Document VjqbMDBvepj42nEX78Vg8QD6q

(JW, GENERAL ELECTRIC CORPORATE RESEARCH ANO DEVELOPMENT 67 Jyf- P. O. BO S C H E N E C T A D Y , K. Y. 12 D IA L COMM 8*235. Building K-l, Room.3V35 N o vemb er 27, 19 73 R.C. Osthoff I Manager - Transformer Laboratories Transformer Laboratories Operation 100 Woodlawn Avenue Pittsfield, Massachusetts?1' 01201 Dear Bob, j I enclosje a xe r o x of the latest, and X p r e s u m e final, communi c a t i o n from NIEHS [on the c o m p o s i t i o n of u s e d t r a n s f o r m e r Pyranol; and also a copy of my thank-you letter to McKinney, which I wrote in such a wayj as tjo ensure full c o m prehension of his conclusions by anyone rummaging through our files at a later date. Y o u 'will note that I m a d e no comm i t t m e n t to M c K i n n e y about the fur t h e r p(ursui!t of the work; however, this remains a possibility t h a t w e ma y wjish tio c o n sider seriously. Th r e e ye a r s ago, w h e n you f i r s t b r o u g h t the |used oil sample over here; CRD was n o t really in *a p o s i t i o n to1 w o r k on t h a t k i n d of material. The available analy tical e q u i p m e n t .wa s less thaii fu l l y satisfactory, and the analytical p e o p l e had no! facilities fo r h a n d l i n g h ighly t o x i c .materials like PCDF's. Today, however, they do.have the high resolution capillary G C and the ult r a h i g h r e s o l u t i o n mass spec *e q u i p m e n t needed to do the job; w e now know f r o m M c K i n n e y ' s w o r k that there's n o t h i n g .particule hazardous about any of the sample fractions; the general inclination of the analyt i c a l |people is p o s i t i v e rather than negative; and if w e w e r e willing to go for. o r d e r - o f - m a g n i t u d e q u a n t i t a t i o n (to avoid h a v i n g to h a n d l e PCDF standards) t h e job co u l d be- d o n e in a few days I n addition,j the' q u e s t i o n of PCDPE's i n tri- and tetrachloro'b e n zenes m a y jbe one that we' s h o u l d try to u n d e r s t a n d m o r e fully b e fore EPA takes off on the same tack that McKinney did in his Sept- , emger 22 leter (potential* grave hazard arising from photochemical conversion to PCDF's.) As yo u are aware, on October 30 EPA added the t r i - a n d ' tetrachlorobenznes* to- the Interagency T e s t i n g Committee's priority list, which means that we'll probably be having to submit al l of our health-j- and envir o n m e n t - r e l a t e d d a t a on them to EPA under T S C A 8(d) sometime next summer. `It m i g h t b e d e s i r a b l e to have some thing more dfinitive on the PCDPE issue then just the McKinneyBrown correspondence to send in at that.time. (JJiMJt' U 1 U 4 4 4 783255 R.C., sthoff -2- November 27, 1978 Y o u suge-ested p o s s i b l y h o l d i n g a strategy m e e t i n g after you'd h a d a chance to digest the attached epics. Give m e a call if you're still so inclined. . Sincerely, cc: RA Stenger JS Nelson RE Brooks su .. . j. i- .1;"**/ rl ; * * \ John F. Brown, Jr. Mgr - Life Sciences Branch PHYSICAL CHEMISTRY LABORATORY i 783256