Document 15z6wd2mBrqodN29Y809okr1E

f r y Q v & 0I4 . W / I f 7i O f PCB ppms from GE and a SNAFU from EPA and DEC Richard and Ina Ferris first(heard the news on the radio when they were getting up on August 8th. The Ferrises run the Croton Bait and Tackle Shop in Croton-on-Hudson, New York, and as Richard says, 'T he news was a big shock. The first thing that hit me was what it would do to our business. But then 1gave it some thought-l had believed the Hudson was coming along cleaner--and it just 'seemed as though someone had busted the balloon for everybody. It was ` heartbreaking having to tell the people who came in." ' The heartbreak along the Hudson was caused by an announcement from Ogden R. Reidf commissioner of the New York Department of Environmental Conser- . vation. Reid was quoted by Richard Severo in The New York Times, warning the public not to eat striped bass from the river or salmon from Lake Ontario. Prompted by a report received from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Reid said that the striped bosslhad more than 5 parts per million of PC$s in their flesh, the federal Food and Drug Admin istration tolerance limit for fish. PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, are heat-resistant compounds widely used by industries throughout the world. They are tough chemical cousins of DDT, and they are toxic to a wide range of life, including humans, where they have caused stillbirths in women. Fish apparently ingest and store PCBs by taking in contaminated bottom sedi ments, eating lesser organisms, or simply by swimming through water containing PCBs. Some indication of the threat PCBs pose may be had from an answer given by Dr. James H. Wright, a chemical engineer with Westinghouso Electric Corporation, who testified at an En vironmental Protection Agenqy hearing on proposed toxic pollutant effluent standards in May 1974. Asked by EPA 127 P L A IN T IF F 'S NEV 021515 AMU9 lift** 729571 attorney Alan Eckert, "When you took these steps to prevent the discharge of PCBst did you attempt to Hush out or clean sewers and drains contaminated with PCBs from old operations?'*Wright replied, "I would be the most frightened man in the world to recommend the Hushing out of old lines and old drains.** Until Reid's announcement, it was generally ussumed that PCBs escaped into the biosphere by chance and not deliberate release. To Reid's dismay, he learned that two General Electric Com pany plants at >Fort Edward and Hudson Falls on the upper Hudson, which man ufacture capacitors, had been releasing, by the company's calculations, the in credible amount of 30 pounds of PCBs per day into the river. Company sam pling records revealed the plants may have dumped 90 pounds of PCBs in a single day. The discharge from the Fort Edward plant began in 1942 and from Hudson Falls in 1951. Reid was further dismayed to learn that his very own department had known of the PCB con tamination for several years but had said nothing to the public. Ever since 1965, when New York voters overwhelmingly approved an un precedented $1 billion "pure waters" bond issue, state officials have been blowing trumpets about progress against pollution. But not a word was said about PCBs. According to GE records, the New York Department of Health gave the two plants a water quality certification in 1971, and in 1973 the chief of the en forcement section of the Division of Pure Waters in the Department of Environ mental Conservation did the same. Bureaucrats in the Environmental Protection Agency have not exactly cov ered themselves with glory, either. For more than a year, EPA scientists and bureaucrats had known that General Electric was polluting the Hudson with PCBs, but EPA policy-makers stalled until they finally passed the buck to Reid. A few persons tried to take effective action but they were thwarted. In a memo dated May 31,1974, Sandra P. Kunsberg, an attorney in the Water Enforcement Branch of the EPA Region 11 office in Those ubiquitous PCBs T he range offPCB uses is so broad that hardly anyone can escape some con sulating tapes; in protection lacquers; in making plastic bottles; and in epoxy tact with them. As Karl E. Bremer of the resins for protective coating of metals. Environmental Protection Agency Re* As a widely used additive in sealants-- vion V office in Chicago listed them last for caulking compounds and putty, for July for the Lake Michigan Toxic Sub concrete and asphalt, as well as in fire stances Committee, the uses-past and proofing sealants for floors, doors, ceil present--of polychlorinated biphenyls ings, and partitions. include: . In the printing industry, in the making In transformers and power capacitors; of "carbonless" carbon papers; as a coat as hydraulic fluids; as