Governor Andrew Cuomo and Attorney General Eric Schneiderman have threatened to sue the Environmental Protection Agency if the agency decides the cleanup effort to remove PCBs from the Hudson River is complete.

Almost a year ago, General Electric submitted a Certificate of Completion request to the EPA, who will need to make a decision soon. Meanwhile the state Department of Environmental Conservation says more dredging is needed.

When it comes to the ongoing discussion of cleaning up the Hudson River, each stakeholder has a definitive stance on the $1.7 billion dredging project.

"GE has not done enough to restore the river to where it should be," said DEC Commissioner Basil Seggos.

"GE did everything it was asked to do, met every commitment and completed the project successfully," said Mark Behan, GE's spokesman.

Now the EPA will weigh in on whether GE successfully removed PCBs from the river. The agency received the request on January 3, and from that point had one year to accept or deny GE’s certificate of completion request. The EPA says it needs more time for the ruling but will issue a report.

On Thursday, Governor Cuomo and Attorney General Schneiderman announced they will sue the EPA if it accepts the request. 

"The data collection we did in the summer of 2017 .. we took samples of the sediment from 1,200 locations in the river and saw there are several stretches of the river where you have unacceptably high levels of PCBs," said Seggos.

GE says the company’s project removed all the PCBs that the EPA required.

"PCB levels in the water in the Hudson River dropped at every station where environmental data are collected, so clearly it was effective. It was a massive project," said Behan.

"Much more needs to be done. People deserve to be able to fish in the river, people deserve to be able to recreate on the river, play on the shore lines and not worry about health and the environment. That’s not what we have right now, and that’s what we have to get to," said Seggos.

Here is the statement from Larisa Romanowski, EPA's Public Affairs Specialist for Region 2: "EPA is working to complete the five-year review report and our review of, and responses to, the comments that we received during the public comment period on the proposed report. We do not anticipate finalizing the report and response to comments before the end of December. However, we intend to issue the report before we make a final determination on GE’s request for certification of completion of the remedial action.

EPA received GE’s request for certification of completion of the remedial action on January 3, 2017. The 2006 settlement agreement between EPA and GE calls for EPA to respond within 365 days. EPA has been reviewing GE’s remedial action report so that we can respond to GE’s request for certification. We are also giving full consideration to the comments that we recently received about the certification of completion from Commissioner Seggos, Attorney General Schneiderman, and NOAA. We do not currently anticipate making a final determination by January 3, 2018 on GE’s request for certification of completion.

EPA Region 2’s newly named Regional Administrator, Pete Lopez, is giving his full attention to both the five-year review report and GE’s request for certification of completion of the remedial action, and will take the time he needs to ensure that he has the information needed to make these important decisions."