MASSENA -- Green Party congressional candidate Donald Hassig will make a campaign tour Thursday of St. Lawrence Valley neighborhoods with a history of excess PCB exposure.

The tour will start at 1 p.m. on the public highway at the entrance to the ALCOA West facility. Areas visited will include the neighborhoods in the vicinity of the Grasse River Power Canal, in the Town of Massena east of the ALCOA West facility, and Raquette Point on the Akwesasne Reserve.

Hassig, hoping to beat Democrat incumbent Rep. Bill Owens and Republican candidate Matt Doheny for the 21st District seat, advocates increasing knowledge of persistent organic pollutants such as PCBs.

“The 21st Congressional District is home to a considerable number of people who have experienced excess exposures to PCBs as a result of residing in the vicinity of PCB contaminated Superfund sites,” says Hassig. “POPs exposure minimization education should be the collective endeavor of federal, state, and county government public health entities as well as grassroots environmental health organizations.”

Candidate Hassig will deliver a brief speech in Massena, explaining his “vision for bringing an end to corporate control of federal government by way of highly active citizen involvement at the local level.

"The people can rescue their federal government from corporate control simply by actively pursuing change starting at the local level of government and working up through the state and federal governmental structures,” Hassig said. “As more and more citizens get into such activism, we will see our federal government rise free."