a diffusion pump ing for papers used in thermographic oil; in heat transfer applications; as plas duplicating machines; as an additive in ticizers; as adhesives in the manufacture xerographic transfer process (in Xerox of brake linings, clutch faces, and grind toner); and as a plasticizer for printing ing wheels; in making safety and acous plates and flexographic plates. tical glass; and as a laminate of ceramics PCBs also are a byproduct of paper and metals. recycling, and have been identified in In making washable wall coverings hardwood and softwood pulps. They are and upholstering materials; in adhesives found in toilet soaps, barrier creams, in for envelopes and tapes; in coatings for hydrated lime used to manufacture glass, ironing board covers; as a clustering in water treatment chemicals, in primer agent for raydns; as a flame-proofer for paints, coloring compounds, degreasers, synthetic yarns; in waterproofing of in additives to zinc alloys, and in waxes canvas; as additives in paints and var- used in the tool and die-casting process. niches; in film casting solutions: in in --ROBERT H. BOYLE New York City wrote to Dr. Richard Spears, chief of the Surveillance and Analysis Division: " Following the [toxic pollutant ef fluent standards] hearings (at which GE admitted dumping PCBs], in a memo randum from Alan Eckert to Meyer Scolnick, the Office of Enforcement and General Counsel in New York recom mended that this office undertake a care ful investigation of PCB discharges from the Fort Edward and Hudson Falls facil ities to determine whether or not there exists a health hazard within the meaning of Section 504 of the FWPCA [Federal Water Pollution Control Act]." This provision authorizes the EPA administrator to sue to restrain persons whose pollution of waters causes "sub stantial endangerment to the health oi persons or to the welfare of persons, where such endangerment is to the liveli hood of such persons.. The recommended investigation was conducted in August 1974 by Dr. Royal J Nadeau and Robert P. Davis of the Region II EPA laboratory, and they reported,ibased on GE figures, that the Hudson Falls plant was discharging up tc 17.6 poundsof PCBs per day and the For Edward plant up to 30 pounds per day Minnows collected below the GE dis charges averaged 78 pans per million ol PCBs, while a rock bass contained 35C ppm of PCBs, prompting Nadeau am Davis to write: "The-PCB level in the rock bass i greater than the maximum level docu mented for fish taken from any industria river of the United States . . . This repre sents a new record for PCB contamina lion of freshwater fish." They also note that "certain areas, particularly down stream from Station 4, are fished pri manly by the youngsters of Fort Edward Ingestion of these fish by the populac would certainly lead to contamination o specific tissues in their bodies as docu mented by previous investigators men tioned in the introductory section of thi report." Effective action was not forthcoming Instead, last March the EPA Region 1 office stayed lenient abatement plans fc the two plants after General Electri objected and demanded an adjudicator hearing to challenge PCB limitations. On July 7th of this year, Dr. Oilman E Vcilh of EPA's National Water Qualit Laboratory in Duluth, Minnesota, wrot a "review" of the N adcan-P nn invci NEV 021516 ligation which was passed on to EPA in New York City and eventually to Reid. /T his held investigation has revealed the largest source of PCBs into (he aquatic environment that I know of," Veith wrote. "It is my opinion that ithas report has been written in a conservative man* ner and does not by itself adequately, describe the significance of the General Electric discharge into the Hudson River . . . The river for many miles downstream from the General Electric discharge could be contaminated with PCBs at levels onc.hundrcd times over the 10 ppt (parts per trillion] guideline set forth by EPA in 1972 and a thousand times higher than the recommended water quality criteria" of I part per trillion. Even after Reid mode publicihis warn ing, Environmental Protection Agency bureaucrats in New York City were less than helpful. When John Harris-Cronin of the Hudson River Sloop Restoration Inc. requested in person a copy of the Nadeau-Davis investigation, Richard Flye, regional chief of the Water En forcement Branch or EPA, told Harris- Cronin he would have to submit his request in writing. Aware of EPA run around techniques, Harris-Cronin had brought stationery, and he immediately wrote out the request. Flye looked at the letter and then told Harris-Cronin that under the Freedom of Information Act Protection Agency.") "we have ten days to decide whether or Monsanto makes Aroclor 1016, 1221, not to