albany facility in 2012. This earlier expansion resulted in a fivefold increase in Bakken crude handled there—marking the start of the Hudson Valley crude oil superhighway.
The environmental review will force Global to address the plant’s public health impacts, including disturbing data that levels of the carcinogen benzene—a component of crude oil—are higher than normal in the low-income neighborhood near the facility.
Then, on September 19 the office of New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman put the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) on notice that General Electric’s cleanup of cancer-causing PCBs in the Hudson River has failed to meet the agency’s explicit objectives and that the EPA cannot legally certify the work as complete because it hasn’t met its goals. The letter cited data showing that concentrations of PCBs in Hudson River fish remain 600 percent higher than levels required by the EPA’s legally binding agreement with GE. That order indicated the lower levels of fish contamination would be achieved starting this year.
The attorney general’s letter also calls on the EPA to look to independent scientists as the basis for evaluating the cleanup’s effectiveness—instead of data from GE scientists who relied on flawed models and sampling methods.
The letter from Mr. Schneiderman’s office builds on an August 21 letter sent to the EPA by DEC Commissioner Seggos. It cogently stated the DEC’s position that high levels of PCB contamination left behind threaten public health and the environment.
In another major breakthrough for a healthy Hudson, on September 20 Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand became the first U.S. Senator to urge the EPA to perform additional cleanup, in a strong letter to EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy. Her letter compliments public calls for additional cleanup by U.S. Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney, members of the New York Legislature and communities all along the river.
All in all, this was a banner week for the Hudson—one that bodes well for the future health of the river and the people who live along its banks and throughout the valley.