Document 50rkxD60bwXRG4BXy4G7qpxY0

PCB--power transmission's invisible menace Eliminating a potentially carcenogenic chemical i$ Gov ernment's headache. But when the illegal substance has been Dsed In plants for decades, it becomes an Industry nightmare. Earlier this year, the transformer, the most innocuous of static de vices, officially became the source of a new industry scourge: PCBs. Odds are that you have some in your plant right now. pcb is shorthand for polychlori nated biphenyls, a dielectric fluid 'leveloped for capacitors in 1929. With fifty years of use, this chemi cal has spread to virtually every in dustry using transformers or recycled oil. This summer, it was pronounced hazardous, toxic, and illegal. While perception of pen's fatal ALEX KRISLOV Assistant Editor qualities took more than forty years to congeal, the dangers are not in dispute. This once-"beneficial" substance produces birth defects, tumors, and skin lesions in animals. Workers exposed to pcbs display symptoms ranging from jaundice and impotence to skin disorders and throat and respiratory irritations. Most damning of all, studies show that exposed workers develop statistically unlikely numbers of cancers. Acting under the authority of the Toxic Substances Control Act, the Environmental Protection Agency HONS 000695 # rnP r r _/- ! \ !- vi * (EPA) put sweeping PCB control measures into effect on July 2nd of this year. This rule applies to any party who manufactures, pro cesses, distributes in commerce, or uses or disposes of any item with substantia] PCB contamination. The key word is "substantial." How much is too much?-- Substantial contamination is de fined differently for different condi tions. A transformer with over 500 parts-per-million (ppm) PCB in the dielectric fluid is considered a "pcb Transformer." The same trans former is considered merely con taminated if it has less than that amount. However, in a spill, there's no safety cut-off: any detectable level of PCBs in spilled fluid is abso lutely forbidden. Any item failing into these classifications demands special treatment. That treatment, regurdlcss of cost, is industry's re sponsibility. Searching it out --PCBs were pro duced in this country exclusively by the Monsanto Corp., which voluntardy stopped making them in 1977. However, while Monsanto used the name "Askeral" on all its PCB fluids, other companies, buying wholesale quantities for resale, marketed it under different tradenames. Aroclor, Pydraul, Abestol and Inerteen are common examples; there are many others. Even with a list of them all, there is no guarantee that the outlaw chemi cal will be found. All too often, likely prospects for contamination simply have no label. Here lies the net which ensnarls all industry: while some PCBs lurk in solids, the majority are mixed into mineral oils. From 35 to 40% of mineral-oil transformers, says the EPA, are either contaminated with PCBs or filled to over the 500-ppm mark. Thus, all transformers are as sumed to be contaminated, unless they are tested and their safety is proven. Another problem lies in the recycling of oil drained from the transformers. Naturally, this is now out of the question --but for almost fifty years it was busine$$-as-usual. The reusable oil could end up any where, including transmissions. The EPA calls this "waste oil" and notes that it may be found as a rem nant of fuel oil. transmission oil, or various lubricants. Of course, if old transformer oil ended up as a lubricant on exposed gears, it is probably already in the environment. Oil that found its way into a transmission is another mat ter. If your transmission has been sealed for more than a few years, the oil that went into it might have a dangerous level of contaminant. The best bet, in such a case, is to assume suspicion is warrented. To bury or to burn--By 1975, over 300 million pounds of PCBs had entered the general environment according to the EPA. The ban rule naturally forbids any disposal methods that might add to this load. In setting up rules for junking pcb items, though, the EPA created another load for the already bur dened shoulders of industry. If discovering all the PCBs in a factory is difficult, disposing of them is so complicated as to be monstrous. The EPA mandates spe cific methods for cleaning up--and levies stiff penalties for error. The punishment for breaking the rules includes civil fines of up to $25,000 per day, plus criminal fines of another $25,000 per day, plus up to one year in jail. . There are only two ways to be rid of PCB-contaminated articles. The first is incineration. This sounds simple enough--but stringent regu lations make it an expensive and complex proposition. PCBs cannot be destroyed in just any furnace. An EPA-approved furnace must be ca pable ofa pcb destruction efficiency ofno less than 99.9%: and even then the pcb content of the feed is limited to 10%. Nor can the chemical be added to the combustion chamber during start-up or shut-down. Fi nally, emissions from the furnaces have strict limits as well. If incineration is too large a prob lem, burying the stuff is possibility--but, once again, strict, limiting regulations must be fol lowed. PCBs can only be dumped in a special EPA-approved chemical landfill. If an industry is near or in New York, Oregon, California. Iowa or Kentucky, it's in luck. Those slates house the eight ap proved landfills--there are no more in existence. Keeping it around With all these limitations and reg ulations. it is inevitable that some people are going to have problems getting rid of their PCBs. The final alternative left open to them is stor age. The attraction of this choice is the low initial cost; the drawback comes with the continuing expense of time and money. The epa will allow the storage of nonleaking