honor your request, and the tactic 1232, 1242, 1248, 1254, 1260, 1262, and we're going to employ with you is to use 1268. The last two digits indicate the them ill." Given such tactics, It is no percentage of chlorine in the different wonder that in the Hudson Valley the compounds, except for Aroclor 1016, joke is that EPA really stands for which actually contains 41 percent chlo "Everyone's Polluting Again." rine. PCBs also have been manufactured in Great Britain, France, Spain, Ger Polychlorinated biphenyls have been manufactured in the United States many, Italy, Czechoslovakia, the Soviet Union, and Japan. Like DDT, PCBs are by one Arm, Monsanto Industrial Chemchlorinated hydrocarbons. Unlike DDT, icals Company of St. Louis. The com which degrades in fifteen yean, PCBs, pany began production in 1929, and especially the more highly chlorinated although it has played cozy with its list of formulations are essentially unalterable customers and production figures, esti- 1 by microbial or physical chemical reac mates are that Monsanto produced tion. PCBs persist because enzymes are 400,000 tons of PCBs between 1948 and unable to shear the bonding between the 1973. It is not unusual to ship PCBsby rail chlorine atom and the biphenyl structure. by the tpnk-carful. Monsanto sells PCBs The only efficient way to destroy PCBs is under the name of Aroclor. (In a bizarre to bum them in a special industrial touch, government scientific publications incinerator generating a temperature of dealing with the toxicity of PCBs begin 2,400degreesFahrcnheit. Although PCBs with the footnote: "Aroclor is a registered have been in use for almost 50 years, they trademark, Monsanto Company, St. baflled scientists measuring DDT resi Louis, Mo. Mention of commercial dues, who reported finding "unknown products or trade names does not consti but chlorine-containing compounds." In tute endorsement by the Environmental 1966 Dr. Sbren Jensen in Sweden iden- I tilled the compounds as PCBs. Unlike DDT, PCBs are not used as insecticides but have many industrial uses (see accompanying story). And just recently fish oil has been identified as a source of PCBs. It would be interesting to determine if menhaden is afTected. In a report submitted this past summer to the Rockefeller Foundation, William L. Dovel of the Boyce Thompson Institute in Yonkers, New York, reported that "the Hudson estuarine system makes a major contribution to the menhaden industry of the Northeast. Larval and juvenile stages develop in the Hudson and move toward the sea, where they represent the most valuable commercial fish species taken along the North Atlantic coast. Menha? den are ground into protein meal and oil to form additives for poultry and cattle feed, margarine, paint, lubricants, resins, putty, caulking, linoleum, soap, fertiliz ers, ink, electrical cables, and antibiotics. The cost of poultry probably would be prohibitive were it not for the rapid growth attained by adding high-protein meat to chicken and turkey feed. Fish meal is a richer source of protein than 129 NV 021517 729572 soybean meal, ils most important com* petitor. It contains amino acids not found in vegetable protein and a yet unknown growth factor which makes its use in feed formulas particularly desirable.'* In 1971, by the time PCBs were present in a wide variety of products, Monsanto announced it would restrict sales to socalled "closed cycle" systems in trans formers and capacitors. However, trans formers do leak. Moreover, United States companies in nonelectrical manufactur ing have been importing PCBs from abroad. Aside from deliberate release, PCBs get into the environment from the disposal of industrial and municipal wastes, burning of refuse, and leaching from dumps. According to a 1973 paper by Dr. George Harvey of the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, "PCBs are found universally in the sewage of major cities, although the atmosphere is the major pathway of global transport. Re cently, 50,000 turkeys in Minnesota, 88,000 chickens in North Carolina, and many thousands of eggs from various localities were destroyed after they were found to contain very high concentra-, lions of PCBs. . . PCBs have been found in all organisms analyzed from the North and South Atlantic oceans, even in an imals living under 11,000 feet of w ater... Based on available data it seems safe to assume that PCBs are present in varying concentrations in every species of wild life on Earth.'