For all the insults it has endured - PCB's courtesy of GE at the head of the list - the Housatonic is still a beautiful, living river. This section is a couple of miles upstream of Cornwall Bridge where I work. A few weeks ago I stopped to watch the sun sparkle on the water and the autumn leaves blazing along the sunlit western shore. The eastern bank was dark in the early morning shadows. This is about where the two bears I saw a week afterwords were coming from when they crossed my path and headed into the tall timber.
Now the leaves are down and the river is thick with floodwater after heavy rains. Its many moods often mirror my own.
Yep. For my money they got off very easy with the Housatonic river consent decree. 15 million in natural resources damage funds to split between two states and 2 miles of river dredged and reclaimed. A growing pile of "low level" i.e. less the 50ppm of PCB contaminated material next to a Pittsfield school at "Hill 78". They hardly feel it at GE, and fight every effort to make them more accountable.
Posted by: GreenmanTim | November 21, 2006 at 11:17 PM
GE still needs to be held truly accountable for their destruction of people and place. What a shame.
Posted by: Charlie Crystle | November 21, 2006 at 06:20 PM