A transcript of GE’s video, “Fate of the Housatonic River”. Transcript created by BEAT.
This transcript is provided as a resource for those following BEAT’s critique of this video. To read the critique, visit our blog.
The Housatonic River has always been a defining element of the Berkshires. It has provided power for mills, scenic beauty and recreation for all and served as an important refuge for wildlife, including dozens of threatened, rare or endangered species.
In the coming months the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will determine the future of the Housatonic River when it decides whether to require additional construction activity in and along the river.
GE funded the production of the film you are about to see which examines three of the alternatives being considered and their consequences.
Please watch for the next 25 minutes to learn about what these alternatives would mean for the future of the Housatonic River and its wildlife, and for the residents of the Berkshires.
[opening music, birds singing, leaves floating serenely on the river] [Female narrator]For centuries it has carved its way across this floodplain. It has witnessed the arrival of the Europeans. And the coming of the Industrial Revolution. For generations, the Housatonic River of New England has remained a magnet for nature lovers who come to enjoy its beautiful scenery and abundant wildlife. During the twentieth century, polychlorinated biphenyls, PCBs, were released to the river and spread into the riverbed and the surrounding area. Despite years of cleanups, some PCBs remain. The question now is what should be done about them. How we answer that question will impact generations to come.
Wildlife is thriving here, even though the river and surrounding areas contain PCBs. Between the 1930s and 1970s PCBs were commonly used in electrical machinery. Equipment manufactured by GE in Pittsfield contained them as well. Over time, some of these PCBs contaminated the river and the surrounding areas.
The most highly contaminated sections have been cleaned up. Ten years ago, work crews began to remove PCBs from the former GE facility in Pittsfield and from two miles of river passing through the city of Pittsfield. One hundred and ten thousand cubic yards of sediment and soil were removed. The river and its banks were dug up and lined with rock, and in some places brick. The end result was a radical reduction in the amount of PCBs in that stretch of the Housatonic. The question now is what is best for downstream sections of the river.
We’ll examine three approaches.
Monitored Natural Recovery: PCBs are captured before they can enter the river upstream while nature buries the PCBs remaining in the river.
SED 3/FP 3: Five miles of river and 44 acres of forest and wetlands will be excavated. Another 37 acres of riverbed and 60 acres of Woods Pond will be capped with clean soil.
The Ecologically Sensitive Approach or ESA: A far less damaging approach that still protects human health.
The highest remaining concentrations of PCBs exist between Pittsfield, south of the confluence of the two branches of the river, and Woods Pond dam, in the adjoining towns of Lenox and Lee. South of the dam, the river is cleaner. In the 11 mile stretch between the confluence and Woods Pond, the river is wild. Home to more animals than people. It is one of the few places in the state where there is virtually no development along the river bank. The largest landowner is the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
Professor Robert Brooks of Pennsylvania State University, first came to study wildlife on the river in the 1970s.
[Professor Brooks] “When you spend some time in a place, canoeing or walking, you really get to know it well. And I have come to appreciate what incredible biodiversity there is in this section of the Housatonic. To have a resource like this in your backyard is a real treasure. The river is carving through the floodplain creating these microhabitats. That creates tremendous diversity, both in habitats and in species that live in those habitats. In this section we see very high banks, those are prime nesting sites for kingfishers and bank swallows. Kingfishers also use these sites for foraging perches.”There is plenty for the kingfishers and other birds to eat. Twenty-five types of fish, including perch and large mouth bass, thrive in the river and its backwaters. The region is also home to larger mammals that range through the thousands of acres of wetlands and forests flanking the river.
[Professor Brooks] “Black bear, bobcat, fisher, coyote. They use this forested riparian corridor as an important habitat and dispersal corridor.”The river and the surrounding area also provide critical habitat for twenty-eight state-listed endangered, threatened, and special concern species. Sensitive species like the Jefferson Salamander, the wood turtle, and the wood frog, can all be found here.
Because of the unique character of the river and its floodplain, the upper Housatonic was designated an Area of Critical Environmental Concern by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. As a result, the state must now closely review any action that could damage this natural treasure.
This stretch of the Housatonic is also a favorite spot for hunters, birdwatchers, and outdoor enthusiasts. Even the most observant nature lover can’t see the PCBs that remain in the riverbanks. The average amount of PCBs found along this bank is estimated at 15 parts per million. If this bucket of sediment contains over two million grains of sand and soil, PCBs would account for 30 grains. Amounts in the water are more than 1,000 times lower than that.