* Paris of the Great Lakes region have been sorely hit. Starting in 1971, Michi gan health authorities, primarily con cerned about IPCB levels, cautioned the. public not to eat salmon or trout from Lake Michigam more than once a week. The Great Lakes states restricted the use of DDT in 1970, and. since then DDT levels have dropped 87 percent in Lake Michigan fish. By contrast, PCB levels have remained ominously high. On No vember 8, 1974, Martin J. Schreibcr, lieutenant governor of Wisconsin, wrote about PCBs to A. Gene Gazlay, then director of the Michigan Department of Natural Resources: "There exists now a problem with' contaminants in Lake Michigan that has the potential of destroying both sport and commercial fishing in all the Great Lakes. This situation could turn any efforts to develop the lake as a future protein source into a futile and frustrat ing endeavor. "Evidence i$ accumulating that shows that one j-roup of chemical contami nants, polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, exist in dangerously high levels in Lake Michigan right now . . . Because they are extremely fat soluble, and be cause they arc extremely stable, they lend to bioaccumulate in the food chain with more success than other pollutants. In human beings, PCBs have caused skin disease, jaundice, and toxic damage to internal organs, especially the liver. In test animals, PCBs have caused swelling of internal organs, internal bleeding, and drops in reproductive capacity.** Schreibcr went on to note that he had asked the Wisconsin Department of Nat ural Resources Board to intensify efforts on the PCB problem, and he ended by writing: "Unilateral action by each state is needed because sources in the En vironmental Protection Agency feel that it will be three or four years before any federally imposed standards could go into efiect. Wisconsin and the other Lake Michigan states cannot afford to wait that long." According to scientists at EPA*s Na tional Water Quality Laboratory, all Lake Michigan trout and salmon greater than twelve inches in length exceed the FDA limit of 5 ppm of PCBs. Indeed, this past May FDA seized interstate ship ments of canned and frozen coho and chinook salmon from Lake Michigan. The PCB levels were 7.6 to 10.9 ppm in the canned coho and 8.2 to 9.2 ppm in the frozen fish. This past summer the Sport Fishing Institute informed members that about half of the early-returning mature Atlantic salmon in the Boyne River in Michigan had died: "Laboratory analy sis has resulted in a theory that PCBs may be the cause, in combination with other environmental stress." In Lake Superior, large lake trout generally contain more than 5 ppm of PCBs. Two-fifths of the Superior basin is the lake itself, and the suspicion is that PCBs are entering the lake mainly from air, rain, and snow. By contrast, the sources of PCBs entering Lake Michigan are many and varied. A report by Kart E. Bremer of the EPA Region V office in Chicago noted that "cooling water from aluminum foundries in the Milwaukee area have been found to contain PCBs. The source of the PCBs has been iden tified as hydraulic fluids from die-cast machines. The survey is now being ex panded to include other foundries.** In Wisconsin, wastepaper used in recycling is a source of PCBs in streams entering Lake Michigan, and on (he other side ol the lake, the paper industry wastes in the Kalamazoo River create a contamination problem. And last winter, the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources found that snowmelt in five of seven locations in the state contained traces of PCBs as high as .24 parts per billion. In addition to fish, Bremer reported, "A serious situation exists with respect to populations of fish-eating birds in the Great Lakes area. Severe reproduction failure has been identified in herring gull colonies around Lake Ontarid. There is a positive correlation between early em bryonic mortality and PCB contamina tion. The major effect on young birds is to produce symptoms of chick edema dis ease (with) high mortality. Michigan of ficials have observed unnaturally high mortalities of gulls in recent years from Saginaw Bay and Grand Traverse Bay Analysis of the liver and brain of a dead herring gull from Grand Traverse Bay in 1973 showed the presence of 2,600 ppm of Aroclor 1254." Contamination from PCBs is of con cern elsewhere, too. For instance this year the Food and Drug Administr tion seized 20,000 pounds of carp from Lake Pepin, a stretch of the Mississippi River 70 miles downstream from Minneapolis-St. Paul. PCB levels were sc high the FDA buried the carp. Carp and channel catfish taken from the Ohic River also have excessive PCB levels EPA informed the West Virginia De partment of Natural Resources of this oi July 26,1974. In 1969, scientists at the Gulf Breezt Laboratory in Florida, now part of EPA detected PCBs in oysters in Escambu Bay. A Monsanto plant that makes syn thetic fibers had been releasing PCBt from its heal exchange or lubricant sys* tern into the Escambia River. Embar