 
Fairfield-based General Electric Co. began dredging the upper Hudson River of contaminated sediment, more than two years after reaching an agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to scrub the river bottom clean of polychlorinated biphenyls dumped by former GE capacitor factories in upstate New York.
Dredging commenced in mid-May near Fort Edward, N.Y., 20 miles north of Saratoga Springs, and is expected to continue for six years to remove nearly 125 tons of PCBs, which will be shipped to a landfill in western Texas.
“This is another chapter in the story of a river coming back from the brink,” said New York Gov. David Paterson, in prepared remarks. “Forty years ago, the Hudson River was a poster child for pollution, mocked as an open sewer, but ”¦ the Hudson has steadily improved and it is cleaner than it has been in decades.”
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Erie, Pa.-based GE Transportation plans to create a battery manufacturing plant in the Albany, N.Y., area expected to employ 350 people annually.
The plant will produce batteries designed for hybrid locomotives and vehicles, amid other applications. GE researches advanced battery technologies at its research center in Niskayuna near Albany; the company is also a major investor in A123 Batteries Inc., a Watertown, Mass.-based company with a breakthrough technology for batteries in hybrid vehicles.
GE has applied for federal stimulus funding through the U.S. Department of Energy to support the creation of the battery factory.
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President Obama nominated Ignacia Moreno, GE”™s counsel for corporate environmental programs, as assistant attorney general in the U.S. Department of Justice”™s environment and natural resources division.
Moreno was principal counsel to that office during the Clinton administration and today volunteers as general counsel to the Hispanic National Bar Association.
Before joining GE in 2006, she worked as an environmental litigation attorney with the Washington, D.C.-based law firm Spriggs & Hollingsworth.
