Richard Caspe

Richard Caspe of the Environmental Protection Agency said at a recent meeting the EPA will begin notifying outlying communities if they've been chosen as an on-shore site for dredged materials.He said towns may pass resolutions against becoming a host town to a PCB sludge dumpsite, but would not say if those resolutions were binding upon the EPA.
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This is roughly 65 percent of the PCBs in that stretch of river, according to Caspe.

Three hundred-forty thousand cubic yards of the dredging is needed to ensure a proper flow to the river to carry away contamination out of the channel where it exists, Caspe said.

The remedy includes siting of dewatering facilities or water-based facilities rather than land based.The remedy also includes that the dredged materials and the backfill needed for the river will be hauled by barge or rail.No trucks will haul any material within the Hudson Valley, he said.

Richard Caspe, head of the EPA's Superfund program, made the announcement at a public hearing in Saratoga Springs.

CASPE: We know that PCB is a serious health threat.We know that over one million pounds of PCBs were discharged into the Hudson River.We know that there's unacceptable fish contamination.We know that people are eating the fish despite the "eat none" advisories.We know that birds and animals obviously are eating the fish as well.So after a ten-year study, where are we?

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MANN: The solution, Caspe says, is a massive dredging operation designed to suck PCB-laden sediments from the river bottom.
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CASPE: I'm sorry you felt it necessary to use that rhetoric, to believe that we have a vested -- (Shouting in the background) Well, does the truth hurt?

MAN: You've got a good teacher.

CASPE: Well, I'm sorry that you believe that's the best your government can give you.

MAN: It is!It is!

The study shall be conducted in accordance with the Quality Assurance Plan dated August 21, 1995 which has been approved by USEPA and NYSDOH, as clarified by a December, 1995 status report submitted to USEPA and a February 5, 1996 letter from Robert Lemieux, First Deputy Commissioner, NYCDEP to Richard Caspe, Director, Water Management Division, USEPA.

Richard Caspe, an EPA program director was quoted as saying "…you live and learn.We're big enough people that we're willing to live and learn."

Thus, after a Hudson River-PCB battle that's raged for many of the residents' entire adult lives, many in Fort Edward predict that the lengthy cleanup itself will be a bellwether for the future, mixing "equal parts science and sociology."Both engineers and policy wonks have pledged "to involve the community in planning and decision-making," in which "facilitators and focus group coordinators are likely to become as common . . . as engineers in hip-waders."

Even so, Fort Edward residents aren't entirely persuaded that trust is all that's required.
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Caspe countered with: "Make the standards fair and reasonable, then let the chips fall where they may."

If you got it, you're luckyThis has been a wet spring in Northwest Arkansas.The two ends of the country, however, have not been so fortunate.As also reported in the New York Times, huge tracts of the West Coast need more than 200 percent of the normal precipitation to end drought conditions by July.Similarly, the East Coast is in the throes of a dry spell that may be its worst in 30 years.To make matters worse, this has been only the second time in a century that the mercury there has hit 96 degrees in April.