rassed Monsanto officials moved to cor rect the situation, and the release hat diminished by quantifiable amounts Gulf Breeze scientists have done j number of studies on PCBs and curiously, the fish found to have the highest residues was not a predator bu the silversidcsfASemW/o beryllina), a spe cies that feeds mainly on plankton. It i; worth noting that in 1969 the Escambi: Bay shrimp fishery went to hell. In 1961 landings totaled more than one millior pounds; in 1969,234,000 pounds; and ir :V 021518 729573 UC 1970 only 52,000 pounds. Southern California waters contain PCBs, too. According to David R. Young and Theodore C. Hcesen of the Southern California Coastal Water Research Proj ect: "In contrast to DDT compounds, PCBs are widely discharged from sub marine outfalls along the southern Cali fornia coast. . . PCBs now constitute the major chlorinated hydrocarbon contam inant found in municipal wastewaters discharged to the Bight, amounting to approximately three and one-half times the input of DDT compounds." At the May 1974 EPA hearings oh toxic pollutant effluent standards a General Electric witness testified mot only about the PCB releases into the Hudson but elsewhere as well. A General Electric transformer plant in Rome, Georgia, was 1discharging PCBs into the. Oostanaula River "on the order of one pound per day." The effect on the biota of the river was unknown because, as the witness, Dr. Edward L. Simons, admitted, "We have made no measurement of biota for any facility of the General Electric Company." . Dr. Simons also testified that the Gen eral Electric transformer plant in Pitts field, Massachusetts, released PCBs into the Housatonic River. In the vicinity of the outfalls, according to "occasional samples" by General Electric, the river water contained between 1 and 3 parts per billion of PCBs, while the levels in the sediments ranged from 1B0 to 1,300 parts per million. At "a distance of something between one and six miles" downstream, PCBs were "not detectable" in the water, but PCB levels in the sediments were 30 to 60 parts per million. Dr. Simons pointed out that the Pittsfield plant was releasing an average of only 0.1 pound per day of PCBs into the Housatonic, with "occasional excursions as high as 0.8 pound per day/* "To put that 0.1 pound per day in a possibly more illustrative format," Dr. Simons said, "that would correspond to a malljigger of whiskey, f bout one ounce, so we are not talking about a major spill. This is a relatively small volume of liquid." Later, Dr. Simons testified that "a loss of something on the order of one ounce during the day's operations is, we think, a very creditable performance. I don't know of any other really heavy manufacturing operation which handles fluids in which that Kind of level of control is displayed." For sheer screw-up, New York State takes first place. The September 29,1972, issue of Science carried a paper by Dr. Donald J. Lisk and Carl A. Bache of the Pesticide Residue Laboratory at Cornell University and two other Cornell scien tists reporting that all lake trout tested from Cayuga Lake contained PCBs, and that 80 percent of those more than 22 inches in length had levels that exceeded 5 ppm. The highest level, 30.4 ppm, was found in a nine-year-old fish. There was a "highly significant" correlation between PCB concentrations and the age of the fish. "The* fish were netted in October 1970," the paper noted. "Their ages were accurately known, because the fish are annually stocked as yearlings and dis tinctly marked as to year class." No one in the state Department of Environmental Conservation bothered to call the Cor nell scientists about their findings. In fact, the only call Bache remembers getting was from a chemical company represen tative (not Monsanto) who wondered where the PCBs were coming from. To strike a personal note, 1 am not surprised by the past inactivity of the New York Department of Environmen tal Conservation. In the 1960s it actively suppressed information and photo graphs dealing with huge fish kills by Consolidated Edison Company's Indian Point No. 1nuclear plant on the Hudson, and for several years the department officially treated the lower Hudson as nontidal (but it is tidal) because that apparently suited the corporate conve nience of the power industry. Indeed, I was once dismissed from the stand at a DEC hearing on Consolidated Edison's proposed Storm King pumped-storage hydroelectric project because my sworn testimony that the lower Hudson was (Ida* was "hearsay." 1 have had personal experience with DEC on PCBs. The October 26, 1970. issue of Sports Illustrated carried my long article, "Poison Roams Our Coastal Seas," dealing with DDT, PCBs, and other contaminants in gamefish from the Atlantic, Gulf, and Pacific coasts. The analyses, paid for by Sports Illustrated. were conducted by the WARF Institute in Madison, Wisconsin. 