General Electric will not be required to restart dredging of the Hudson River after the Environmental Protection Agency found the company's seven-year, $1.7 billion cleanup of PCBs in the river satisfied a 2002 agreement between the two, the federal agency said Thursday.

Shortly after the announcement, Gov. Andrew Cuomo and Attorney General Letitia James unveiled plans to sue the EPA, saying the agency's decision to issue GE a "Certification of the Completion of Remedial Action" is "contrary to the law and could make it much harder for EPA to require GE to implement more dredging or other remedial measures in the upper Hudson River."

A nearly 300-page study published in December by the state Department of Environmental Conservation found that "the cleanup of contamination in the upper Hudson River is incomplete and not protective of public health and the environment."

But the EPA found that GE's river dredging was "very successful in removing the contaminated sediments" and that there "are no areas that would be characterized as 'hot spots'" of contamination in the upper Hudson.

"We take this effort seriously," said EPA Regional Administrator Peter Lopez, a former assemblyman from Schoharie County. "No person or organization will be let off the hook for the contamination of this historic and valuable waterway."

The certification the EPA granted to GE does not cover the required operation, maintenance and monitoring phase of the cleanup that follows dredging. The "remedial action" refers only to the "dredging, capping, habitat restoration, and deconstruction/decontamination of the sediment processing facility," that GE ran from 2009 to 2016, according to the EPA.

"Far from declaring the job done, we will continue to move forward with the important work to continue to address PCBs in the Hudson River," said Walter Mugdan, EPA deputy regional administrator.

GE dredged PCB-tainted sediments from about 40 miles of river bottom from Fort Edward to Troy after years of resisting the work and calling it unnecessary.

That amounted to about 310,000 pounds of the tainted sediment, or 72 percent of what is now known to be in the river.

Ned Sullivan, president of Poughkeepsie-based Scenic Hudson, said DEC data has found that there is 40 percent more PCB contaminates in the Hudson after the cleanup than was expected — which amounts to 15 tons of PCB-contaminated sediment left, he said.

As part of the certification of completion, the EPA also granted GE a "Covenant Not to Sue" the company again for cleanup of PCB contamination in sediments in the upper Hudson.

The covenant, according to the EPA, does not preclude GE from performing "additional work in the upper Hudson, including potentially more dredging, if EPA deems the remedy is not protective of human health or the environment."

The EPA said it would need more time and data to determine how effective GE's cleanup in the upper Hudson was when it comes to contaminated fish tissue.

The agency said it needs more post-dredging fish data to come to a conclusion — adding that it could take eight years or longer to establish a trend of PCB levels in fish tissue, according to the EPA.

Mudgan said the EPA will continue monitoring water quality, sediment and fish data "indefinitely into the future", and the agency will trigger a "reopener" provision that will compel GE to continue dredging or perform other remedial work if "at any time along the way, we conclude that based on some new data we've received ... (the) remedy is not performing as intended, or we're not achieving results in the time frames we'd hope."

The EPA said it would continue monitoring "areas of interest" that have slightly-elevated PCB levels, and also said it was assessing how to mitigate contamination in the floodplains and some landlocked segments of the Champlain Canal, as well as from the dam in Troy to the mouth of the New York City harbor.

But the DEC is calling on the EPA to compel GE to determine if another round of sediment remediation is needed, and also to investigate PCB concentrations in the lower Hudson.

"EPA is obligated to direct GE to meet the cleanup goals set when the dredging remedy was selected. The federal government's failure to protect New York's environment and New Yorkers is unacceptable," DEC Commissioner Basil Seggos said in a statement. "EPA is failing in its mission to protect our environment."

Democratic Assemblywoman Patricia Fahy called the issuance of the certification to GE "premature and unwarranted," while U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand said the EPA chose to "certify an incomplete job by a company that spent decades dumping a poisonous chemical into the Hudson River."

But Lopez said that disconnect stems from a misunderstanding that the issuance of the certification to GE means GE is off the hook.

"We told GE to engage in certain remedial activities," Lopez said. "The strict legal interpretation is that, if they performed the activities ... we are obligated — legally bound — to issue the certification."

Lopez said that claims the EPA is not currently monitoring the lower Hudson or doesn't want to protect the river are false, and a result of political theater.

"Sometimes, in these venues, there's a tendency to exaggerate, or to be little more theatrical," Lopez said. "We want to be theatrical, we'll puff ourselves up, say things that are obvious, make them our own, when actually, that's already happening."

"'Protect the river — we agree. Make sure the remedy is protective — we agree," Lopez said.

But Scenic Hudson's Sullivan said the EPA is "reading very narrowly one provision of their consent decree with GE," and the agency is not taking into account that "all cleanups must achieve the goal of being protective to human health and the environment.

"EPA cannot say that the cleanup has met that standard," he said.

"EPA just can't get it right," Sullivan said. "So we are hoping ... litigation initiated by the governor and attorney general will force EPA to revisit their finding that the cleanup work is complete, and order GE to do additional (cleaning)."

In a statement, GE said it "met all of its commitments" and would "continue to collect environmental data to assess ongoing improvements in river conditions and to work closely with EPA, New York State, and local communities on other Hudson environmental projects."