The Hudson River Natural Resource Trustees are conducting a natural resource damage assessment (NRDA) of resources in the Hudson River ecosystem associated with PCB contamination of the Hudson River below Hudson Falls. Trustee agencies include the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), Department of Commerce/National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and the U.S. Department of the Interior Interior/U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) and National Park Service (NPS). The trustees act on behalf of the public to assess and restore natural resources injured by hazardous substances. NRDA is different from EPA Superfund cleanup. At the Hudson River PCBs site, EPA is focusing on cleaning up or containing PCBs to reduce present and future risks to human health and the environment. In the NRDA, the Trustees are assessing the past, current and future PCB injuries to the resources in order to identify and plan restoration actions to address these injuries.

The Trustees have prepared a fact sheet (Addressing PCB-Related Losses Along the Hudson River Through a Natural Resource Damage Claim (PDF)) that explains what a natural resource damage claim is, the difference between a natural resource damage claim and a private claim, and the types of losses covered in such claims.