ALBANY, N.Y. -- New York for the first time has sued the General Electric Co. over PCB contamination in the Hudson River, and the attorney general said he hoped more lawsuits would follow.
"Once we establish the legal theory, it will open GE up to damages that are vast," Eliot Spitzer said Monday.The lawsuit seeks economic damages and to force GE to pay for the dredging of the state-maintained Champlain Canal. The 35-mile waterway near Albany at times runs parallel to the Hudson and at others is part of the river itself.
The canal has not been dredged in at least 15 years, Spitzer said, because PCB-laden silt has made the process about 10 times as expensive as it would be for non-polluted river sediments.
Spitzer, however, said the real aim of his litigation is to establish GE's responsibility for PCB contamination in the Hudson, which primarily originated in the Hudson at GE plants in Hudson Falls and Fort Edward about 60 miles north of Albany.
He accused GE of a quarter-century's worth of stalling on cleaning up the contaminants. The federal Environmental Protection Agency is now considering whether to order the company to pay for the dredging of PCB "hot spots" from the Hudson.
It has been estimated that Hudson dredging could cost GE billions of dollars.
Spitzer campaigned for attorney general last year on a promise to hold GE accountable for Hudson pollution.
GE spokesman Mark Behan said it is "absurd" for Spitzer to contend that "GE is somehow responsible for New York state's failure to conduct navigational dredging."
The EPA rejected environmental dredging in the upper Hudson River in 1984, and Behan said New York has not renewed the attempt since.
Spitzer's action also was criticized by Gov. George Pataki's commissioner of environmental conservation, John Cahill. Spitzer is a Democrat; Pataki is a Republican.
Cahill said Spitzer's suit could hinder the implementation of an EPA-driven PCB cleanup plan for the Hudson.
"To believe that the lawsuit by the attorney general will mean quicker remediation of the river is simply a mistake," hel said.
A suit over dredging the Champlain Canal will also "do nothing to address the sediments contaminated with PCBs that lie on the bottom of the Hudson River," Cahill said.