Transcript of Interview: 

 

Jessica Llamozas: Do I have permission to record our conversation? 

 

Larisa, EPA, Public Affairs Specialist: Sure, yeah.

 

Jessica Llamozas: Ok, thank you so much. Thank you so much for your time. Can you tell us your name, title and position at the EPA?

 

Larisa, EPA, Public Affairs Specialist: Sure, my name is Larisa Romanowski. I’m a Public Affairs Specialist with the EPA.

 

Jessica Llamozas: Great. Can you give us a brief background about yourself and your interest in public health? 

 

Larisa, EPA, Public Affairs Specialist: Sure, well again, I’m a Public Affairs Specialist with the EPA. My background includes really starting my career working in the non-profit world in the environmental field. I later went on to do some consulting with an environmentally focused consulting group and then began doing some consulting work for the Agency and transitioned to the Agency about five years ago.  

 

Jessica Llamozas: How have you been involved in the Hudson River Superfund cleanup?

 

Larisa, EPA, Public Affairs Specialist: I am particularly involved with the communications around the Hudson River Superfund cleanup. As I mentioned, I’m a Public Affairs Officer with the Agency so I’m primarily involved with communications including acting as a public liaison so I work on a lot of the written documents that we share with the communities, I have a lot of conversations  with the community about the work that’s ongoing and so that’s really primarily my focus.

 

Jessica Llamozas: In your opinion how badly is the Hudson River contaminated with PCBs and what are some of the major hazards associated with PCB contamination?

 

Larisa, EPA, Public Affairs Specialist: Well, I think as you know that the Superfund program really addresses the most highly contaminated sites in the country that are in the need of remediation so based on sampling, river sediments were found to be contaminated with PCBs and fish are unsafe to eat due to the PCB contamination in the upper Hudson river stretch and the primary risk that humans have from the site is from eating this contaminated fish. As you may know, PCBs have been demonstrated to cause cancer as well as pose some other adverse effects on the immune system, reproductive system, nervous system and endocrine system so there are a number of known impacts of PCBs to human health. 

 

Jessica Llamozas: How has the ecology of the river changed due to the contamination?

 

Larisa, EPA, Public Affairs Specialist: There have been extensive studies conducted by the Hudson River Natural Resources Trustees which is a group that includes the Federal Fish and Wildlife Service, the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration and the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation and they specifically look at the impacts to a full source of wildlife and also the ecology of the river. So, for example, they looked at things like frogs, turtles, birds, otters and mink and they documented various species from the pcb contamination. I know that they have a lot more information on their website about those specific studies so that may be something you are interested in exploring if you’re interested in learning more.  

 

Jessica Llamozas: I know that GE wasn’t that willing to do the cleanup in the beginning. How did you get them to get involved and comply with the EPA standard?

 

Larisa, EPA, Public Affairs Specialist: The EPA entered a record of decision in 2002, which is essentially a decision document that calls for dredging of about 2.65 million cubic yards of PCB contaminated sediment from the upper Hudson River. GE subsequently signed a legal agreement with EPA called a consent decree which legally requires them to conduct the work. They have done that work that is required under that legal agreement that as you know was certainly a hard fought battle to get to that part.

 

Jessica Llamozas: So at the beginning of the cleanup plan you told me the plan was to dredge 2.65 million, is that correct? 

 

Larisa, EPA, Public Affairs Specialist: That’s right. It targeted about 2.65 million cubic yards. When all is done and said…I don’t know if you know or not but we are actually at the point of completing the cleanup which is a historical milestone so you’re actually calling me at a really important time because GE is just wrapping up the dredging for the entire project and so the original estimate was about 2.65 million cubic yards and we’re probably going to be just about that when we’re all done and said. We’re going to be just around 2.75 to 2.8 million cubic yards.

 

Jessica Llamozas: Is it going to be completed at the end of November? 

 

Larisa, EPA, Public Affairs Specialist: Yes, the dredging process has actually been completed, but there’s a little more work that remains to be done as far as the backfilling. You may have heard a little bit more about backfilling, which is where they place clean material over previously dredge areas so that backfilling with clean sediment will continue until November. 

 

Jessica Llamozas: Why is the cleanup more complicated than other cleanups? 

 

Larisa, EPA, Public Affairs Specialist: Certainly for this Superfund site the sheer size and scope of it makes it pretty unique. We’re talking about a dredging project that encompasses sections of river in a 40 mile stretch so it’s one of the largest dredging projects ever undertaken in the country and you know there were many components to the project, not only the dredging but the backfilling, there’s an entire extensive restoration program, there were archeological studies conducted, and excessive monitoring that was done during the project so it was just a multifaceted project with many elements and over a huge size and scope.  

 

Jessica Llamozas: After this is completed will it be safe to eat the fish in the river?

