Riverkeeper Steps Up Campaign Against General Electric

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Riverkeeper Steps Up Campaign Against General Electric

Riverkeeper Steps Up Campaign Against General Electric

New Advertisements Highlight Adverse Human Health Effects of PCBs and

Call on Jack Welch to Cleanup the Hudson River

NEW YORK, July 19 (Jul 19, 2001 10:18:23 EST) -- In an effort to counteract

the General Electric Company's multi-million dollar public relations

campaign against dredging the Hudson River, Riverkeeper has launched

high-profile advertisements in New York aimed at focusing public attention

on the serious human health risks associated with exposure to

polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs.

(Photo: http://www.newscom.com/cgi-bin/prnh/20010719/NYTH056 )

One of the advertisements, now displayed on telephone kiosks around

Manhattan, depicts a pregnant woman and her son catching a PCB-contaminated

fish from the Hudson River. The advertisement graphically illustrates how

PCBs migrate up the food chain, ultimately affecting human health,

particularly that of women and children.

Hudson Riverkeeper Matthiessen said, " GE has spent enormous sums of

money trying to convince the public that PCBs aren't dangerous. Our ads are

meant to reinforce what the medical community has already confirmed: that

PCBs pose serious health risks to humans -- risks that will continue to

plague the residents of the Hudson Valley so long as GE's PCBs are allowed

to poison our River. "

The other advertisement, a billboard which appears on the West Side Highway

at 50th Street, is a challenge to GE CEO Jack Welch to clean up the toxic

chemicals his company wantonly dumped in the Hudson River over a thirty-year

period ending in 1977. The message, white text over a black background,

reads: " What's More Toxic? GE's Lies or GE's PCBs? People Are Dying to Find

Out. Clean up the Hudson, Jack. www.riverkeeper.org "

F. Kennedy, Jr., Riverkeeper's Chief Prosecuting Attorney said,

" General Electric intentionally dumped PCBs into the Hudson River for thirty

years despite having known since as early as the 1950s that PCBs are highly

toxic and that the company was endangering people's lives. The science is

clear and the public overwhelmingly supports a cleanup. It's time for Jack

Welch and GE to take responsibility for the mess they made. "

Health Effects

In addition to being known carcinogens, PCBs are linked with developmental

and reproductive abnormalities, endocrine disruption, neurological

dysfunction, and compromised immune systems. The harms associated with PCB

exposure are greatest for the developing fetus and growing child. Because

PCBs are stored in fat, they often pass from the mother to the fetus during

pregnancy, the most critical period of human development. PCBs cross the

placenta from mother to baby, and exposure in the womb to chemicals such as

PCBs can produce serious and irreversible injury to the brain. For the

developing infant, PCBs are passed through breast milk and stored in the

developing child's body. The long-term consequences of both paths of

exposure include reduced intelligence, slowed learning and impaired

reflexes.

Even President Bush, generally skeptical of environmental threats, said that

" concerns over the hazards of PCBs ... are based on solid scientific

information. These pollutants are linked to developmental defects of cancer

and other grave problems in humans and animals. The risks are great and the

need for action is clear: We must work to eliminate or at least to severely

restrict the release of these toxins without delay. "

Background

From 1947 to 1977, General Electric dumped over 1.3 million pounds of PCBs

from its Hudson Falls and Ft. capacitor manufacturing facilities

into the Hudson River. After conducting a ten-year assessment, the EPA

concluded that GE's PCBs continue to pose serious threats to human health

and the environment and that a cleanup is necessary to remove that threat.

In December of last year, the agency issued a preliminary decision ordering

General Electric to remediate PCB hotspots in a forty-mile stretch of the

River north of the Federal Dam at Troy. After an extensive public review and

comment period, the EPA is due to issue its final decision regarding the

cleanup in September. The EPA's cleanup plan has the support of Governor

Pataki, Attorney General Spitzer, nearly the entire Congressional delegation

from New York and New Jersey, and 84% of Hudson Valley residents.

Riverkeeper is a not-for-profit environmental organization that uses law and

science to protect the Hudson River, its tributaries, and the New York City

water supply watershed. Riverkeeper's ad campaign is part of a larger effort

by Friends of a Clean Hudson, a coalition of national, state and regional

organizations fighting for the restoration of the Hudson River through the

aggressive removal of PCB-contaminated sediments. The coalition comprises:

the Appalachian Mountain Club, Arbor Hill Environmental Justice Corporation,

Coast Alliance, Environmental Advocates, Hudson River Sloop Clearwater,

Natural Resources Defense Council, New York Public Interest Research Group,

New York Rivers United, Riverkeeper, Scenic Hudson, Inc., Sierra Club.

Copyright © 2001 Nando Media