Document Ok515224V4zrQZM1aDD3rEww

MORNING ADVOCATE baton rouge, la, D, 61,690 SUN, 97,167 OCT 6 W76 Monsanto Will End Production of PCBs ' Sr LOUIS (AP) -- MoiA^nto Industrial ChemlcalsCo., me only U.S. nwnufacturer of the controversial PCB Insulating fluids, announced that It win quit producing the fluids by late nestyear. Earle H. Harbison Jr., general manager of Monaanto'i specialty chemicals division, said the Arm will complete distribution of all inventories and withdraw completely from the market so later than Oct 91,1977. The target date would be even soomt, HarbUon laid, but elaetrical transformer and cspedtor manufacturers have said they would be unable te convert to other materials any earlier. PCB {polychlorinated biphenyl) Is a stable, (Ire-resistant chemical that la uaed widely In transformers end capacitors. MUnfortuanMy,,t Harbison said, "the very properties that have made PCBs Ideal and even mandatory for these essential uses, werealso found in the early 1970s to be tbs propeties causing them to persist and accumulate In the PCB has been Mamed as a major source of pollutionIn NewYork's HudsonRiver. The New York Environmental Confutation Department and the Gendral Electric Oo. readied agreement recently far GE to contribute some 99 million toward the cost of cleaning PCBa from the Hudson. The agreement came after a lengthy hearing over leakage of PCBs from GE plants'at Port Bdwanfc and Hudson Palls, N.Y., Intothe Hudson. The accumulation of PCBs in waterways, Harbison said, triggered the firm's decision tocease production as soon as the electrical Industry could find alternate Quids and convert Its equipment and components to their use. The company had earlier quit making PCBs for usa in carbonless copy peper, fire resistant hydraulic fluids, heat transfer fluids and piutirisen. Government tests for a three-year period discovered that the levels ofPCS la major water basins were not Ini roaring and, in some cases, were actually deceasing, Harbison said. But be added that thepublicstill saw PCBs as a threat Dr. Georgs Rausch-, director of the medical and environmental health department of Monsanto, said that extensive studies have felled to produce any evidence that PCBs can cause cancer in animals or humane. Because they are not readily biodegradoable, however, they do ten! to accumulate In animal tissue. "This in Itself,'' Rousch said, "suggests that they should be replaced If poaribie with products that are more biodegradseble Harbison said the firm Is Involved In field testing of noo-PCB components but that the new product probably will not foffer comparable degree of fire reristanee.# HONS 050576