 

Larisa, EPA, Public Affairs Specialist: At some point in the future but certainly not anytime soon. It’s going to be awhile. We think about this cleanup really for our children, our grandchildren. It’s not something where we’re going to be in a position to go out next week or next month and take a fish out of that river and eat it. Unfortunately, as I mentioned earlier, the fish are so badly contaminated that there is a “Do not eat advisory” from the NYS Dept of Health for the whole section of the upper Hudson river between Fort Edward and Troy, which is actually where the dredging took place so they don’t want you taking any fish. It’s going to be awhile. It will take a while for the river to recover and there is going to be extensive monitoring of the fish and fish sampling into the future and we anticipate in 5-10 years down the line we’re be able to start taking a look and really identifying the trend—to see some of the trends in the fish, where we expect to see some downward moment of the PCB levels in the fish, but it’s going to take a while to even start to document those downward trends of PCBs in the fish.

 

Jessica Llamozas: Were there any problems encountered during Phase I and Phase II?

 

Larisa, EPA, Public Affairs Specialist: Sure, yeah. After first phase of work, I don’t know how much you read about this in your research but essentially after the first phase of the work, an independent panelist was convened to review that first phase and to make recommendations for improvement so they conducted this independent peer review and they made some recommendations and then the EPA did adjust some operations based on their recommendations. Most of those things focused on, for example, improving sampling and some of the design associated with the project, for example, digging deeper initially into the river bottom to reduce the need for many more  for the dredge bucket –the goal of that was to reduce resuspension, you know reduce resuspending sediments sent downstream. We did want to limit some of the capping that was done. Capping can be conducted in some areas if they are not able to maybe physically access certain areas through the bedrock or structural offsets or there could be a couple of reasons but we did want to make sure that we limit the number of capping that was done instead of dredging. Capping just really involves placing stones and gravel over  previously dredged areas to isolate remaining PCBs rather than removing them but again this is a dredging project, not a capping project, so we really limited the amount of capping that was done. We set some limits after the first phase for resuspension. We actually were tracking the amount of sediment that would be transported downstream so we put some standards in place to limit the amount that could be transported.

 

Jessica Llamozas: The contaminated sediment is taken to Ohio or Oklahoma, is that correct?

 

Larisa, EPA, Public Affairs Specialist: There are a whole series of different facilities-- permitted facilities-- that the water sediment has gone to over the years. Most recently if you noted the sediment has gone to Oklahoma, Michigan, and Ohio but in previous years it has sometimes gone to facilities in some other states as well. 

 

Jessica Llamozas: After seeing the damage done on this specific area, what would you hope to see regarding regulations for PCBs moving forward?

 

 

Larisa, EPA, Public Affairs Specialist:  The manufacturing of PCB was banned in 1979. But although they are no longer produced in the U.S., PCBs can be present in products and materials that were produced before the ban in 1979 so we noted that PCB can still be released into the environment from things like hazardous waste sites that contain PCBs, illegal and improper dumping of PCB waste, leaks or releases from electrical transformers containing PCBs and disposal of PCB-containing consumer products into municipals or other landfills that wasn’t designed to handle hazardous waste. So there are a number of different ways that they can get into the environment but they were banned. 

 

Jessica Llamozas: How is the EPA working to limit the use and control the disposal of PCBs in industry?

 

Larisa, EPA, Public Affairs Specialist: PCBs are regulated under the Toxic Substance Control Act which actually bans the manufacture, processing, use, and distribution of PCBs . It gives us, the EPA, the authority to develop, implement, and enforce regulations concerning the use and manufacture, cleanup and disposal of PCBs. So basically we can create those regulations that control the use of the PCBs and the disposal of PCBs, primarily which we are doing now. There are a number of Superfund sites. Have you looked into other Superfund sites around the country other than the Hudson River?

 

Jessica Llamozas: In class we do talk about it. Are there others that are mainly for PCBs?

 

Larisa, EPA, Public Affairs Specialist: There are many, yeah. Unfortunately, there are many. So I think you’ll find if you do look into a bit more there are a number of PCB cleanups all over the country, not only on the federal level but state level as well. So certainly one of the ways EPA is working to address PCBs in the environment is through the Superfund program and trying to address PCBs in the environment. One of the other ways I would mention too…one thing that has become our focus, especially for our agency recently, is we’ve been looking at fluorescent light ballasts in school buildings  because some of that fluorescent lighting in schools are manufactured before 1979 can contain PCBs. So one of the things that our agency has been talking about and focusing on is making sure there is no issue related to potential PCB contamination from those light fixtures in schools.

 

Jessica Llamozas: Thank you so much for your time. 

 

Larisa, EPA, Public Affairs Specialist: You’re welcome. If you have any follow-up questions let me know.