PITTSFIELD — When Jenna Marchione bought the little house at the end of Noblehurst Avenue seven years ago, no one said anything about PCBs.

There was also no mention of the likelihood of an upcoming removal project that could impact the property she bought with her life savings.

The focus was instead on the view from the deck, just off the kitchen, looking out over 29 acres of state Division of Fisheries and Wildlife property along the Housatonic.

Beyond Pittsfield resident Jenna Marchione's property line sits 29 acres of land belonging to the state Division of Fisheries and Wildlife. Beyond this point are two PCB-contaminated vernal pools that are part of a pilot study to determine how GE should remediate them going forward.

“When I bought it, the realtors and the bank were like, ‘Oh, that's a beautiful little piece of property, that's a cute little house there … and they're never going to be able to touch it because it's protected property,” she said Thursday.

All that changed about a week ago, when a manilla envelope arrived in the mail with a letter and a legal agreement — with a deadline of June 8 — requesting that she provide General Electric, federal and state environmental regulators and their subcontractors permission to access her property and install an air monitor to watch for airborne PCBs, a probable cause of cancer and other health problems.

Marchione's backyard is a small data point in a massive plan to remove PCBs from the Housatonic River and its floodplains and backwaters and restore the river’s natural habitat. A consent decree signed in 2000 committed GE to removing PCBs, which it used in making power transformers, from the river. Wednesday, the company presented a landmark in the cleanup effort: A final proposal for removing sediments from 5 miles of the river within the city limits.

But the news made Marchione’s head spin.

Would she need a lawyer? What would PCBs in adjacent property do to the value of her home? And what about her neighbors — two of whom will be welcoming infants to their families this summer?

“I am very worried about my future, yeah, and I'm very worried about my neighbors,” said Pittsfield resident Jenna Marchione, who requesting access to her Noblehurst Avenue property while GE conducts its Housatonic River Vernal Pool Pilot Study.

For Marchione, all of this has been a significant source of anxiety and unwelcome attention she didn't seek. As of Thursday, getting an attorney to call her back remained a challenge.

Pittsfield resident Jenna Marchione received a letter from a representative for General Electric requesting access to her Noblehurst Avenue property. The representative, Bill Callen, told The Eagle that in the future the company will make in-person visits before sending out such requests.

But Marchione felt it was important to tell neighbors — who, like her, were not aware that work was planned on the property between their homes and the river. And her neighbors appreciated the effort.

“I am very worried about my future, yeah, and I'm very worried about my neighbors,” she said.

It's a scene that might play out again as the Rest of River project moves forward over the next 14 years, as workers need property access for testing and remediation.

Maps within the proposal show how much of Pittsfield's southeast quadrant will see evidence of the work, particularly on Pomeroy Avenue, Holmes Road and East New Lenox Road, where trucks will gain access to sediment staging areas. That said: GE is building a rail siding to move sediments on the Housatonic Railroad's tracks, and will build roads inside the project to minimize trucks on city streets.

A stretch of the Housatonic River that flows under Pomeroy Avenue in Pittsfield is part of Reach 5A in the Rest of River PCB remediation plan.

Marchione attended a Citizens Coordinating Council meeting at the Berkshire Athenaeum on Tuesday to speak with officials from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and show them the letter. Wednesday, she made the short walk to Herberg Middle School with some of her neighbors — one of whom, Kai Moar, has a 4-year-old child and twins on the way this summer.

Moar was among the 60 or so attendees who asked questions after GE’s hour-long presentation of its plans for Reach 5A.

His questions mirrored concerns that have sprang up ever since the revised cleanup plan, including a landfill in Lee, was approved in 2020: What risk is posed by airborne PCBs, and what assurances can you offer that my property, and my family, will be OK?

GE lead project manager Kevin Mooney pledged that the company will work with its contractors to suppress airborne dust while doing their work. He noted that the project sets two airborne PCB thresholds: notification level, at which EPA must be informed, and action level, when work must stop.

An area designated as Staging Area 6 near the Pittsfield water treatment facility on a map of proposed access roads and staging areas for Reach 5A of the Housatonic River Rest of River PCB remediation plan.

“Traditionally, we have not had air issues with this project or any of the aspects of the work,” Mooney said. “If [we] get measurements that are creeping up but are not at the action level, we evaluate the work and we see what's going on.”

EPA project manager Josh Fontaine added that the air monitoring levels are set by EPA “for the protection of human health. ... Believe me, EPA will be keeping a close eye on it.”

A stretch of the Housatonic River that crosses under Holmes Road is part of Reach 5A in the Housatonic River Rest of River PCB remediation plan.

While Moar appreciated the answers, he wanted more certainty.

“Maybe I’m a little suspicious of stuff happening in real time and remediation after the fact,” he said. “There are so many parties involved in the process — EPA, GE, the contractors — there’s a lot of moving parts.”

Railroad tracks lead to an area designated as Staging Area 6 near the Pittsfield water treatment facility on a map of proposed access roads and staging areas for Reach 5A.

Bill Callen, who has been retained by GE for public outreach and media relations, signed and sent the letter to Marchione. Thursday, he said things will be different going forward. The company and its representatives will first visit neighborhoods personally to connect with property owners, rather than first sending mail and legal forms seeking access.

“We will be in the community. We will be making ourselves available to answer questions,” he said.

A New Marlborough native, Marchione purchased her Noblehurst Avenue home for $147,000 in 2019. Noblehurst could be a postcard for Pittsfield's southeastern suburbs — a quiet, tree-lined side street with well-kept houses and lawns and little vehicle traffic.

An access road entrance on Pomeroy Avenue leads to Staging Area 1 on a map of proposed access roads and staging areas for Reach 5A of the Housatonic River Rest of River PCB remediation plan.

The neighboring property holds a pair of vernal pools — seasonal bodies of water that fill up in the spring and dry out in summer and fall. They’re important to the environment, especially as places where frog and salamander eggs are laid and hatch.

Wooden stakes with orange ribbons and alphanumeric codes aligned with the maps show that workers have already visited the property. Marchione saw them working, but assumed they were workers from the state.

Stakes and ribbons mark the location of a vernal pool area off of Pomeroy Avenue near Staging Area 1 on a map of proposed access roads and staging areas for Reach 5A of the Housatonic River Rest of River PCB remediation plan.

As part of the agreement, GE is studying whether it's better to dig up and restore contaminated vernal pools or add activated carbon to them, ideally rendering the PCBs harmless. The results of that pilot project will inform how vernal polls are handled for the rest of the 13-year, 28-mile project.

An access road entrance on East New Lenox Road leads to Staging Area 4 on a map of proposed access roads and staging areas for Reach 5A of the Housatonic River Rest of River PCB remediation plan. Seven staging areas have been proposed for the project for separating, dewatering and loading sediments into shipping containers to be moved by rail.

The closest of the two vernal pools, labeled 5A-VP-10, will be a control for the study. Its contamination levels are relatively low, ranging from less than 2 parts per million to less than 25 ppm.

The second, 5A-VP-9, is farther back and has a weighted surface average of 44 ppm of PCBs. Its role in the pilot program will be the addition of activated carbon to see if it renders the PCBs inert — and therefore no longer a threat to wildlife that is born into its shallow waters each spring.

From 2027 through 2029, Mooney said, GE contractors will measure PCB concentrations in the pools and the animals that live there, and whether the eggs develop into healthy frogs and salamanders.

"After this data is collected, we'll submit a report to the EPA, and then EPA will actually decide whether the activated carbon treatment is a viable alternative to the excavation and backfilling," Mooney said.