A $63-million agreement between General Electric and five western Massachusetts towns will help speed removal of highly contaminated sediment from the Housatonic River and its floodplains, federal environmental officials announced Feb. 10.
The 149-mile Housatonic. which flows from Pittsfield, Mass. to Long Island Sound, is contaminated with PCBs, which GE dumped for five decades until the 1970s from its now closed Pittsfield, Mass., facility. Under a 1999 federal consent decree, GE is required to address contamination throughout its industrial site, including the river.