Document OE5qrRaVJybN2nV8eDnY98GKp

ERRATA TO BACKGROUND STATEMENT BY ENVIRONMENTAL PROIECTICN AGENCY ADMINISTRATOR, RUSSELL E. TRAIN AT A PRESS CONFERENCE ON PCB's, MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 1975, WASHINGTON', D.C. * The following corrections should be made to the background statement as printed: . (1) a.. Page 1, first paragraph, line thirteen following the words California coast, insert "stream entering" the Gulf... b. Page 4, second paragranph, line 10 following the words California coast, insert "stream.entering" the Gulf..; . (2) a. Page 5, third paragraph, line 3, change 1 million to 1/2 million pounds (' b,. Line seven and eight should read following the words into the environment, "in wastewater", in the course of PCB - containing capacitor and transformer .production and manufacturing processes \ . . (4) Page 7, first full paragraph should read as follows: . . We also plan to conduct a thorough review of the Japanese experience in implementing their ban on the production and use . of PCBs. We hope to discuss the matter with the Japanese in Washington next year. I will also suggest that the OECD review their previous recommendations on PCBs through this mechanism. I hope to encourage world-wide phase-out of PCBs. '. DSW 319253 QE STLCOPCB4055782 BACKGROUND STATEMENT BY ENVIRONMENTAL .PROTECTION AGENCY ADMINISTRATOR, RUSSELL E. TRAIN AT A PRESS CONFERENCE ON PCB's, MONDAY, DECEMBER 22, 1975, WASHINGTON, D.C. - I am announcing today an EPA action plan to reduce, as rapidly and effectively as we can, the serious threat of polychlorinated biphenyls (or PCB's) to huim.n health and the environment. Since their Introduction some 45 years ago, PCB's have beer used in a variety of commercial and industrial products such as transiormers, capacitors, paints, inks, ' paper plastics, adhesives, sealants and hydraulic fluids. Because of this wide use and because PCB's do not readily degrade, we find, today, . ` that they are widely dispersed throughout the environment--in landfills, soils, river and lake sediments, in our air and water and in wildlife and human tissue. Of particular concern, we are currently finding PCB levels exceeding the FDA 1 init of five parts per million in fish taken from the Great Lakes, the upper Mississippi River, off the Southern California coast, and in the Hudson River and other waterways in New .York State. PCB's are known to cause significant . adverse effects in fish and aquatic life at these and lesser levels. In addition, they have been cound in laboratory tests to cause reproductive failures, gastric disorders, skin lesions and tumors in mammals. Consequently, we believe that PCB's constitute a significant hazard to human health and the environment and must be immediately and effectively controlled with every neans at our disposal. Because of this hazard and ouv finding that the environmental burden from PCB's is already too great and is growing, it is plain to me that we must, as a society, accert and work toward a goal of totally eliminating the production, importation anc! use of PCB's as rapidly as possible. Furthermore, we must make e.ery effort to assure that those PCB's now in use do not enter the environment At the same time, the public should be under no illusion as to the difficulty of dealing with this problem. We have absolutely no authority under existing law to stop or restrict uses of PCB's. Until the passage of Toxic Substances Control legislation by the Congress, we must rely heavily on voluntary actions by industry. In any event, it wil' not be possible to eliminate the use of PCB's overnight. Even if we coild eliminate these uses immediately, we would have to face the fact tha : there are hundreds of millions of pounds of PCB's out there in the environment--in landfills, soils and the bottom sediments of rivers, lakes, and estuaries--which will be there for years, like a delayed-action time bomb, and which we have no way to keep from moving into life systems, includihg humans.. With all that we can do. It may take many years before we are able to see a significant decline In the levels of PCB's in the env ronment. Nevertheless, we must begin at once. Even though our authorities are inadequate, we must do all that we can. I am, therefore, taking the following steps: DSW 319254 r STLCOPCB4055783 -2- 1. I am directing our regional offices, in active cooperation with the states, tf- immediately establish requirements.to virtually eliminate PCB's from the process wastes of all manufacturers of PCB's and of capacitors and transformers that utilize PCB's. 2. I am calling on'the leade-ship of the manufacturers of PCB's and the major manuf icturers of transformers and capacitors to develop safe and envirwmentally acceptable alternatives for PCB's as rapidly as possible. I am scheduling a meeting in January with representitives of these manufacturers to discuss and lay out speci?ic plans to achieve this end. ! 3. I am calling on the presidents of major electric utility companies and other major users of large capacitors and transformers, such as railroads, to assume responsibility for controlling the use and disposal of their PCB's. To this end, I am writting representatives of the companies and their principal industrial associations to meet with me in January to discuss how this might be accomp ished as rapidly and effectively as possible. 4. I am proposing regulations to control the environmental damage that results from spills of hazardous substances, including PCB's EPA will move as npidly as possible to finalize these regulations after a public comment period. 5. I am writing State Governors to as'; them to carefully examine and apply their authorities to deal with the PCB problem. 