It took 25 years to make GE clean up the Hudson River and some of the Housatonic. They threatened NY with massive layoffs if the state forced them into a clean up. ('75)

They threatened and actually did move their corporate HQ from NY.

They spent over a hundred million on an information campaign to convince people there were no problems...then the message became that all the harmful chemicals were deep under river sediment. This occurred while testing showed sky high pcb concentrations in fish and birds.

When that message failed the message became dredging will make it worse. There were giant road signs with pictures of dredging crane buckets dumping mud.

They claimed they were working on bacteria to digest the PCBs.

Eventually they were forced to do a significant clean up effort under the Bush administration with the former governor of New Jersey heading the EPA. Irony of ironies.....it was that bad.