BEACON – Residents and local activists
gathered at Beacon’s Scenic Hudson Long Dock Park Thursday night
for a candlelight vigil to serve as a public demonstration urging General
Electric to finish their dredging of PCBs from the Hudson River. GE, over
a number of years, had dumped millions of pounds of PCBs into the Hudson
and they are entering their final dredging period for the project.
The Beacon vigil was one of several Thursday night
GE has recently proposed to cease their dredging efforts this fall so Beacon, along with eight other Hudson River communities from Schuylerville to New York City, are banning together to gain GE’s attention and to get them to fulfill their responsibility to clean the river.
Althea Mullarky, public policy manager for Scenic Hudson, one of the organizers for the event, said many times, in cases where large companies pollute the environment, they count on no one paying attention to the details. However, the communities surrounding the Hudson are making sure that doesn’t happen and that the Hudson receives a proper cleanup.
Casale: “… we’re watching them …”
“It’s transparency; it’s making sure that they are put on notice that we’re not going to accept anything less than a first class cleanup because if we don’t speak out, we can’t really count on anybody else to speak for the river except for the people that live right beside of it,” said Mullarky.
So far, 75 municipalities have passed resolutions urging GE to accept their responsibilities and 141 Assembly members have signed a letter addressed to GE Chairman Jeffrey Immelt, as well as Governor Cuomo, to have GE continue the dredge project until its completion.
Beacon’s Mayor Randy Casale noted his city was one of the first municipalities to pass a resolution.
“I think by shining the lights we’ll let them know that we’re watching them and we’re going to be on top of it until there’s an agreement to get it done,” Casale said.
Vigils were held Thursday evening in in Beacon, Newburgh, Kingston and other Mid-Hudson locations.