6. I am writing the heads of selected Federal agencies to ask them to immediately inventory their uses of PCB's and PCB-containing materials and to develop plans to assure adequate management and safe disposal of these materials. 7. In addition to these Stefs, I am initiating a number of other programs to find ways of eliminating the environment discharges from other sources of PCB's including paper recycling operations, the investment casting industry, and the disposal of electrical consumer products which contain PCB's. Before I describe these and other actions in more detail, let me describe the history of past efforts to deal with PCB's and the nature of the problem. STLCOPCB405578 -3- EARLY EFFORTS ' In 1972, a federal interagency task force was formed to address the question: what do we know and what should be done about PCBs in the environment? At that time, PCBs had been in wide industrial use in the United States for about 40 years. Approximately 80 million pounds were being domestically produced annually. These PCBs were used in various ccmmerica] and industrial products including electrical equipment, printing inks, carbonless copy paper, paints, ' sealants, adhesives, plastics, and heat transfer and hydraulic machinery fluids. The task foice concluded that PCBs were highly persistent, could be found in all parts of the environnment, could : "bioaccumulate" to unacceptably high levels in fish, and could have ' serious adverse effects on human health. The task force also recognized, that PCBs had significant ad vantages over other materials for uses in closed electrical systems. They conduct heat but not electricity, and in 1972 it appeared that the only available substitutes for PCBs in capacitors and in transformers--which are widely used in indoor electrical systems--were too flammable. To have prohibited PCBs for these uses would, in effect," have substituted a safety haza"d for a health hazard. The task force recommended--and the Federal Government adopted--a policy of confining PCB use to closed electrical systems. . The Monsanto Company, the sole Ameri ;an producer of PCBs voluntarily restricted sales of PCBs, prior to the tusk force report, to uses in closed electrical systems. The American National Standards Institute issued guidelines for industry on the use, disposal' and labelling of PCBs. The Environmental Protection Agency announced that it would take steps to limit disciiarges of industrial effluents of PCBs into rivers and lakes. The F( od anc Drug Administration established temporary tolerances for PCBs in several types of food and set limits on PCB contamination in food packaging and in food processing plants-. In addition, the General Services Administration banned PCBs in paper, purchased by the Federal government and the Department of the Interior prohibited future use of PCBs in off-shore oil operations. In February, 1973, in the first international agreement aimed at limiting the production and use of chemicals in order to protect the environment, the Organization -for Economic Cooperation and Development announced a dec is ion to recommend to member countries that the use of PCBs be prohibited for industrial or commercial purposes except -in certain closed systems. One member country, Japan, subsequently - banned the future production or import of PCBs for all uses, after. PCB contamination of rice oil adversely affectid 1000 people. STLCOPCB4055785 -4-. At that time, we believed that these measures would "take care" of the PCB problem! and enable us to continue to take advantage of the unique properties of PCBs while insulating the public and the environment against exposure to hazardous levels of these chemicals. Since 1971, annual U.S. sales of PCBs ha? been cut in half - from approximately 80 million pounds to about 40 million pounds. In retrospect, it is apparent that we could and should have done more. In 1975 we find that althoujh PCB levels in most foods have steadily declined, 1'CBs rema: n present in our environment to a far greater degree and at higher Itvels than we would have thought. PCBs are highly persistent - far more sc than DDT - and bio-accumulate in the food chain. PCB contain: nation tl reatens to become pervasive in the environment. We have fount, high PCI levels -- levels greatly ex ceeding FDA guidelines of 5 ppn --in fish taken from the Great Lakesj the upper Mississippi Rrrer, o 'f the Soi them California coast, 4he-^14^f4fe!x4<2cr, in t le Hud ;on River and other waterways in New York State. Specifically, high concentrations of PCBs have been detected in recent months in f .sh in Lake Michigan (up to 165 ppm), Lake Pepin (up to 40 ppm), and in the Hudson River (up to 350 ppm), although the average levels are significantly lower. The presence of PCBs in these waters threaten.' to destroy commercial and sport fishing and associated industries, sirce contaminated fish are often rendered incapable of effective reproduction and become unfit for human con sumption. The evidence v.e have accumulated over the past three years has underscored our original concern over the toxicity of PCBs and over the potential health hazard posed by the presence of high PCB concentrations in water and in fish. It indicates that the most serious potential health probelm from PCBs which we are able to identify today, would come from eating fish which contain PCBs exceeding the FDA tolerance. Until environmental levels go down substantially, the human health threat from PCBs can only be controlled through not eating fish that exceed the limits prescribed by FDA. PCB compounds have also been shown to cause reproductive failure.