THE LOWER HUDSON RIVER, CATSKILL MOUNTAINS.
As many of you know--I have joined in the battle against cancer, by supporting Accord Hospice.
But, there's another way we can fight cancer--at one important source: POLLUTION.
Decades ago, GE (General Electric) in Fort Edward and Waterford, NY, made a special kind of transformers--inside these transformers was a particular kind of oil--and other things. Over the decades, this oil was indiscriminately dumped into New York's Hudson river--along with other chemicals.
The Hudson River is a 315 miles long. It begins as a small pond--Lake Tear in the Clouds, way up north, in the high peaks region of New York's Adirondack mountains, and flows all the way south, to the Atlantic Ocean at New York city. It starts as a small stream a bit over 4000 feet up on a pristine mountainside, and winds up as the Upper New York Bay, that flows past the Statue of Liberty. Ocean vessels can--and do, ply the Hudson all the way to the capital city of Albany, roughly 150 miles. The river's got one main tributary, the Mohawk river, which flows west near Albany, out towards Buffalo--and these two north-south, east-west flowing rivers, were a MAJOR contributing factor in the development of the American west.
The Hudson is tidal to just above the capital city of Albany--and once or twice a seal--and even a whale, have made the 100 plus mile trip inland. Whereas the mid to lower course of the river is tidal, and somewhat placid, the upper course features multiple waterfalls, dams and rapids...but is still navigatable to smaller craft. There are two pallisades on the Hudson--the most famous and well-known being those on the lower end, not far from the Tappenzee Bridge. The others, can be viewed from the shores at Corinth, NY, in the southern Adirondacks--most notably from a small scenic public park, Paagenstcker Park.
The Hudson is named after the Dutchman, Henry Hudson, who was the first known white man to have sailed his ship, the Halfmoon, up the river--probably only as far as the Albany area. The river is home to a diverse array of wildlife--from sturgeon to trout. From bald eagles to great blue herons.
Getting back to the oil now...
The oil dumped into the river contained something known as PCB's--a possible carcenogen. Actually, a very likely one, but GE debates that, of course. And since GE is strongly connected to the White House...well, you can guess how the government has dragged its feet on this.
The nasty thing about PCB's--they MIGRATE. That's right...they can leave the river and migrate up to a mile away...which of course, meant I grew up, swimming and playing in PCB polluted water and soil...even tho' I lived almost a half mile uphill from the actual river.
The town of Fort Edward, NY is ENTIRELY polluted with PCB's and other unhealthy chemicals. The whole town--in the yards, inside the homes...the cancer rate is very high there, as you can guess. Leukemia is becoming more and more common, among residents there. And though the federal government is finally--albeit very, very slowly-- working on dredging out the PCB's from the river--the state of New York has done NOTHING on behalf of residents of the town. Not a thing. They worry about terrorist bombs--but entire town at risk of cancer--who cares, right? It's not a spectacular enough death to matter to the politicians. At least, that's my, admittedly cynical, viewpoint.
Here's a fact sheet on the PCB clean up in Fort Edward, from the Clearwater project:
Facts About Dredging Hudson River PCBs
* The Hudson River is the largest federal Superfund site in the US, covering a 200 mile stretch. Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) dumped by General Electric at their Hudson Falls and Fort Edward plants continue to contaminate both the Upper and Lower Hudson River. GE´s dumping, most of which was done without permits, occurred from 1946 until 1977, when PCB use was banned. Small amounts of PCBs continue to seep into the river from bedrock beneath GE´s plants, which GE will remedy by 2003. GE is responsible for the costs of cleaning up their PCBs.
* The Hudson River is not `cleaning itself´ of PCBs. Scientific studies have shown that less than 10% of PCB mass has been reduced by dechlorination over the past 20 years, leaving slightly lighter PCB molecules that are still toxic. PCBs are most often in the top nine inches of sediment, making them available to the aquatic food web. Each year, five hundred pounds of PCBs flow over the Federal Dam in Troy from sediments in the Upper Hudson and move down river.
* PCBs remain an unacceptable health risk for residents and wildlife in the Hudson Valley. PCBs cause cancer in animals and are a probable human carcinogen. PCBs cause neurological, reproductive, and endocrine problems, as well as birth defects in both humans and wildlife. Currently, fishing in the Upper Hudson is catch and release only. Anglers are prohibited from eating fish from this 40 mile stretch due to PCB contamination. Women of childbearing age and children are advised not to eat any fish from the Lower Hudson, and men are advised to limit their consumption. Despite health advisories, many anglers and their families continue to eat their catch.