To deal with the PCBs, many approaches have been suggested. Most will significantly change the appearance and function of this popular river.
One approach is simple – keep the river as it is, and continue to reduce the amount of PCBs entering the water from the former GE facility. This approach has been underway for more than three decades.
Upriver in Pittsfield there are PCBs in the soil and groundwater close to where factories once used the chemical. To keep them from reaching the water, a complex system of pipes and pumps sucks them out of the ground. This effort will continue for years to come.
With the flow of PCBs reduced, monitored natural recovery would rely on nature to slowly bury any PCBs remaining in the river. Habitat would be left intact, and the animals that live here would remain undisturbed. Other plans being considered would have a much greater impact on this ecosystem.
One such approach is SED 3/FP 3. SED 3/ FP 3 calls for the removal of most of the PCBs from the river and riverbanks in the 5 miles of the river south of the confluence of the east and west branches. Forty-four acres of forest , wetland, and other natural areas would also be excavated. Woods Pond and about 37 acres of riverbed would be capped with a layer of clean soil.
To remove the PCBs, the river will become a construction site. Rows of steel sheets will be driven into the ground to build temporary coffer dams so sections of the river can be drained. The riverbed and adjacent areas are then dug up and hauled away. But for each ton taken out, another ton of clean soil must be brought in. Similar work was recently done on the west branch of the river in Pittsfield. Stu Messur was one of the project leaders.
[Stuart Messur]Right now we’re standing actually in the bottom of a river that’s been cordoned off with some sheet piling. The river was dewatered and excavation has occurred.
[narrator]This type of construction is slow and difficult
[Stuart Messur]We’re typically talking weeks to do a couple hundred foot stretch. A half a mile of river in the north country like this could take on the order of a year to two years to do.
[narrator]To get at soil containing PCBs, all of the vegetation must first be torn out. All along the river trees that have stood for a century will be cut down and hauled away.
[Stuart Messur]These banks obviously did not look like this to begin with. What you had previously here was a nicely vegetated bank along the river. In order to get these soils out, all of that vegetation needs to be removed and destroyed. Any trees that are overhanging the river or that are growing within twenty or thirty feet of the river are going to have to come out. This sort of removal may be required for extensive lengths of the river and actually on both sides.
[narrator]It is estimated that it will take crews at least a decade to complete SED 3/FP 3. Miles of wetlands and forests that surround the river will also be dug out.
[Professor Brooks]All of this floodplain soil would be excavated, this groundwater wetland depression in the background would be excavated, and all the trees would be cut. So the vegetation would be completely removed, and we’d just have bare ground. What would happen to the habitats for the animals and plants here? They would be gone.
[narrator]To deal with the PCBs, 30 staging areas will be built requiring the removal of 48 acres of forest. To access them, dozens of new roads will crisscross these once quiet forests and wetlands. If this approach was taken on the river south of the confluence in Pittsfield, the impact would be dramatic.
[Professor Brooks]It’s going to be decades before we get mature trees that will provide adequate shade to shade the river. And even when they get to that age, the bank has been cut back so there’s really no way those trees can overhang and shade the water of the stream, therefore the stream waters will be warmer. That’s going to change the insects that are in the river as well as the fish community.
[narrator]Once the work is finished, kingfishers, muskrats, and bank swallows will be unable to burrow into the remediated riverbanks. Miles of prime habitat will be destroyed. The animals that use these banks for shelter and breeding grounds will disappear.
SED 3/FP 3 would also have terrible consequences for the region’s vernal pools. Vernal pools are seasonal ponds that provide essential habitat for a wide range of wildlife. They are critical to the functioning of the upper Housatonic ecosystem.
[Professor Brooks]This is a vernal pool. At this time of year the water is below the surface and the amphibians have left for the time being, but a month earlier we were here and all these pools had water in them. We expect to see wood frogs here, spotted salamanders, and in this vicinity we have one of our threatened species in the state, the Jefferson salamander.
[narrator]Wildlife is thriving, even though the vernal pools contain PCBs. To remove them the pools would be dug out and the surrounding trees chopped down. The impact on wildlife would be devastating.
[Professor Brooks]And what’s important is that all of these species come back to the same ponds to breed. They have a lot of site fidelity. So if the ponds are not here or if they’re removed for a few years there’s no place for them to go and those generations will perish.
