"It’s our intention to work well with the governor and the EPA to do another successful project on the Housatonic."
Jeff Immelt
The CEO of General Electric has broken his silence over the company’s dispute with the Federal Environmental Protection Agency.
GE polluted the Housatonic River with PCBs decades ago when it ran a factory in Pittsfield, and it has been butting heads with the EPAover the second phase of cleaning up the river.
General Electric head Jeff Immelt spoke at an event in Boston Monday touting GE’s decision to move its headquarters there.
Now that the company is in Massachusetts, “It’s our intention to work well with the governor and the EPA to do another successful project on the Housatonic,” Immelt said.
A look at legal filings shows GE and the EPA haven’t been working together well at all. They’ve differed strongly on how to decontaminate the river and could be headed to court.
Immelt said GE’s experience in river clean-ups, including the first part of the Housatonic, makes it capable of coming up with an acceptable solution.
“We’re always open to conversation, but we also have a great deal of knowledge,” Immelt said.
Tim Gray of the Housatonic River Initiative disagreed with Immelt. He said that what the EPA is calling for now isn’t even as strong of a solution as first proposed.
“They’ve weakened EPA down and then what do they do?” Gray said. “They come and they ask for more, like: we want to dump all the PCBs in dumps along the river, that we want to take far less PCBs out than the EPA wants us to take out.”
Gray said he wouldn’t be surprised if GE is moving to Boston, in part, to be closer to state regulators. And the company has already worked well with the Baker administration, winning more than $100 million in state incentives.
Governor Charlie Baker, who was on stage with Immelt Monday, has said in the past thatGE’s move to Boston and the Housatonic will be treated as separate issues.
Pittsfield State Representative Tricia Farley-Bouvier agreed with the governor’s stance.
“This wasn’t something that he said: hey, if you come to Boston, we’re going to hold back on pressing you for a better cleanup,” Farley-Bouvier said. “I expect him to be a really strong advocate for the people of the Berkshires.”
Both Farley-Bouvier and Gray said it doesn’t matter how long it takes for GE and the EPA to reach a compromise, as long as they get it right.
This report was originally published by New England Public Radio.