*;, gastric disorders, skin lesions, . and tumors in mammals. As a result of this new evidence, I called a National Conference on PCBs in Chicago last month, to examine the latest scientific findings on environmental and health effects of PCBs and to identify actions that might be taken to control the problem. Let me summarize what we have learned. DSW 319257 STLCOPCB4055786 -5- PRESENT ENVIRONMENTAL BURDEN We estimate that over the past 45 years, scsne 700 million pounds of PCBs have been produced and used in the United States. Of that amount more than half has already entered the environment through discharges to the air, water and land. Although some of this has been chemically or biologically degraded, the vast majority is contained in landfills, contaminated soils, bottom sediments of rivers, lakes and coastal waters and in air and water concentrations where they are available for uptake into fish, and shellfish. Un fortunately, there appears to be relatively little we can do to remove PCBs from the environment. We find ourselves in a situation similar to the one we faced with DDT. The environmental contaminant is, practically speaking, beyond our reach through known cleanup . techniques and may take many years to degrade to any substantial de gree. This means, that it may be 10 to 20 years before some of our waters will be suitable conmercial fisheries. POTENTIAL ADDITIONAL ENVIRQNMEim BURDEN . At present there are several hundred million pounds of PCBs current ly in use or inventory in closed electrical equipment, hydraulic equip ment, paper products, and other commercial and industrial products. Without preventive measures, essentially all of these PCBs will ultimate ly enter the environment and add to the existing soil, sediment, air and water concentrations that I just described. A large part of this amount can be kept from entering the environment if effective disposal and use practices are followed. The remainder may be virtually uncontrollable and will result in a continuing addition to the environmental burden. FUTURE PRODUCTION In addition to the amounts already in the environment and in use, we are domestically producing 35-4u million pounds per year . and are importing at least 1 ir ill ion pounds, and perhaps a great deal more if account is made cf PCB - containing products entering the country. Only a relatively small amount -- perhaps as much as 10,000 pounds annually is discharged directly into the environ ment (in wastewater, air or solid vaste discharges) in the course . of production and manufacturing processes.. The remainder is going to uses where it could ultimately be discharged into the environment. We can probably fully control the direct discharges but can only par tially control the ultimate discharges from that amount going into use. 3A925S OSVJ r ic t STLCOPCB4055787 6- - CORRECTIVE MEASURES These facts lead me to two conclusions: First, we must as a nation commit ourselves now to phasing out the production and importation of PCEs if we are ever to ar est the growing concentra tions of PCBs in our environment. Secon l, we must assure that those PCBs in use do not enter the environment to the extent this can be done. - With respect to phasing out PCBs in the United States, I have invited the heads of companies which manufacture electrical equipment containing PCBs to meet with m-- in January 1976. I will ask them to'accelerate their research, esting, and development of alternatives for PCBs. At the meeting I will be looking for a plan from this industry on how they will proceed and on what schedule. I will also offer EPA's assistance in the assessment of industry's test data to establish the environmental acceptability of proposed alternatives. In this regard I am directing our Office of Toxic Substances to proceed at maximum speed to fu nish industry information on the tests that we believe should be cond'icted to assess those substitutes now on the horizon and those yet to be developed. I should point out that this will be a difficult and t .me consuming effort, the results of which cannot be expected to bo achieved overnight. In my view, however, it is the only approach to an eventual permanent solution to the PCB problem. I should note that a phase-out of PCBs will wholly depend on the voluntary cooperation of industry in the absence of any statutory authority for EPA to recuire a restriction of production, importation of use of PCBs. Over the five years since Toxic Substances legislation was first proposed, an estimated (00 chemical compounds are introduced into the commercial market each ) ear. We do so without any systematic advance assessment of their potential inpact upon public health. Yet, ` as we have learned throi gh our experience with such materials as vinyl chloride, we may rot discover how harmful a compound can be until years after it has becon 3 a rather commonplace item in our everyday life, even a significant facto * in our economy. And we, again and again, find ourselves engaged in an extremely difficult and drawn-out struggle to protect the public from a hazard to which it has already been exposed while at the same time trying to avoid putting people out of business or out of work. We find ourselves 3^** STLCOPCB4055788 7 trying to choose between a health hazard and a safety hazard. We find ourselves without the authority we need to really cope with the problems like those posed by PCBs -- the authority to limit selected uses and distribution of toxic chemcials as well as to require testing concerning the health and ecological effects of proposed substitutes. Enactment of a Toxic Substances Control Act would substantially strengthen my ability to achieve a phase-out. I will therefore continue to press for passage of such an Act. We also plan to con luct a thorough review oapanese experience in implementing their ban on the.jpredfietion and use of PCBs. Wc have rcceritiy^invited representatives of Japanese industry, and they