Going to Extremes - The Ripple Effect: The Fate of Freshwater in the Twenty-First Century - page 22

CHAPTER 3
Going to Extremes
THE RIVER NEXT DOOR
Don't drink too much Housatonic River water. Don't swim in it for long. Don't dig your
hands into the river's muddy banks and put your fingers into your mouth, as children
like to do. While you are welcome to catch the river's plentiful fish for sport—brown and
rainbow trout, large- and smallmouth bass, northern pike, perch, bluegill, catfish, suck-
ers—don't eat them. The same goes for the ducks, weasels, and other animals that live
along the riverbanks. he Housatonic contains some of the highest levels of PCBs (poly-
chlorinated biphenyls) of any river in America—or in the world.
The Housatonic River flows 149 miles, from the Berkshire Mountains of western Mas-
sachusetts, down the length of Connecticut, to the coast, where it empties into Long Is-
land Sound and the Atlantic. For centuries, the Mohican and Schaghticoke Indians, and
the creatures they subsisted on—squirrels, ducks, wild turkeys, turtles, frogs, and catfish
(which were slathered in mud from the river bottom and baked over a fire)—lived on
the Housatonic. The river is bucolic, and its pristine-looking waters draw legions of ca-
noeists, fishermen, and campers. But the river's clarity is deceiving.
Between 1932 and 1977, the General Electric (GE) plant in Pittsield dumped or
leaked thousands of pounds of PCBs into the Housatonic. Exactly how many pounds is
disputed. GE has acknowledged that the plant discarded almost forty thousand pounds
of PCBs into the river, which, the company is quick to note, was legal at the time. But
others, including two former senior GE employees, and the watchdog group Housaton-
ic River Initiative (HRI), believe the actual amount was at least 1.5 million pounds, and
probably more. (Neither of these estimates include the other toxic substances—such as
benzene, chlorobenzene, trichloroethylene, and methyl chloride—that GE buried around
town.) Most of the Housatonic, from GE's now shuttered plant in Pittsfield down to the
river's outfall in Long Island Sound, is tainted by PCBs.
PCBs are synthetic oils, made by heating benzene with chlorine; they are part of a class
of chemicals known as congeners, which were once nearly ubiquitous industrial solvents,
coolants, and lubricants. From 1903 to 1979 PCBs were used as fire retardants and hy-
draulic fluids, and in joint compounds, waterproofing, plastic manufacturing, surgical
implants, and carbonless carbon paper.