Stimulus money will help clean up New Bedford Harbor

New Bedford Mayor Scott Lang said the money would extend work for locals and probably create “several dozen jobs.” But more important, he said, is that the clean-up will allow “tremendous economic opportunities” for the revitalization of the New Bedford waterfront. It will “take away the stigma” of the filthy water, he said, and with that rejuvenation will come even more jobs in the future.

Pollution of New Bedford Harbor began many decades ago, and by the mid-1900s, the once-pristine harbor had been transformed into a 18,000-acre dumping ground for polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs. Through the 1970s, at least two electronic manufacturers dumped tons of the chemicals, which settled deep in the harbor's sediment.

Today, the harbor remains a blight on New Bedford’s fabled reputation as one of the nation’s top fishing ports: The place where millions of pounds of seafood are unloaded each year is so deeply polluted eating fish from it is prohibited.

PCBs, which are considered probable human carcinogens, were federally banned in the mid-1970s. By 1983, New Bedford Harbor was declared a Superfund site, one of the nation's most polluted locations, with almost 900,000 cubic yards of contaminated sediment. Since then, about $270 million has been spent cleaning it up – but the vast majority of the polluted sediment remains.

Federal officials were able to get about $100 million from the companies responsible for the toxic pollution, but by 2004 that money it was all but gone. Since then, the clean-up project has relied on federal funding of about $15 million a year.

By the EPA’s own estimate, at that funding level the cleanup would have taken another 38 years, at a cost of $1 billion.

The stimulus funds will hasten the clean-up by four or five years, EPA officials said. They are also exploring other ways to dispose of the sediment to finish the clean-up far sooner.

The additional money will allow a massive “dewatering” facility on the harbor to operate continuously eight months a year, instead of the 40-45 days it now runs. The facility squeezes water out of the sediment before it is shipped to a hazardous waste disposal site in Michigan.

“You have heard of shovel-ready, well this is dredge-ready,’’ said EPA chief Jackson. “This is real money, a real clean-up for the New Bedford community.” The harbor was one of 50 sites nationwide that received cleanup money.

The federal stimulus money is supposed to be spent as soon as possible, so preference was given to projects already running or able to begin quickly. A range of funding was given in part to encourage the money to be spent quickly.

The New Bedford announcement also underscored a promised change under President Barack Obama’s administration: The reinstatement of a tax on polluting industries, such as chemical companies, to help pay for clean-ups if the polluter goes bankrupt or disappears. The tax expired in the mid-1990s and the money ran out several years later. If the tax had survived, New Bedford would have likely received money from it.

Jackson said the administration wants the polluting tax to begin again in 2011, hopefully after the economy recovers.

Other Superfund projects in New England that won stimulus money were the Silresim site in Lowell, which received $10-$25 million; the Hatheway & Patterson site in Mansfield, $10-$25 million; the Elizabeth Mine site in Strafford, Vt., $5-$10 million; and up to $5 million for the Ottati & Goss site in Kingston, N.H. a former steel drum company.