Religious groups force GE disclosure of money spent to avoid cleanup

WASHINGTON (CNS) -- After a decade of pressure from faith-based investment coalitions, the General Electric Co. disclosed to the Securities and Exchange Commission that it spent nearly $800 million to delay the cleanup of toxic PCB discharges in New York, Massachusetts and Georgia.

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WASHINGTON (CNS) -- After a decade of pressure from faith-based investment coalitions, the General Electric Co. disclosed to the Securities and Exchange Commission that it spent nearly $800 million to delay the cleanup of toxic PCB discharges in New York, Massachusetts and Georgia. "The reality is that $800 million would have gone a long, long way to cleaning up the problem if so much of that money had not been wasted on public relations, lobbying and courtroom delaying tactics," said Dominican Sister Patricia Daly, executive director of the Tri-State Coalition For Responsible Investment. The coalition is a consortium of about 40 Catholic institutional investors in Connecticut, New Jersey and New York. In a statement filed with the SEC, GE said it spent the money on "site investigation and remediation," "scientific research," legal fees and informational initiatives, among other things. The Tri-State Coalition has offered shareholder resolutions in response to GE's PCB discharges for the past 10 years. Since 2001, it has asked GE to reveal what it has spent to delay the cleanup of PCBs, also known as polychlorinated biphenyls. Last year's resolution gained 27.5 percent of shareholders' votes, "an amazing support level for any resolution at such a large company," Sister Daly said during a Jan. 10 conference call with reporters. Coalition members hold "hundreds of thousands" of shares of GE stock, she added. GE filed its statement with the SEC in asking it to kill the Tri-State Coalition's 2006 shareholder resolution. The coalition said it would withdraw the resolution. The sites in question are a 200-mile stretch of the upper Hudson River in New York; the Housatonic River in Pittsfield, Mass.; and a transformer facility in Rome, Ga. "The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has classified PCBs as a known animal carcinogen and a probable human carcinogen," said Cathy Rowan, corporate responsibility coordinator for the Maryknoll Sisters of Ossining, N.Y., who also spoke during the conference call. "The PCBs dumped by GE lie at the bottom of the Hudson, where they have contaminated the fish population and devastated the commercial and recreational fishing industry," Rowan said. "In addition to their potential to cause cancer, PCBs are being studied for their possible effects on immune systems, neurological development and reproduction." Rowan added that New York state authorities issued health advisories recommending limits on the consumption of Hudson River fish, from one per week or per month for some people, to none for women of childbearing age or children. The company is scheduled to start the first phase of the dredging project for the cleanup in spring 2007. "While not all of that money was spent on foot-dragging by General Electric, much of it clearly was," Sister Daly said, citing $122 million in specific expenditures. According to the two-page GE document filed with the SEC in December, the company spent $86.6 million on legal costs, $33.4 million on public relations and lobbying, and $2.1 million on governmental relations between 1990 and 2005. Of the $799.3 million spent by GE, $509.9 million went to site investigation and remediation costs. Another $79.9 million was paid to government agencies, including, but not limited to, oversight, fish sampling and related government costs. GE also said it spent $46.5 million in scientific research and $40.9 million in internal staff costs and other overhead. GE said it spent another $86.2 million -- largely for site investigation and remediation costs -- for PCB sites in Spokane, Wash.; Dewey Loeffer, N.Y.; and, in Canada, the Ontario provincial cities of Davenport and Guelph. "GE is involved in approximately 76 other sites where PCBs are present," the company said in its SEC report. "These other sites constituted approximately $106 million in PCB-related expenditures." In its "2005 Citizenship Report," GE listed the Hudson and Housatonic rivers and its former Georgia transformer manufacturing plant as "our most significant PCB sites." It added, "GE's use of PCBs as a fire retardant was at all times legal," but the company discontinued their use in 1977. The citizenship report said GE would transfer 52 acres of land along the Housatonic River to an economic development group for "brownfields" development, and has remediated 17 homes in Rome, Ga., where homeowners used PCB oil around their property for weed control. For the Hudson River, "GE and EPA have had a scientific policy disagreement over the advisability of dredging but GE has met all EPA deadlines and is now constructively working with EPA because the Hudson River remedial decision has been made." GE said it has "worked cooperatively with government agencies to address remedial issues at virtually all sites and we meet our commitments." It also noted that many of the 126-year-old company's facilities "began operating at a time when scientific understanding and regulatory requirements were far different from today." Sister Daly said GE's figures for the SEC are unaudited, which the company noted in its statement. "GE has not told us any more than" what is in the two-page report about "how they added up these figures," she said. "I would say some of them are questionable. But I would say at this point of the game I would not make (an) issue of the figures ... to not waste time and money and get on with the cleanup." END 01/11/2006 4:36 PM ET

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