1 hey rescaled, among other things, that Hudson Rivet striped bass had 11.4 ppm of PCB in the eggs and 4.0) ppm in the flesh. (The* levels ere also reported In my article, -The Hudson River t rt,*ln the March 197) iu o re M a A fw 1 hold a state scientific collector's li cense to seine fishes from the Hudson, and 1 am required .to make an annual report. On February 17, 1971, I did so, and in my letter to Cart Parker, chief of the Bureau of Fish in the Department of Environmental Conservation, 1told him of the DDT and PCD levels in the eggs. "These are grim figures," 1wrote, "and I certainly think the state should warn fishermen not to eat striped bass eggs." 1 also told Parker that the levels in the flesh were "not great reading," and I suggested he read the Sports Illustrated article, i Parker's reply was derisive. For all this, documents obtained from DEC by John Harris-Cronin and Hudson RiverkeeperTom Whyatt show that the state began collecting Hudson River fish as early as July 1970, although PCB analyses were not performed until 1972. PCB levels in excess of 5 ppm were found in largemouth and smallmouth bass, striped bass, northern pike, sturgeon, and white perch. One largemouth 14,7 inches long, taken at the mouth of Esopus Creek, had 53.81 ppm. In April 1973 DEC collected 22 striped'bass from the Hudson River near the Tappan Zee Bridge. The fish were analyzed in 1974, and PCB levels exccfded 5 ppm in 18 of 22 fish. The highest level was 49.63 ppm. Not a word was said to the public. In May 1975 six striped bass were taken from the Tappan Zee area and analyzed: four of six had excessive levels, the highest 37.80 in a six-pound striper. High PCB levels in Hudson River striped bass mean trouble else where. After spawning in the Hudson, the bass disperse along the Atlantic o ust at least as far south as New Jersey and at least us far north us the Merrimack River, 40 miles above Boston. It is impossible for a coastal fisherman to distinguish between a Hudson striper and bass that have migrated from Chesapeake Bay* with its numerous spawning riven. No serious PCB contamination has yet been discovered in the flesh of adult fish in the Chesapeake system, hut in 1971 Stripers Unlimited had four large female stnped bass taken m southern New l.ngland waters analyzed lor PCBs. I he WAR!*' Institute found the PCB levels were 13. II. 37, and 46 ppm. No one know the riser o f origin of these fish, which were caught in Narraganselt Bay and otr Nantuiket In New York State in the early 1970s, NfcV 0 2 1 5 1 9 729574 information of vital importance to the public concerning PCB levels in Lake Ontario coho and chinook salmon was suppressed. As 1was writing this article, a scientist who requested anonymity sent me copies of PCB analyses performed on Lake Ontario salmon by the Rome Pol lution Laboratory of the Department of Environmental Conservation between December 23, 1971, and.September 26, 1973. Seven chinook salmon collected in the fall of 1971 were analyzed. One chinook had 15.29 ppm of PCBs, and that was the lowest level of any chinook tested. Five of the fish had PCB levels ranging from 20.05 ppm to 27.23 ppm, and one salmon a 6-pound, thirteenounce male, had 34.48 ppm. One scientist within DEC, Ward B. Stone, wildlife pathologist at the Dclmar Wildlife Research Laboratory near Al bany, had warned administrators and superiors for several years that PCBs were a menace. His warnings, Stone says, were "futile/* and there were times he wondered if he w,crc crazy and the rest of the department sane. "No one really eared," says Stone. In one blunt memo, he wrote: "I hop* the department begins to take some or these toxic problems seriously. . . because it is doubtful these problems can be put off. In fact, they have already been put oil far loo long." Stone was busy testing and accumu lating data. With Frederick D. Baker, Casimir F. Tunwsnnis, and Brian Bush, scientists in the state Department of Health, he worked on levels of PCBs and trace metals in waterfowl. Seven species of waterfowl were analyzed for PCBs, and in two of (hem-lhe greater scaup and white-winded scolcr-PCBs were consistently found in tissues. The greater letup is a favorite with duck hunters, who regard the breast meat as especially savory fare. To quote from (he report: "Measurable levels of PCBs )vere found in most of the available tissues of all specimens of greater scaup, a species that prefers large bodies of water (c.g.. Lake Ontario, Long Island Sound, Great South Bay) during migration. The analytical data strongly suggest PCB contamination of these waters and the aquatic life on which the ducks