PITTSFIELD — If approved as scheduled, construction of rail sidings in Pittsfield and Lenox to transport PCB-contaminated sediments could start in 2027, a project manager for General Electric said at an online meeting on the project Thursday.

At a meeting presented by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, General Electric presented conceptual design plans for rail sidings off the Housatonic Railroad on Utility Drive in Pittsfield and along Willow Pond Road in Lenox Dale, near Woods Pond. Comment is being taken on the design plan through April 16.

Those sidings would allow GE’s contractors to load lined, sealed shipping containers full of contaminated sediments for transport — south to a landfill in Lee for less-contaminated sediment, or north for higher levels of contamination bound for out-of-area disposal.

The company’s revised transportation plan was conditionally approved by the EPA in 2024 after an earlier proposal largely relying on trucks drew wide opposition. Thursday, Josh Fontaine, EPA’s lead engineer for the project, said 79 percent of sediments will either be transported by rail or hydraulic suction.

The online meeting featured questions about how the rail plan will work, as well as off-topic comments from area residents who remain opposed to plans for a landfill in Lee over environmental, health and property concerns.

General Electric used PCBs, now listed as a probable cause of cancer, in the power transformers it built at its Pittsfield factory. Under the terms of a consent decree signed by a federal judge in 2000, the company agreed to remove the chemical from the Housatonic River and its floodplains.

The final design plan is scheduled to be submitted in late summer, according to GE project manager Matthew Calacone. If that’s approved, construction would begin in 2027, and it’s expected both sidings would be operational from 2028 through 2032.

“We want to complete construction of the spurs for 2027 so they’re available for start in 2028,” he said.

Calacone explained that the Utility Road siding will be removed and the state-owned property restored once it’s no longer needed, while the sidings at Woods Pond will be donated to the Berkshire Scenic Railway Museum.

Both would be tested for PCBs once the work is over, he said.

While the project is largely relying upon rail, trucks will still be needed to move shipping containers filled with sediment from dewatering areas to the rail sidings.

Charlie Cianfarini, of Citizens for PCB Removal, voiced concern that might significantly increase truck traffic on Holmes Road. But Fontaine noted that removal along Reach 5A isn’t all happening at once.

Cianfarini said the way portions of the project are being proposed, reviewed and approved separately makes it difficult to see the bigger picture.

“You want to talk about just rail spurs, but we have these larger questions,” he said.

To that end, Fontaine said EPA intends to begin holding regular office hours in the area when construction of the Upland Disposal Facility — the landfill receiving about 1 million cubic yards of lower-level contaminated sediments — begins this spring off Woodland Road in Lee.

Judy Herkimer, of the Connecticut-based Housatonic Environmental Action League, recited testimony given by PCB scientist David Carpenter in 2022, saying the constant transport and dumping of the chemical in Lee would cause a “dangerous level of exposure” within a 2-mile radius of the landfill.

Herkimer then said she was concerned about how the dewatering of sediments would take place, and whether there would be sufficient air monitoring where contaminated sediments are being handled.

Fontaine said that the specific locations of areas where sediments would be dewatered are due to be presented in the final design documents for Reach 5A, which are expected to be submitted by the end of the month. He said there would be sufficient air monitoring for airborne particles and vapor-phase PCBs, and added that such monitoring took place during the previous cleanup of the East Branch of the Housatonic in Pittsfield “safely and protective of human health and the environment."

The Utility Drive siding will be an outbound-only facility, with two parallel tracks positioned at an angle away from the railroad right-of-way. It will take in sediments from Reach 5A of the cleanup and send them either to the landfill in Lee or out of town.

The Woods Pond siding will also include infrastructure for the Berkshire Scenic Railway Museum. It will at first take in rail cars carrying intermodal containers loaded with sediment from Reach 5A of the cleanup — from the West and East branch near Fred Garner River Park in Pittsfield to the city line.