Modern environmental dredging equipment and techniques can safely remove contaminated sediment. Hydraulic dredges, such as the cutterhead dredge and the eddy pump, and enclosed mechanical buckets are designed to minimize resuspension of contaminated sediments. Environmental dredging is much more contained and precise than navigational and construction dredging and has been used successfully in environmental cleanups throughout the US.
And here's what the federal Environmental Protection Agency says:
For 30 years ending in the late 1970s, the General Electric Company (GE) discharged as much as 1.3 million pounds of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) into the Hudson River from its capacitor manufacturing plants in Hudson Falls and Fort Edward, New York. The PCBs remain in the river sediment. After many years of study, 40 miles of the Upper Hudson is now slated for an environmental cleanup.
PCBs are harmful to people's health.
PCBs cause cancer in laboratory animals, are considered a probable cause of cancer in people, and can trigger serious health problems, including low birth weight and reproductive and immunological problems. Pregnant women and children are especially vulnerable. Major national and international health organizations, including the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, the American Cancer Society, and the World Health Organization agree with EPA about the toxicity of PCBs.
Eating fish from the Hudson can be dangerous.
For twenty-five years, concerns about PCBs in Hudson River fish have prompted New York State to issue health advisories that recommend limits on eating fish from the river. People should protect themselves by following state fish consumption advisories. Information is available from the New York State Department of Health (see note inside). Women of childbearing age and children under age 15 should not eat any fish from the Hudson River. No one should eat fish caught between the Federal Dam at Troy and Hudson Falls.
Although PCBs do break down, they remain in the river and are hazardous.
The endurable quality of PCBs, which made them valuable as industrial products, makes them hazardous to the environment. PCBs degrade naturally over time, but the process - called natural dechlorination - does not make them harmless. EPA considers all PCBs, regardless of their level of chlorination, to be hazardous to people's health. The PCBs may change, but they don't go away.
PCB levels in fish are not going down.
Although PCB levels in fish have decreased over the past twenty years, the downward trend has leveled off. In fact, average PCB levels in the fish of the Upper Hudson have not changed significantly in recent years. They are still high enough to trigger restrictions on eating fish and a ban on commercial fishing.
PCBs in the sediment are not safely buried.
River sediment is continually redistributed across the bottom by erosion and river flows. This movement exposes PCB-contaminated sediment, making it available to the fish. Elevated levels of PCBs, up to 1,650 parts per million, are still found at the surface of the sediment, and 90% of the sediment cores collected in 2002 and 2003 had PCBs in the top two inches.
PCBs move throughout the river.
A sophisticated scientific technique was used to fingerprint where the PCBs come from and where they go. It enabled us to track the movement of PCBs in the sediment of the Thompson Island Pool - the most heavily contaminated section of the river - through the water, 100 miles south to Kingston. The fingerprints also reveal that the five-fold increase in PCBs, as water flows through the Thompson Island Pool, comes from the sediment.
Source control alone will not clean up the river.
Each day, about three to five ounces of PCBs enter the river at the top of the Thompson Island Pool through fractures in the bedrock underneath the GE Hudson Falls plant. Samples show that about one to two pounds of PCBs flow out of the Thompson Island Pool every day. It's simple math. The additional PCBs come from the river sediment. By turning off the Hudson Falls spigot, PCB levels in fish should go down somewhat. That's why control of the source is an important complement to EPA's cleanup plan. But without targeted dredging, PCBs in the sediment will continue to find their way into fish at unacceptable levels and for an unacceptable length of time.
TOWN OF FORT EDWARD, NEW YORK, 90 years ago--but not changed much since then.
But hey, we got free food, today! Yeah!!! Any day that I don't have to pack the dreaded peanut butter and jelly sandwich for lunch, is a good day, to me! 
that was rich, but had an apple orchard--well, all the other toffs on the streets above ours (our was the middle-class street, but the three short roads above our street, on the hill, were all rich people's homes) used to give us caramel apples, and full-size candy bars...this guy just threw wormy apples from his orchard at us, grinning about how clever he was--he wouldn't, if he knew what us kids did with them (don't ask, ain't tellin')--one person, the Nagangasts, a local florist/cabinet maker, never once, in over ten years, ever opened his door on Halloween--but what to you expect from someone who has an altra-modern Califfornia style single-storey home, and then plants a row of fake greek columns on the front lawn--no shrubbery, no trees, no flowers, mind---weirdo! Nobody like him...we all suspected him of being up to something...but really, I think he was just your odd ball recluse. 
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