GE Selects Texas Disposal Facility For Hudson River Dredging Project
Thursday, November 15, 2007
GE today announced another major step forward in the implementation of the Hudson River dredging project. The company has signed an agreement with a waste disposal facility in Texas to accept the sediments that will be removed from the Hudson River.
The waste disposal facility is owned by Waste Control Specialists (WCS) and is located west of Andrews, Texas, near the Texas-New Mexico border. The 1,340-acre facility holds federal and state permits for the disposal, processing, treatment and storage of a broad range of wastes, including PCBs. The WCS facility, which opened in 1997, has 11 million cubic yards of permitted disposal capacity.
WCS' clients include the Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. Department of Energy and the Army Corps of Engineers. The company is a subsidiary of Valhi, Inc. (NYSE: VHI), which is engaged in the chemical, component products, waste management and titanium metals industries.
Dredging is scheduled to begin in Spring 2009. Shipments to the WCS facility are expected to take place from May through November.
After the sediments are dredged from the river bottom, they will be transported by barges to the project's sediment processing and transportation facility located on the Champlain Canal in the Town of Fort Edward. There, water will be removed from the sediment and treated. The dried sediment will be loaded into gondola railcars lined with protective plastic and transported about 2,200 miles to Texas.
As the railcars arrive at the WCS facility in Texas, they will enter an enclosed structure. There the sediments will be transferred into large trucks that will transport them to disposal cells where the sediments will be placed, spread and compacted. When filled, each disposal cell will be covered by a composite of compacted clay, geosynthetic liner, topsoil and vegetation.
Terms of the contracts were not disclosed.
Meanwhile, significant progress continues to be made on construction of the processing and transportation facility, which began six months ago. More than 130 construction workers, mostly local union members, are working at the site. In addition, more than 85 local businesses are assisting GE and its contractors with the work. Roads, utilities and a bridge have been installed. Construction has begun on buildings and on the large wharf on the Champlain Canal where barges will deliver the sediments removed from the river. Work is well underway on the new rail yard where five miles of rail track are being installed.
Contacts:
FOR GE: Mark Behan
(518) 792-3856
FOR WASTE CONTROL SPECIALISTS:
David J. Cronshaw
(801) 944-2464