feed. Since scaup are hunted for food and since * 27 percent of the samples analyzed con tained n greater level than 5 micrograms per gram, which is the legal limit for poultry products, surveys of this species on a regular basis would be desirable. The level found approaches that which has been shown to cause chick deformi ties and embryonic death in domestic fow l. . . "White-winged scoters are very similar in their feeding and migratory habits to (he greater scaup. They are primarily coastal during migration, although the specimens presented for analysis were collected from inland waters. All the specimens had measurable levels of PCBs. (The highest was 20.4 ppm in the muscles.) Because of the similarity in feeding and habitat, data for the scoters and scaup may be combined to establish the presence of PCB contamination in the waters that are their environment." Two of six canvasback ducks collected from Canandaigua Lake in Ontario County had PCBs in their liver, muscle, and brain tissues. "These two birds may have been migrants from highly polluted areas/' the report noted. One of the canvasbacks had levels of 16.1 ppm in the liver and 10.2 ppm in the brain. This same canvasback also had lead levels of 12.6 ppm in the liver and brain tissues, and the duck is believed to have died from malnutrition. The occurrence of PCBs in canvasbacks is noteworthy inasmuch as last February the National Wildlife Federa tion petitioned the U.S. Department of the Interior to review the status of the species because the "once abundant can vasback duck is low in numbers and distributed over a diminishing range of suitable breeding and wintering areas. The Stock of available breeding pairs is even lower as a result of the most unbal anced sex-ratio of any species of North American duck. This remnant canvas back population is faced with the loss of wetland habitat and with other stresses with which it is not equipped to deal." Interestingly, according to the Stone report, "No Canada geese showed quan tifiable levels of PCB or trace metals, except for one with cadmium in muscle tissue and two with mercury in liver tissue. The migratory movement of Can ada geese over New York Slate and their feeding habits (they are primarily her bivorous) apparently preclude the ac cumulation of PCBs to any detectable degree." In other animals. Stone has detected 30.16 ppm of PCBs in the liver of a great blue heron from Albany County and 16.57 ppm in the brain of a great blue from Cayuga County. A dead herring gull from Oneida Lake had 21.49 ppm in the muscle and 11.05 in the liver; an otter from Twitchcll Lake in Herkimer County had 49.39 ppm in the brain; and a porpoise washed ashore at Westhampton Beach, Long Island, had 20.3 ppm in the liver. i There is increasing concern about the synergistic effects PCBs might have on animals or that they might reduce resistance to disease. For instance, in 1970 Milton Friend and Daniel O, 729575 NEV 021520 m Trtiner reported in Science that mallard ducklings fed Arod or 1254 for ten days showed no apparent ill effects. The duck lings were then fed food Without PCBs for five days and exposed to duck hepa titis virus. The mallards suffered signifi cantly higher mortality (hap did birds not fed PCBs. ' Among mammals, PCBs have had severe effects on the reproductive capac ity of mink, and in a paper to be pub lished in the Journal o f the National ' Cancer Institute, Dr. Renate Kimbrough of the Center for Disease Control of the U.S. Public Health Service and a team of researchers found that female rats fed Aroclor 1260 developed liver cancer. Very important research on primates has been done by Dr. James R. Allen and Deborah Barsotti of the University of Wisconsin Medical School. Allen and Barsotti fed two groups of rhesus mon keys PCBs in a laboratory experiment. One group got food containing 5 ppm of Aroclor 1248, and the other group re ceived food with 2.5 ppm of the chemical. In two months, monkeys in both groups lost hair from their faces and necks and their skin took on a "sandpaper-like texture." Both groups came down with acne, Although it took the 2.5 ppm group longer to develop it. After six months, both groups were bred to control mon keys that had not been fed PCBs, Six of the eight females in the 5 ppm group became pregnant. Four of the six re sorbed the fetus or aborted, one had a stillbirth, and one gave birth to a very undersized infant. In the 2.5 ppm group, all eight females became pregnant. Three resorbed the fetus, and the olher five gave birth to undersized infants. And what of the human experience? In 1968 about 1,000 Japanese, nearly ail on the southernmost large island of Kyu shu, were officially diagnosed as hav ing what is now called "Yusho" disease after they