PCB articles for up to thirty days, as long as no damage can occur in the storage area. Stor age for longer periods requires a special EPA-approved storage area. These must be walled, roofed, and diked, and the floor must be con structed of some impermeable sub stance such as concrete or steel. Even then, the items being stored must be inspected every thirty days. Additionally, the storage room must be above the 100-year flood level. But there's still more: while PCB* contaminated equipment need be inspected only once a month. I'CH transformers come im for 41 PTO/11/70 HONS 000696 outs once a week. And the following control are rigorous. The proper ab items may not be stored for more sorbent materials must be used to than thirty days: leaking PCBartides soak the liquid up; leaking contain and equipment (which, during their ers must be transferred to nonleak 30-day grace period, must reside in ing ones; and the absorbents used containers approved by both the are then considered PCB materials, EPA and the Department of Trans and slated for proper disposal. The portation): non-liquid pcbs in con power transmission engineer should tainers; and PCB-contaminated liq keep these rules in mind: uids in 50 to 449-ppm concen trations. No level of PCB contamination is allowable in oil used as a sealant, Using a PCB transformer--The dust control agent, or coating. Such rule has built-in exemptions for cer waste-oil use on surfaces introduces tain uses of transformers. With al PCB contaminants directly into the most half the transformers in the environment. Almost any electric U.S. falling under the ban rule, motor may be a PCB article. Motors wholesale elimination of these units using PCBs for cooling processes, is simply implausible. Here's a list such as certain mining equipment of "do's and don'ts" for the trans are certainly contaminated. But if former that's kept in service: your motor uses PCB transformers XYou may NOT add PCB- or capacitors, plan on checking it, contaminated dielectric fluid with a too. Under the law, determining greater concentration of the chemi possible contamination is your re cal than already exists in the trans sponsibility. former. Some hydraulic systems are con You MAY drain the coolant in the taminated. PCB may be used in hy transformer, add noncontaminated draulic systems until July 1,1984, if fluid in its place, and lest it three the system was already in use be months later for possible fore July I of this year. Even so, reclassification. users of these systems will have a X You may NOT dilute the PCB fluid number of regulations to deal with. in the transformer by adding non- Among them: draining the systems, contaminated fluid. testing the fluid, lowering the PCBs / You MAY rebuild PCB- to an acceptable level, retesting the contaminated transformers (but systems every year, and disposing NOT PCB transformers). of excess PCBs. Fifty years of waste-oil from Spills and consequences dielectric fluid has spread the out lawed chemical far and wide. What Maintaining a transformer can re kind of oil is in that transmission? sult in trouble (see sidebar). A spill Are those gears contaminated? involving PCBs is automatically over Should they be checked? any legal limit. The single exception to this rule is a leak in a small The cardinal rule, then, is to re capacitor--and that ceases to be an member that PCBs have been around exception if it threatens a water for a long time--but they have only course, such as a river or an open been recognized as a danger in sewer. Any spill requires immediate recent years. They could be all EPA notification, even if it is brought around you, or entirely absent from under control. Additionally, the your environment. But it is your re regulations for bringing it under sponsibility to know. Are you PCB container? The SO to $00 ppm classifications deto nated by the Environmental Protection Agency are essentially a atopgap mea sure. These rules will remove tone of ace from the environment without forcing In dustry to pay an "unacceptable" coat. At least on# proposal suggested that 10 ppm be the cut-off. and a ligure of t ppm wea toseed about as well. Lett unsaid: If the cut-otf point Is too low, number of human beings would legally be pee con tainers. If pcbs are already so widespread, then, what's ell the fues about? Briefly, the danger of the chemical is Ite tendency to bioaccumulate, pcbs thrown Into the wrong landfill may sink Into the water ta ble. From there, they may find their way Into cattle feed, or some other part of tho food chain. From the cattle, they may eventually reach your body. If they do. you risk any number of toxic effects, Including digestive disturbances, Impotence, jaun dice, respiratory Irrltatlone, eevere headaches, end poeeibty cancer. The pcb Ban Rule le an effort to stop tho chemical from reaching you. To tome ex tent, It's already too lata for that. Detect* ble concentrations have shown up In milk, grain, and meat. A grail deal of the genie, H is dear, can no longer be forced back Into the bottle. Sometimes, however, the danger Is caught In tlma--but at great cost, tn June, a transformer at Pierce Packing Co., Billings, Mont., ruptured, spilling ae much as 200 gallons of Its dielectric fluid. Among the coats: 300,000 hens have been gassed, and another 53,000 slaughtered. Millions of eggs have been destroyed. 199,000 pounds ol chicken meat are being hetd In Iowa and Minnesota, possibly to be de stroyed. In all. 1.9 million pounds of possi bly contaminated meat meal was shipped to six states over 3-1/2-month period. How much contaminated food nee es caped the pda net? foa commltloner Shernin Gardner Is "reasonably certain'' that non# has--but ha could not be aura, he raoently said, for at least thirty more days. MONS 000697 PTOft UTS AS