Surface Soils to be Tested for PCBs along the Neponset River Banks
in Boston and Milton, in Review of a 1960s-era Dredging Project

 The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) and the Department of Conservation and Recreation (DCR) will hold a public meeting on Monday, December 10, 2007, to unveil details of a program to sample surface soils along the banks of the Neponset River in Boston and Milton.

The presentation will be held in Menino Hall at the Hyde Park Library, 35 Harvard Avenue, Hyde Park from 6-7:30 p.m. MassDEP and DCR invite the public to attend in order to ask questions or obtain specific details on the program.

The sampling is being conducted to assess the quality of soils that were dredged from the Neponset River in the 1960s and deposited along the shoreline. Evidence of PCB contamination of the sediments in the Neponset River has been collected over the last several years through a study of the river completed by the United States Geological Survey (USGS), in cooperation with the Riverways Program of the Massachusetts Department of Fish and Game and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

While there is concern that historical sediments dredged and placed on the riverbanks in the 1960s may also have contained PCBs, additional sampling of soils is being conducted to determine the specific composition of the soils that were dredged and deposited along the banks.

The sampling is set to begin in December. Project details include: 

* A hand tool will be used to sample the surface soils. 

* Surface soils will be collected from locations along the banks of the Neponset River throughout eight separate areas that extend from the Central Avenue area in Milton west to the Neponset Valley Parkway in Readville. Sampling sites are on both sides of the Neponset. The majority of the land to be sampled is DCR property, with a small percentage on private property. The area to be sampled however, does not involve any part of the Lower Neponset Multi-UseTrail.

* This subsurface investigation is being done specifically to determine the extent of PCB contamination that may be present. PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) were commonly used in transformers and other electric components beginning in the 1930s until they were banned in the late 1970s. PCBs are a known carcinogen and typically do not degrade over time.

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