Document 0dg25nyOdZLpRrxnJ25yBj5R

PUFRLO. com. CHUHAW r ?\w SEP 21 1979 iIN WASHINGTON Those persistent, prevalent PCBs By MARTHAANGLB AM MUST WALTERS WASHINGTON -- With apologies to compoitr Woody Guthrie, bore's a bow IIbo for one of the country's beet-known folk song*1 "From tho radwood forests to Uio Gulf Stroam watora, this load ia peeked with PCB." PCBa aro polychlorinated biphenyls. a family of toxic, highly persistent industrial ehomkali that bavo cauaod Uvor damage and birth dcfocta 1b laboratory aBimala. POOD PRODUCTS confiscated, destroyed or banned by federal officials because of PCB eon* tamteatien discovered in the early lbVta tncluda the following: more than 4M.N0 eggs In Virginia and North Carolina, 2N.OOO pounds of turkey roil in South Carolina, 90,000 turkey* in Minnesota, aod 930,000 chickens in Malm, Now York and North Carolina. There's more. Now York'i Hudson River. Alabama's streams and Lake Michigan were found to THE REDWOOD foroata apaa tbo aoutbera coaat of Oragon. whora a commercial bahary rocootly discovered that It had purchased--aod now mu* doatroy --00,ON PCB-cantami*atad eggs. Tho GulfStroam watora waoa tbo woat coaat of Florida, wboro a chomlat rocontiy found a marked decline in the potential fortuity of hove such high levels of PCBa that fishing in those water* was banned. Milk contamination has been reported In west Virginia end Ohio. Meanwhile, the company thsi was tbo solo U.S. producer and marketer of PCBs for almost half a century is busily prapsgandtaing tbo putaik shoot tho real and Imagined glories of Industrial chemicals. young non that appeared to bo related in part to PCS traeco found In tho subjects' aporm. This aaenth's raparta of PCB contamination aren't linked to those two atatoa. In Franklin. of PCBa <aoM under the Arocier trade nemo) In tho autumn of 1977 Idaho, a poultry company is In tho enough af Um toxk liquid to float m process of destroying more than entirenavy. jOO.OSO contaminated chicken* and more than 1 million patoonad eggs. Monsanto baa claimed in recent yoara that it always was concerned In Clinton, Iowa, a packing company is destroying the moat from 2a,ooo more chichen*. *U bout tbo daman peaad by PCBs and "ha* made every effort" to keep the public informed about tbo purchased from tbo Idaho firm. In hasards. Richmond. Utah, PCB tracts have But wbon the threat of PCBa was boon found in 73,000 tresen caima first disclosed fo (he early 1970a, that also muat bo destroyed. Monsanto denigrated those Of lltUNW, Moot.. Uni revelation* as mare "paittleal charges and sensational hoadUaas "SSL.a ban avooosring fir* .. care tactics and sensational meal byproduct la supported of being tbtssurca of tbo most recant outbreak of widespread PCB an ambitious and expensive adrortMng campaign designed to demonstrate that ebemkals art The Florida experience, valuable, if not Indiapestabia. to dsacribod at Um mid-September annual moating af tbo American Monsanto's ubiquitous television Chemical Society, led researchers commercials extol the virtoee of to conclude that SI percent of a ehomkali ranging from preser vative* to firefighting compounds. rived in um study suffered from Never mention'd. however, ia lit* functional sterility. product that wUi haunt the nation Other scientists reported at tbo Amartcan Chemical Society convention that tons of PCBs fall HONS 00*723