Mr. Colvin said that a temporary advisory committee had been formed to obtain public input and make recommendations whether to allow striped bass caught in the Hudson River to be sold. Councilor Schwab and former Councilor Arnold Leo of the Easthampton Baymen’s Association were committee members. The committee met three times and developed information and questions to pursue. It is scheduling public meetings in the Hudson Valley; recommendations are to be submitted to DEC Commissioner Cahill by 01 March 2001. The primary issues being addressed by the committee directly flow from the recommendations made a year ago by the Hudson River Estuary Management Advisory Committee. The key assumptions are that a limited striped bass fishery could be allowed to utilize fish presently being caught in spring incidentally to shad gillnet fishing below the Bear Mountain Bridge, with a hard catch cap and a tagging program. The catch cap would not exceed current estimates of discard mortality. Councilor Relyea asked how the EPA decision to require that PCB "hot spots" in the upper Hudson River be dredged out would affect PCB concentrations in fish downstream. Mr. Colvin had no information on this. He noted that EPA had made a "draft record of decision" on how to deal with contaminated sediments to be dredged from the Hudson. This announcement is only a draft to be followed by public input, with a final decision expected in the summer of 2001. Governor Pataki supported "environmental dredging of hot spots" with a proviso that the material be disposed of away from the area. Mr. Colvin noted that EPA’s recommendations were predicated on the assumption that tissue concentrations of PCB’s in striped bass from that area are and will continue to be acceptable for sale. Councilor Sullivan added that the State Department of Health used federal standards, while other states used higher standards. Mr. Colvin responded that standards were set by the Department of Health, not by the DEC. A new EPA administrator, probably Governor Whitman, will make the final decision.

Neither the state superfund nor special funding from GE are available to provide the $350,000 to $500,000 needed for the new Marine District-wide striped bass PCB survey that the Council has recommended. Chairman Wise will write to Gerry Barnhart and Pete Duncan at DEC’s Albany office to formalize the Council’s interest in locating a one-time source of funding for this survey. Councilor Schwab wondered whether this might be a bad time for testing, since any mandated PCB hot spot dredging might affect striped bass PCB body burdens. Councilor Relyea answered that this made it even more important to establish a baseline for future comparison. Councilor Sullivan pointed out that GE stopped dumping PCB’s thirty years ago, but the pollution continued. Dredging and other clean-up measures would have to be done eventually; waiting another twenty years only meant that the taxpayers, instead of GE, would have to pay. Mr. Wise concluded that while the virtues of dredging were controversial, the question before the Council was the timing of the proposed PCB survey of striped bass. Mr. Colvin added that there was permanent funding for annual multi-species PCB surveys of the Hudson River, so any dredging-related change in PCB concentrations in the fishes of the Hudson River would be detected through that survey. The Marine District survey recommended by the Council would sample PCB’s in striped bass in waters of the Hudson River south of the Tappan Zee Bridge, throughout New York-New Jersey Harbor, and around Long Island. The last such survey was conducted in 1995 and striped bass body burdens may have changed significantly in the years since.