ニューヨーク　ハドソン川で多数の沈没船発見

パイプラインを通すため川底をドレッジしていたところ、沈没船が７隻ほど発見されたそうです。しかし、ジェネラルエレクトリック社などが長年この地域をPCBなどで汚染していたため、遺物などは工業廃棄物ほど汚染されている可能性があるとのこと。これらの沈没船をその場所で保護するか、遺物を一部引き上げるか、議論がなされているそうです。
とある町の人は「私たちの歴史を取り返してほしいので、発掘をしてほしい」とのこと。沈没船を徹底的にサーヴェイし、レプリカなどを作成し、博物館を建てることも計画にあがっているそうです。

Sunken boats found at Hudson dredging site

FORT EDWARD, N.Y. — The wrecks of up to seven sunken boats have been found along a stretch of the Hudson River set to be dredged for PCBs.

An archaeological firm hired by the General Electric to survey the river bottom and shoreline found the unexpected treasures, including one boat that may date to the 18th century, according to the Times-Union of Albany. Federal authorities and GE struck a deal last fall on how to proceed with the dredging, now set to begin in spring 2007, on a 40-mile stretch of river north of Albany.

There is no final decision on what to do with the wrecks. But the newspaper reports that a preliminary report suggests the artifacts won’t be pulled out of the water because they’re too polluted with polychlorinated biphenyls. That means the material would be dug up and processed as toxic waste.

Some locals are unhappy with that idea.

“We don’t want our history scooped up and taken away,” Neal Orsini, who owns the Anvil Inn, “Let’s get in there and pull it out.”

Pulling all the artifacts up isn’t necessarily the best use of resources, even if there are no contamination issues, said John Vetter, the Environmental Protection Agency’s national expert on archaeology. One alternative, he said, is to map the fragments embedded in the river bottom. Then the visitor’s center or another group could build replicas for a display.

GE dumped an estimated 1.3 million pounds of PCBs into the river from its plants in Fort Edward and Hudson Falls before the federal government banned the substance in 1977. PCBs are classified as a probable cause of cancer.

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引用元：http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny--hudsonpcbs-shipwr0226feb26%2C0%2C5701801.story?coll=ny-region-apnewyork