used rice oil that had been contaminated during processing with an estimated 1,000 to 3,000 ppm o f PCBs. Estimates of the persons affected reached 15,000. Yusho symptoms include severe acnc-or what is now called "chloracne"--chcesclike discharges from the eyes, skin darkening, hearing loss, and neurological disorders. .A number of newborn infants had abnormal skin pigmentation as the result of transpla cental transmission of PCBs, and the ma jority of the fetuses born were smaller than the national standard, There were stillbirths, and according to a report by Japanese physicians, examination of one stillborn fetus showed abnormal skin and hair development. . Little clinical work on humans has been done in this country, although the Environmental Protection Agency cal culates that half the population carry 1to 3 ppm of PCBs in their fatty tissue. One would have thought General Electric might have done research on employes working around PCBs, but aside from transferring an employe suffering from chloracne to another operation General Electric has done nothing. Several conservation organizationsthe Natural Resources Defense Council, Hudson River Fishermen's Association, and Hudson River Sloop Restorationhave asked EPA Administrator Russell E. Train to take immediate action against General Electric under federal law to curtail the discharge of PCBs into the Hudson. In Congress, hearings on PCBs in Ash have been scheduled by Repre sentative Robert L. Leggett, chairman of the Subcommittee on Fisheries and Wildlife Conservation and the Environ ment of the House Committee on Mer chant Marine and Fisheries-at the re quest of other congressmen. Representa tives John D. Dingel) of Michigan, Edwin B. Forsythe of New Jersey, Richard L. - Ottinger of New York, and Gerry E. Studds of Massachusetts. The simplest solution to the PCB problem would be for Congress to ban the chemical, as Japan has done. Mean while, in New York Commissioner Reid has now advised the public not to eat any fish at all from the Hudson, and he reports PCBs have been found in fish from the Mohawk River and the St. Lawrence. Reid has charged that "by discharging the toxic and deleterious substance PCB for more than twenty years, General Electric has done serious if not irreparable damage to the Hudson." In a complaint brought in September, the New York Department of Environ mental Conservation accused General Electric of violating state water quality standards and (he state Environmental Conservation Law, and a hearing was scheduled at which DEC was to seek an abatement order requiring the company to reduce its PCB release to two pounds a day by the end of this year and zero by September 30, 1976. DEC is also asking that civil penalties be assessed against General Electric, that the company "take steps to restore the Hudson and to elimi nate contamination of the river," and that it post a minimum compliance bond ofS2 million. And another investigation has been ordered by Reid. "There has been a failure of government here, and some failures within the department," the commissioner says. "1 think the public is entitled to know all the facts." -R O D E R T H . BOYLE Know Audubon's regional fieldmen Periodically we publish a list of the National Audubon Society's regional representatives. Here is an updated roster of the fieldmen who serve in our nine regions and the states for which each is responsible: Northeast: Richard C. Rhindress, P.O. Box 151, Stcphentown, New York 12168 (Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Is land, Vermont). Mid-Atlantic: Richard J. Martyr, P.O. Box 4181, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania 17111 (Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey. Pennsylvania, Virginia, West Virginia). Southeast: W. Carlyle Blakeney Jr, P.O. Box 28191, Atlanta, Georgia 30328 (Alabama, Florida, Georgia. Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina). North Midwest: Edward M. Brigham HI, R.R. 4, Roving Hills, Red Wing, Minnesota 55066(Iowa, Michigan, Min nesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Wisconsin). Central Midwest: Myron J. Swenson, Mauckport, Indiana 47142 (Illinois, In diana, Kentucky, Ohio, Tennessee). Southwest: John L. Franson, 2507 Rogge Lane, Austin, Texas 78723 (Loui siana, New Mexico, Texas). West Central: Ronald Klataske, 813 Juniper Drive, Manhattan, Kansas 66502 (Arkansas, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska. Oklahoma). Rocky Mountain: Robert K. Turner. P.O. Box 3232, Boulder, Colorado 80303 (Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Utah, Wyoming). Western: Paul M. Howard Jr., 555 Audubon Place, Sacramento, California 95825 (Alaska, California, Hawaii, Ne vada, Oregon, Washington). NEV 0 2 1 5 2 1 133 729576