Decades after General Electric plants discharged PCB-laden wastewater into the Hudson River, plans to remove the tainted sludge are moving ahead.  GE will spend an estimated $750 million to remove the sludge from a 30-mile stretch of the Hudson in upstate New York, reports the Times Union. The question is what to do with it.

The blue areas show where the dredges are working near Rogers Island and Griffin Island.Banned in 1977, polychlorinated biphenyls had been used for decades as coolants and lubricants in electrical transformers, and are considered to be a likely carcinogen in humans. According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency , PCBs are have also been shown to have serious non-cancer effects on the immune, reproductive, nervous, and endocrine systems in animals. 

The controversial clean-up plan involves transporting PCB-laden sludge from the Hudson to West Texas, where it will be buried in a disposal site.

Some residents living near the waste site have no objections to the plan, or even view it in a positive light. Others worry that the clay on which the sludge will be buried contains cracks, through which PCBs could wend their way into the local food chain.

Criticism of the plan has been directed at the EPA for failing to require neutralization of the PCBs at a treatment facility. According to Neil Carman, an official with the Sierra Club, "There's no cleanup. It's just gone from the Hudson River."