General Electric retained RLBA to assist it in the planning and procurement of a new railroad-based transportation system designed to shuttle PCB-laden Hudson River sediment, between one or more origins in the vicinity of Albany, NY and various, distant landfill destinations, depending upon the level of contamination. RLBA’s services are concentrated in three primary areas: 1)consideration and development of rail-based transportation options; 2)analysis of project life cycle costs associated with the most promising options and 3)assistance in the procurement of the most cost-effective transport system. Analysis of the transportation options is complex: 1)the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency identified 24 separate Preliminary Candidate Sites along 40 miles of the Hudson River at which dredged materials could be processed and loaded into rail cars; 2)there are several rail-served landfills that could handle Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) materials, containing more than 50 parts per million and many more landfill locations that could handle Non-TSCA sediment and 3)there are five railroads with rights to originate freight in the subject territory and larger number that could terminate the freight.

The life cycle cost analysis includes: cost of building one or more processing and transloading facilities; railroad infrastructure improvement costs associated with identified options; fleet size requirements; impact on annual operating costs of terminal designs; equipment selection; load limitations; track capacity; switch crew utilization and various other factors.

One the options were filtered and narrowed, RLBA assisted in multiple negotiations with representatives of rail carriers and procurement of one or more rail-based transportation system contracts that will best serve project needs with respect to economic, service and environmental considerations.