General Electric is moving to intervene in New York state's lawsuit against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency over the years-long cleanup of the Hudson River, which GE wrote in court papers was lawfully completed based on what it agreed to more than a decade ago.

Attorneys for GE wrote in a new filing that, if granted, they plan to file a motion to dismiss the lawsuit separate from the EPA, which they said may have a different legal strategy.

"These broader interests may also affect positions that EPA might adopt in this case, or its willingness to consider compromises that might not fully protect GE's contractual, negotiated rights under the Consent Decree or its financial interests," attorneys for the company wrote.

If approved, the request would allow GE to enter the litigation as a defendant, which would give it the power to act as a party to the lawsuit. As such, it would be able to ask a federal judge to toss the legal challenge, which is in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of New York.

The litigation is still in its early stages after it was initially filed by the New York Attorney General's Office in late August. The EPA, the target of the suit, has until late October to file an answer to the challenge.

GE asked U.S. District Magistrate Judge Christian Hummel of the Northern District of New York to consider their motion to intervene in the suit before then, saying that would give them the opportunity to ask that the case be dismissed at the same time the EPA is scheduled to seek the same result.

The company is represented by attorneys from Young/Sommer in Albany, including name partner Dean Sommer and Kristin Carter Rowe, who is of counsel.

"Given GE's direct interest in this case, GE wishes to intervene before the time for any pleadings or motions by EPA, so that GE can participate fully in such proceedings, including by filing a motion to dismiss," the company's attorneys wrote.

Neither the EPA nor attorneys from the New York Attorney General's Office have indicated that they would oppose GE's motion to intervene in the lawsuit, the company said in the filing. Neither immediately responded to a request for comment Tuesday morning.

Attorneys for GE argued in the motion that the state's legal efforts to reverse a decision by the EPA allowing the company to stop its cleanup of the Hudson River, at least for the time being, did not recognize an agreement on the project from 2005.

The agreement, called a consent decree, required the EPA the issue a so-called certificate of completion to the company after it completed the second phase of a two-phase cleanup project of the Hudson River, they wrote.

That certificate was dependent on whether the cleanup project met the standards set in a remedial action plan issued by the EPA in 2002.

John Haggard, leader of global remediation for GE and project coordinator for the Hudson River cleanup, testified in an affidavit with the company's motion to intervene that those standards were met.

'The Remedial Action conducted by GE was one of the largest and most logistically complex environmental cleanups in history, removing more PCB mass and a higher percentage of the PCB mass in the river than projected by EPA," Haggard said.

The New York Attorney General's Office, in its lawsuit against the EPA last month, rebuked that characterization of the cleanup project, saying that portions of the Hudson River are still not "protective of human health and the environment."

That standard is set under the federal law for Superfund sites, which the portion of the upper Hudson River was classified as more than three decades ago.

"GE completed remedial dredging in the fall of 2015, but EPA has found the remedy is not presently protective of human health and the environment," the state's attorneys wrote. "In fact, EPA has concluded that it does not have sufficient information to determine if or when the remedy will be protective."

Every step of the cleanup project, according to GE, was approved by the EPA. That included approximately 300 approvals from the agency, which indicated that each step was done to comply with the requirements of the consent decree, they wrote.

The company spent more than $1.7 billion on the entirety of the project, which was completed over a decade and ended in 2015.

The lawsuit could have serious ramifications for the company, from a few different viewpoints. For one, if New York prevails in the litigation, the certificate of completion granted to GE after the second phase of the project would be reversed, meaning the cleanup would likely resume.

But it could also have legal implications for the company. When the certificate of completion was granted to GE this year, a provision of the consent decree was triggered that barred the EPA from filing future lawsuits against the company over pollution in the Upper Hudson River.

If the court ultimately rejects the EPA's decision allowing GE to stop the cleanup project, that part of the agreement would be reversed. The company would then be open to future litigation from the federal government, which could be costly.

"The State's legal challenge to the issuance of the Certification, if successful, would drastically and materially alter the bargained-for terms of the Consent Decree and eliminate a key protection provided to GE in that agreement," attorneys for GE wrote.

Part of the state's lawsuit against the company targets that part of its agreement with the EPA. Without the ability to bring litigation against GE in the future, attorneys for the state argued, there's no way to legally bind the company if further cleanup is required.

"In fact, EPA cannot find that the remedial action currently is protective, and cannot state with reasonable certainty that the action will be protective in the future," the lawsuit said.

GE is not off the hook for pollution in the Hudson River, regardless of what comes out of the state's lawsuit. The company's agreement with the EPA requires monitoring of the Hudson River to determine if, in the future, more work is needed on the waterway.

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