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A historic announcement for New Bedford and for the EPA

Someday, no one will much remember that New Bedford Harbor was the site of the world's highest concentrations of PCB pollution. Someday, no one will remember the Superfund and the 15 years it took to go from making the list to coming up with a plan to rid the harbor of the chemicals dumped there in the days when no one had a second thought about it.

But today we have cause to celebrate, because after 15 arduous years of study, confrontation, negotiation and more study, the Environmental Protection Agency has announced its plans for removing and containing the PCBs, reclaiming the harbor's health, and eventually removing this sword of Damocles from above our heads. Some $120 million will be spent containing the polychlorinated biphenyls on shore, and creating usable waterfront park and industrial space on the filled-in areas.

John P. DeVillars, the regional head of the EPA, exulted, "What was once a pitched battle is now an example of consensus-building at its best. We're achieving a super environmental result with the strong support of neighborhood and community leaders."

What he left out was the fact that the EPA's act needed to be cleaned up in the process of cleaning up the harbor. A distant and autocratic agency was brought to heel by a region determined to reject an answer -- incineration -- that it found to be dangerous and unacceptable. Led by local officials and by Hands Across the River, the backlash caught the EPA by surprise, because this was an agency accustomed to issuing edicts and having them obeyed. New Bedford would not obey and was prepared to fight all the way. It set a national precedent.

As significant as that was, equally important was the EPA's reaction: to enter talks, to organize local review panels, to turn over a measure of local control. Not a minute too soon, the EPA found itself with a whole new model for coming up with answers that are not only scientifically sound, but which the community understands and, above all, supports.

Maybe someday New Bedford can forget about PCBs and the trouble they caused. It is unlikely that the EPA will soon forget New Bedford.