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3:28 A public Q&A session with the EPA last night about the controversial Housatonic River cleanup plan last night underscored ongoing frustration among Berkshire County residents. WAMC Berkshire Bureau Chief Josh Landes has more. The EPA signed the final draft of the plan it brokered between corporate polluter General Electric and communities along the river south of its former plant in Pittsfield in December. Despite that, frustration and concerns around the 15-year, almost $600 million project persist in Lenox, Lee, Stockbridge, Great Barrington and Sheffield. Environmental groups like the...

Credit Hiveminder.com The Environmental Protection Agency has reached a deal to split the cost of cleanup for a hazardous waste site in Nashua with a business that aims to redevelop the property. The city and EPA have wanted to clean up and redevelop the riverfront site known as the Mohawk Tannery for more than a decade. The former leather-making facility left toxic sludge in the ground in a residential area. It’s been proposed as a Superfund for more than two decades. Now, the EPA says it plans to reimburse a developer, Blaylock Holdings LLC, $6 million to carry out a previously finalized ...

Despite some strong opposition to a low-level PCB landfill in Lee, the Environmental Protection Agency is sticking with the current plan on the table for a robust remediation of the Housatonic River — the right move for those concerned with the river’s well-being who want to see it cleaned up in their lifetimes. A grand bargain struck earlier this year between the EPA, General Electric Co. and the six affected Berkshire municipalities — Pittsfield, Lenox, Lee, Stockbridge, Great Barrington and Sheffield — would see GE pony up more than half a billion dollars for an extensi...

PITTSFIELD They sat on hold, 72 of them, waiting by their computers for their big public hearing moment on Adobe Connect. Another 117 people called and left voicemails. Hundreds sent emails, letters and even faxes — 428 in all. Comments poured in last summer after the Environmental Protection Agency released the latest version of its approach to removing toxic polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) from the Housatonic River, the one devised in closed-door negotiations with the General Electric Co. and other parties. EPA officials listened, without comment, to scorching criticism of the agency�...

Four years ago, the EPA ordered a cleanup that called for all PCBs to be shipped to licensed disposal sites outside Massachusetts. Now, as widely expected, the agency’s revised final permit allows GE to save millions by placing about 1 million cubic yards of low-level PCB soils and sediment into a lined and capped landfill in a former Lee quarry. Cleanup efforts along the Housatonic River would be significant in Woods Pond in Lenox Dale, which contains a high level of PCBs. BEN GARVER — THE BERKSHIRE EAGLE Dennis Deziel, the EPA’s regional admini...