Audio By Carbonatix
Back in February, Alexa wrote about the pending transport of Hudson River sludge to West Texas, where Dallas billionaire Harold Simmons’s Waste Control Specialists will turn one state’s trash into one man’s treasure. That trash in question are millions of cubic yards of PCBs — or polychlorinated biphenyls, a carcinogenic compound General Electric poured into the Hudson River legally for years till the feds finally banned the practice. The PCBs are on the move now, which is why The New York Times picks up the story today.
Interestingly, it picks up precisely where Alexa’s item ended and the comments began: with a debate over the proximity of the landfill to the Ogallala aquifer.
Some environmentalists warn that the landfill is too near the giant Ogallala aquifer to store such hazardous materials, an assertion the company says is a lie. The federal Environmental Protection Agency’s office in Dallas and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality have sided with the company in the debate over the aquifer. But some confusion remains, and three state environmental officials have resigned in protest over granting the company permits for the radioactive waste.
And how does the sludge get to Texas? Wrapped in plastic and transported in an open railcar. “Like a burrito.” The Lone Star chapter of the Sierra Club remains unamused.
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