[narrator]This pool located near the confluence in Pittsfield was dug up and rebuilt in 2006. To get at the sediments, trees were cut down, and the complex systems governing the flow of water were disturbed. More sunlight brought new predators.
[Professor Brooks]Basically we’ve replaced the kinds of amphibians that should be here. This summer we had an undesirable amphibian, green frogs, completely lining the shoreline, and they’re a predator on the larvae, the tadpoles, of the amphibians we like to see, which are the spotted salamander and wood frog. So the nature of the pond is completely changed through the excavation and cutting of the trees along the edges.
Some people say it’s easy to remediate a vernal pool, and that’s just not the case. These are much more complicated systems than people realize. Even though this is probably one of the best efforts to try to remediate a vernal pool, this shouldn’t be considered a success.
[narrator]Large mammals depend on the interconnected corridor of wetlands and forest that flanks the river.
[Professor Brooks]These species will move miles and miles on a daily basis, so you have to have connectivity up and down the corridor and from the floodplains to the uplands to make sure those species have adequate habitats in which to survive.
[narrator]Carving the Housatonic River Corridor into dozens of staging areas and access roads wold imperil these species. After about ten years, the trucks will take their last load. But the river won’t be the same. The shady, wild Housatonic of today will disappear into history. In the best case, it would take at least half a century for these forests to be what they are today. The animals that rely on these forests won’t be able to wait. Generations will grow up alongside the river that bears little resemblance to what it once was.
Other approaches being considered by the federal government involving even more digging over longer periods of time would have an even more devastating impact on the region. Fortunately, there is another way. It is called the ESA – the ecologically sensitive approach. A way to clean the river without losing it. Unlike SED 3/FP 3, which calls for the excavation of five miles of river and even more floodplain, this approach would be far less destructive, but as protective of humans and considerate of the wildlife already living in the area.
All work done on the river and floodplain would be guided by the following criteria. Sediments and soil would be removed to meet EPA’s human health standards. Stretches of the river containing large numbers of species of concern would be avoided. Whenever possible, critical habitats like vertical riverbanks would be maintained whenever feasible. The number of access roads and staging areas built on floodplains would be limited. The natural hydrologic processes responsible for the diversity of habitats in the river and surrounding area would be preserved. Finally, the impact of all removal-related activities would be minimized.
[Professor Brooks]As an ecologist, my preference would be to leave the river alone. However, with the ESA, we would be protecting much of the forest and riparian bank that together make up the very critical floodplain for this upper part of the Housatonic. That’s a much better approach to protect the biodiversity and the habitats and the hydrologic functions of this floodplain.
[narrator]Miles of critical habitat and breeding grounds would be saved. Wildlife would be allowed to continue to thrive here. Acres of mature forests, vernal pools, and wetlands targeted for removal by other approaches will be spared. Instead of thirty staging areas and 25 miles of new and expanded roads, the ESA would require just ten mile of access roads, and approximately one third the number of staging areas. Fewer excavated areas, roads, and staging areas mean fewer interruptions for animals that hunt and live along this corridor. And the work would take just seven years. The ESA would remove more contaminated sediment than the more destructive SED 3/FP 3. Much of the sediment would be removed from Woods Pond where it has accumulated behind the dam. Because barges would be used in the pond, that removal wouldn’t require damaging access roads and staging areas. The result would be an increase in the depth of the pond and an improvement of the ecological and recreational value of this popular resource. The ESA will allow nature lovers to safely visit the river as often as they like for the rest of their lives. The river will remain one of the jewels of the Berkshires. A thriving home to wildlife and a favorite destination for birdwatchers, hikers, and outdoor enthusiasts.
As with all approaches being considered by the EPA, fish consumption advisories will remain in place. The choice is clear. The river can lose much of its wilderness, and the animals and plants that thrive there. Or we can preserve much of that wilderness and wildlife and still protect human health. One approach [Monitored Natural Recovery] would require no disruption to the river while PCBs are prevented from migrating into it. Another [SED 3/FP 3]would remove most of the PCBs from five miles of the river and its banks and 44 acres of floodplain. This approach would take ten years and drastically diminish the ecological value and appearance of this river. A third, [Ecologically Sensitive Approach] the ESA, would meet EPA’s human health standards but leave most of the river wild and available for use by humans and animals alike. It would also dramatically enhance the ecological and recreational value of Woods Pond. Three approaches, three futures for the Housatonic River. The decisions made now will determine how future generations will experience this natural treasure for decades to come.