Document J3p09jEaeBQK121Bnbb6Vog9e

f5tnranit<tfi,orn,t,3 Stow SAVANNAH, GA. d, i.n* OCT 61976 | Monsanto Will Stop Making Fluids In Pollution Dispute ST. LOUIS (API - Monsanto In PCB has been blamed as s major dustrial Chemicals Co,,tfie ohlyTTST source of pollution In New York's manufacturer of the controversial Hudson River. PCB insulating fluids, announced The New York Environmental Monday that it will quit producing the Conservation Department and the fluids by late next year. General Electric Co. reached agree Earle H. Harbiaon Jr . general ment recently for GE to contribute manager of Monsanto's specialty some |3 million toward the cost of chemicals division, said the firm will cleaning PCBs from (he Hudson. The complete distribution of all Inven agreement came after a lengthy bear tories and withdraw completely from ing over leakage of PCB* from GE the market no later than Oct. SI, 1977. plants at Fort Edwards and Hudson The target date would be even FslU,N.Y..intothe Hudson. sooner. Harbipon said, but electrical Monsanto has been named, aa a transformer and capacitor manufac defendant in a It billion federal suit In turers have said they would be unable South Carolina as a result of PCB- to convert to other materials any contamination of Lake Hartwell on earlier. the South Carolina-Georgia Une. At PCB (polychlorinated biphenyl) is a torneys for property owner* and stable, fire-i esistant chemical that is used widely in transformers and capacitors. "Unfortuantety," Harbiaon said, businesses along the lake claim that the pollution has reduced property values and caused a loss of profits among businesses. "the very properties that have made PCBs ideal and even mandatory for these essential uses, were also found in the early 1970s to be the properties Also named in the suit is the Sangamo Electric Company of Pickens, SC. which uses PCB in Us manufacture of electric capacitators. causing them to persist and ac The accumulation of PCBs in cumulate in the environment.*' waterways, Harbiaon said, triggered the firm's decision to cease production as soon as the electrical industry could find alternate fluids and convert its equipment and components to their. use. The company had earlier quit mak ing PCBs for use in carbonless copy paper, fire resistant hydraulic fluids, heat transfer fluids and plestidsm. Government tests for a three-year period discovered that the levels of PCB in major water basins were not increasing and, in some cam. were actually decreasing, Harbiaon said. But he added that the public still sew PCBs as a threat Dr. George Rausch, director of the medical and environmental health department of Monsanto, said that ex tensive studies have failed to produce any evidence that PCBs can cause cancer in animals or humans. Because they are not readily biodegradeable, however, they do tend to accumulate in animal tissue. "This in Itself.'* Roach said, "suggests that they should be replaced \ If possible with products that are more ; biodegradeable." . HONS 050581