GE balks at paying $1.56M bill from the EPA | News

PITTSFIELD, Mass. (AP) - General Electric Co. is contesting a $1.56 million bill from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for work associated with the Housatonic River cleanup.         

GE says in a 16-page letter to the EPA that it shouldn't have to pay because the company has already paid the maximum amount for so-called "oversight" costs.          

The 1999 agreement on the cleanup of PCB-contaminated sites in Pittsfield and the river caps GE's oversight payments at $11 million.          

The EPA isn't classifying $1.56 million as oversight costs. Instead, the EPA says the bill falls under an uncapped category.          

An EPA spokesman said the agency and the company are in discussions to resolve the dispute out of court.          

PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, are suspected carcinogens GE discharged into the river until 1977.       

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