Document 8V7ea3DL52YbezwRdEqZg4mBy

l%w PCBs spread by waste-oil use? Federal and aute environmental offi cials arc focusing on waste-oil dealers as a major source of widespread PCB (poly chlorinated biphenyl) contamination in Midwest waterways. Investigators have shown that much of the waste oil and solvents from industrial sources, such as chemical firms, electrical equipment manufacturers and power plants, are contaminated with PCBs, once widely used in transformers and electric motors. Officials have found that moat waste-oil dealers fail to check whether the material they collect is contaminated before they recondition it /or resale. As a result, PCB-iiden oil is making its way into home and industrial furnaces and onto oounty roads for dust control. It is "one of the major sources in the country for water pollution," declared an Environ mental Protection Agency official. Max Wilcomb of EPA's Kansas City, Mo., office, says the waite-oil haulers are "modern-day Typhoid Mary's. They don't understand the problem and can't figure out what's happening to them." In one major investigation, Minnesota pollution authorities are scrutinizing the activities of more than 20 waste-oil dealers in the state who they allege are distrib uting contaminated oil. The latest case is Hicks Oil (Pipestone, Minn.), which rueoived oil shipments from transformer salvager in South Dakota whose oil contained PCBs (CW, Jan. 18. p. 18), according to the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA). Hicks says it was assured by the salvager that the oil contained no PCBs. The company resells oil for use on roads and as fuel to indus tries and schools, MPCA adds. MPCA also says two other dealers, Mankato Oil (Mankato, Minn.) and Hy Friedman (Minneapolis), allegedly sold PCB-laden fuel to customers. Including private homes. Those firms claim they weren't aware they were selling contami nated oil. Samples of recycled oil sold by such dealers has turned up fairly high PCB levels, says MPCA's Richard Kable, who adds that be often finds recycled oil with 100 parts per million of the contaminant. `"These are local, small time collectors . . . who gel the oil themselves from old transformers." of ten mixing it with No. 6 fuel oil for large industrial customers, or with old drain oil for resale to others. PCB concentra tion in oil originally collected from junked transformers or motors is often "in thousands of parts per million,*' he adds. The burning of PCB-contaminated oil in furnaces releases the pollutants into the air. says MPCA, and they eventually wind up in ground runoff into lakes and streams. "That's one of the biggest sources" of PCB contamination in waterways, adds MPCA biologist Marvin Hors. Because PCBs are not water-soluble, they accumulate in river sediment and are ingested by fish. PCB levels in fish templed in Minnesota waters within the last several years have been high enough to prompt a ban on consumption of a batch of carp in Lake Pepin and a warning to those who fished parts of the Mississippi River near Minneapolis not to eat more than one meal of fish per week. Although the ban has been lifted, the consumption warning is still in effect. MPCA says PCB levels in the fish are still high. Not Alace: Kable says his state is not the only one with such problem. "Minne sota is probably more aware than other states," Hors sdds, perhaps because thou sands of gallons of PCB-laden oil shipped from the state was almost applied to roads in Iowa last year. "The problem is widespread in Michi gan, too," says EPA Regional (Chicago) Toxic Substances Coordinator Karl Brem er, although state officials try to track waste-oil haulers. The burning of contami nated oil is probably responsible for PCB pollution in Wisconsin, where EPA anal yses of snow samples from golf courses in nonindustrial areas revealed PCB residues, ha adds. When oil that contained numerous hazardous substances, including PCBs, seeped from an illegal disposal site into a stream at Ditmer, Mo., last April, state and federal officials traced the souroe to waste collector Raymond Bliss. EPA initiated a S500,000 cleanup, averting pollution of a nearby scenic river. Harry Gilmer of EPA's regions! office in Kansas City said the dumping incident involved extremely toxic wastes. At cer tain spots around the disposal site, be said, PCB concentrations in the ground reached 4%. The origin of most of the wastes was unknown, Gilmer said, although EPA traced the presence of bromophenylchlorophenyl ether to Monsanto. The company ays it gave Blits some wastes, although since the mid-1960s it has had a policy of tracing its wastes to assure they are disposed of properly. EPA says identifying the source ai contaminants in waste oil, sad even of the wastes themselves, is very difficult. Collec tors receive oil from filling stations, truck fleets, junkyards, transformer salvagers, and power plants in addition to "the back doors of industry," as one official calls it. EPA's Bremer contends that many waste haulers are paid by companies to cart way their wastes. No questions are asked and "they just want to get rid of the stuff," he sdds. On the other hand, Wah Kovalick of EPA's Hazardous Waste Disposal section in Washington, D.C., Says, "Some companies are so concerned hbout their wastes that they send inspec tors out to watch where the wastes go." EPA says the new Resource Conserva tion and Recovery Act will go a long way toward controlling improper oil recycling. Under that law, waste receivers will need permits to operate and will have to prove to EPA that they are disposing of wastes legally. In addition, waste generators will have to test their wastes and identify the chemical components. Says EPA's Wil comb of the pending law: "We still don't have teeth, but we're gettin' em." ISA-15 CHEMICAL WEEK WEEKLY 55.400 JAN 2 5 1978 hons oooaai