have agreed to rfee^wit]>uS''in Washington early next year to discuss this natter. I^w-rff^al.so be asking the environmental committee of the OECD-err"its next me'eti^g to reassess and strengthen their previous^reConniendations on PCBs. Thrc,igh this mechanism, I hope l^efi^oinrage world-wide phase-out of VCSk. Pending success of a naticnal and, hopefully, world-wide phase out of PCBs, it is imperative that we take aggressive action to minimize the environmental impact of existing and future uses and disposal of these chemicals. Accordingly, I intend to proceed with the following specific actions. SPECIFIC ACTIONS 1. In order to reduce total.contamination of the environment from 37 plants that manufacture transformers and capacitors using PCBs as well as from the PCB manufacturing plant of Nbnsanto in Saulcet, Illinois, I have directed ovr regional offices to complete ongoing surveys of these plants within the next 60 days to determine the precise manner in which PCBs enter the land, air and water from each plant and what precise measures can be taken at each plant to eliminate or drastically minimize such PCB contamination. I have further directed our regional offices to assure immediately thereafter tliat all water discharge permits issued to these facilities are revised to require that all those measures affecting rater discharges are undertaken expeditiously, and to further assure that such measures are also undertaken by facilities which discharge into munici] il treatment works and are not therefore required to procure such permits. The results of those surveys will also be used to determine whether ah air emmision standard for PCBs should be developed and,' if so, what it should be. Finally, the surveys will also enable our regional offices, in cooperation with State and local solid waste disposal authorities, to assure that land disposal c f wastes from these plants will not cause additional land contamination from PCBs. DSW 319260 STLCOPCB4055789 -8- I believe these negligible levels can be attained at reasonable cost in most instances through process changes, substitution and/or installation of control technology. I would hope that these actions can proceed expeditiously and that industry will cooperate. If not, I am prepared to exercise my authority under Section 504 of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act to ensureiranediate action in individual cases. 2. In order to ensure the safe handling and disposal of PCBs now in service, I have called on the presidents of major electric utility companies and other major users of largj capacitors and transformers to assume responsiblity for controlling the use and disposal of their PCB's. To this end, I have written representatives of ..... the companies and their principal industrial associations to meet ; With me in January to discuss how this might be accomplished as 1 rapidly and effectively as possible. We will offer to assist them in these efforts and if appropriate, I intend to follow the voluntary industry effort with any needed regulationsvwhere I have the authority. We would expect these actions to substantially reduce the potential risk from the large quantities of PCBs which are presently in use, and to thereby avoid their eventual addition to the existing environmental burden. At the same time, I will ask the American National Standards Institute at its forthcoming meeting in January to assist in this effort to develop and implement necessary guidelines and a ccd<; of good practice for the maintenance handling, servicing, and disponing of existing equipment containing PCBs. t* 3. I have signed propo;ed regulations under Section 311 of the FtfPCA to control spills of th ee hundred identified hazardous substances, including PCBs. These regulations will establish reporting require ments, civil penalties, and hazardous quantities, and ultimately will .enable the Agency to require industry to prepare spill prevention control plans. I will press for rapid finalization of these regu-lations after appropriate public review and .comment. 4. I am writing the State Governors to ask them to carefully examine and apply their authorities to deal with the PCB problem. -- 5. I am writing the heads of .selected, federal agencies to ask them to immediately inventory their uses of PCBs and PCB-containing materials, and to develop plans to assure adequaye management and - -safe disposal of these materials. .......... -6. I intend to investigate the PCB discharges from major waste paper recycling plants to develop appropriate effluent guidelines and establish appropriate effluent limitations in NPDES permits. DSW 319261 '" F STLCOPCB4055790 9 7. I intend to investigate the investment casting industry to develop appropriate standards and guidelines for its air, water and solid waste discharges. S 8. I intend to examine the amounts and types of PCBs in municipal and industrial solid wastes an-1 to develop guidance for the proper disposal of these wastes. 9. I intend to work with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers under the Section 404 Permits for Dredged or Fill Material program and to give special attention in our Clean Lakes and In-place Toxics -Program to deal with the difficult problems of PCBcontaminated sediments in rivers, lakes and coastal waters. : With regard to all of these actions, I would again like to caution that they will not lead to a quick and easy reduction of the current levels of PCB's in our environment and particularly in the commerical and sports iish taken from waters most contam inated. Hopefully, the control of discliarges will arrest the rapid growth of the problem. ' Iltimatelv, however, only the reduced use of PCB's will yield a significant and permanent solution. DSW 319262 STLCOPCB4055791