Document 5b98xk9paODeegR9R7nBLYza8

ffilji (Clarltm-Cr^t: JACKSON, MISS. 0. SI,ift OCT 61976 iVlonsanto PCB Halt Announced Sayt October 1971 j Will Be Target Date 7to AtaorttUd Pro* J5T. LOUIS -- Monsanto Industri al* Chemicals Co . THe only U S irSufuTacturer oT'ttif controversial PB insulating fluids, announced fljwiday that it will quit producing the fluids by late next year. arle H. Harbison Jr., general manager of Monsanto's specialty 1 chemicals division, said the firm will complete distribution of aU in* > vtytorie* and withdraw completely - from Uie market no later than Oct. it tm. I (The target date would be even 1 sooner, Harbison said, but electri- ' c4l .'transformer and capacitor manufacturers have said they ! weuld be unable to convert to other . materials any earlier. pCB (polychlorinated biphenyl) isra stable, fire-resistant chemical that Is used widely in transformers add capacitors. "llnfortuantely," Harbison said, "the very properties that have made PCBs ideal and even manda tory for these essential uses, were also found in the early 1919s to be the properties causing them to per sist and accumulate in the environ- madL* * ? . - i-- - PCB has been blamed as a major source ol pollution in New York's Hudson River. The New York Environmental Conservation Department and the General Electric Co. reached agreement recently for GE to con tribute some $3 million toward the cost of cleaning PCBs from the Hudson. The agreement came after a lengthy hearing over leakage of PCBs from GE plants at Port Ed wards and Hudson Falls, N.Y., into the Hudson. The accumulation of PCBs in waterwaya, Harbison said, triggered the firm's decision to cease prod uction as soon as the electrical in dustry could find alternate fluids and convert its equipment and component* to their use. 1 The company had earlier quit making PCBs for use In carbonless oopy paper, fire resistant hydraulic Quids, heat transfer fluids andplas ticizers. I Government testa for a threedear period discovered that the levels of PCB in major water tfaiins were not increasing and. in fome cases, were actually decreas ing. Harbison said. But he added Quit the public still saw PCBs as a Qireat ! Dr. George Rousch, director of ttie medical and environmental health department of Monsanto, jaid that extensive studies have (tiled to produce any evidence that PCBs can cause cancer in animals jr humans. * Because they are not readily biooegradeable, however, they do tofld &> accumulate to animal tissue. ! "This in itself," Rousch laid, 1suggests that they should be re placed if possible with products iiat are more biodegradaable... " ! Hdrbison said the firm is In volved in field testing of non-PCB components but that the new prodjet probably will not offer a com parable degree of fire resistance. HONS 050591