"There hasn't been any significant change in the concentrations in the lower river," said Patrick Palmer of the New York State Department of Health's Bureau of Water Supply Protection. The EPA is monitoring the river's PCB levels at Green Island, Poughkeepsie, Port Ewen, and Rhinebeck. Those municipalities were selected for monitoring every two weeks because they rely on the river for their water supplies.

While the EPA claimed that the dredging process would reduce downriver PCB levels by as much as 40 percent, the concern raised by the dozens who attended the many public hearings about the dredging plan was that the dredging would stir up toxic sediment and send it downriver. Despite those concerns, environmental groups like Riverkeeper have pushed for remediation and the EPA and the State Department of Health maintained that re-suspended PCBs would be of only minimal risk to those who swim in and use the river or rely on it for water. EPA spokeswoman Kristen Skopeck said that, even in the waters immediately around the site of the dredging, there has only been minimal re-suspension of the PCBs in the water. "We are still well within the safe levels," said Skopeck.

Local anglers report they are not concerned with any increase in PCB levels in the fish. “No way. They have been there in the river for years. I don’t think even a little bit of an increase is going to harm you,” said Jeff Burroughs, as he fished at the boat launch in Hudson.

General Electric, which manufactured PCBs in plants in Fort Edward and Hudson Falls, dumped an estimated 1.3 million pounds of the chemical into the Hudson River in the three decades before it was banned in the late 1970s.

Following a contentious media campaign— necessitated by GE's staunch opposition to being forced to clean up the PCB contamination—the EPA ordered the dredging in 2002, but the start date was pushed back several years while the sides haggled over details and legal issues. Under a GE-EPA agreement, 265,000 cubic yards of river bottom—or about 15 percent of the total—will be dredged this year. The results will be studied before beginning Phase 2, the final and much more extensive stage.