GE Agrees to Broad Cleanup for Housatonic River

The Housatonic River from Massachusetts to Long Island Sound will be cleaned of legacy pollution from General Electric Co. more quickly under a $63 million agreement reached between the company and New England towns.

The sediments of about 140 miles of the Housatonic River became polluted with polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) after years of dumping by General Electric’s Pittsfield, Mass., plant. The plant serviced electrical transformers, which contained PCBs, from the 1920s through 1977.

The settlement, announced Monday, commits GE to giving $63 million to towns that were polluted. The company must start the cleanup immediately, ...