General Electric's Knowledge of PCBs: "Dredging Up the Truth"

"Records show GE was warned about health threats of PCBs decades before anti-dredging campaign."

"Fort Edward, N.Y. -- For years, as it fought against being forced to clean up the Hudson River, General Electric Co. argued that an oil-like insulating fluid that had seeped into the river from its Washington County capacitor plants wasn't harmful to humans.

Besides, GE officials said, the river was cleaning itself.

Yet newly uncovered documents reveal that as early as the 1960s — decades before the government ordered GE to undertake the river dredging that is scheduled to resume this spring — company officials were warned of the potential serious health threats of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), which their engineers described in confidential memos as 'hazardous waste.'"

Brendan J. Lyons reports for the Albany Times Union March 8, 2014.