Document YDE9vNnvpkJgoLMM9LX1dDdNO

ITB2 5 19A? LGW Sites Ooze Indestructible Chemical -Stall Photo UTILITY POLES WITH CAPACITORS, SOURCES OF PCBj . '\ ' * By CHARLES THORNTON Pmt-KMto sun WrtMr Once or twice o month, somewhere in Memphis end Shelby County, one of the more than 3,100 electri cal capacitors owned by Memphis Light, Gas & Water Division or TVA ruptures, spilling chemicals known as PCBs. The capacitors contain IK to 2 gallons each of the chemical. ~ Depending on which literature one reads, or the expert talking, PCBs--polychlorinated biphenyls-- are either the apocalypse straining at its chains, or only slightly more threatening than grandmother's sugar cookies. But: PCBs are virtually indestructible. . . Wherever researchers have looked for PCBs in animal life forms, the chemicals have been found. They have been shown to cause miscarriages and stillbirths In animals. . PCBs can cause a painful skin ailment, PCBs have been shown to cause cancer in rats. Some humans who inadvertently consumed PCBs developed liver cancer. The capadton, plua 211290fallon capacity trans formers in the midtown and downtown areas, use PCBs as an Insulating fluid. Some of them may dill be in use 35 years from now, said an LGIkW engineer. Because PCBs are almost Indestructible, they at first appeared to be an Ideal fluid for industry, as Insulation and coolant In high-voltage transformer* and capacitors, heat exchange fluids and hydraulic fluids, to name Just a few nsea. ' For years after PCBs were developed in the 1920s, health and Industry officials hailed them as wonder chemicals. When they were unveiled by Monsanto Chemical Co. in 1929, the industry gave them rave notices, even to the point of proposing them for use as binding agents in chewing gum. Since then the electrical industry have used PCBs as insulation, and they were incorporated Into parts for household appliances--colorTVsets, microwave ovens and fluorescent fight fixtures. Industry used them In paints, plastics, printing inks and marine -caulking.--------------------- :----------------------- ------ -------- Nobody paid much attention in 1936 when a team of American scientists reported that 23 of 24 workers Involved in making PCBs at one plant were found to have developed chloracne, a persistent and unsight ly skin disease caused by some chlorinated hydrocar bons, the chemical family that includes PCBs and DDT. Between 1940 and 1948, various scientific investi gations linked PCBs to liver damage, impotence and digestive disturbances in workers who were in volved In the manufacture and use of PCB-based Insulating waxes. The first indication that PCBs might be dangerous to unborn children came in 1963 when a team of scientists found that injections of small doses of PCBs Into fertilized chicken eggs caused stillbirths 'and deformities. In experiments in rhesus monkeys, often nsed for experimentation because their reproductive system Is similar to that of humans, Dr. James Allen of the University of Wisconsin found that PCBs in doses of only 2.5 parts per million caused stillbirths, miscar riages, skin lesions and hair loss. In 1966, Swedish scientist Soren Jensen was check ing for DDT contamination in fish. He found PCBs in tissue taken from a fish. Later, he began to find PCBs almost everywhere In the environment, including the hair of his entire family. The ihocker that eventually led to global concern about the health effects of PCBs took place in Japan In late 1968. During a period of a few weeks, It was discovered that more than 1,000 residents of Yusho, Japan, had eaten rice oil accidentally contaminated with PCBs that had leaked into the oil during a heating process at one factory. Within five years, five of the Yusho victims bid died of liver cancer -- six times the normal death rate for Japanese liver cancer victims. Others who ate the rice suffered severe chloracne, swollen eyes, stillbirths and miscarriages. Japan im mediately banned all trade In PCBs. The Toxic Substances Control Act of 1976 banned all PCB manufacturing in the United States, but pro ducts containing PCBs, primarily electrical compo nents, are still being assembled. "Due to a quirk in the law," sold Ralph Jennings of the Environmental Protection Agency in Atlanta, "manufacturers are not required to tell you that electrical components contain PCBs. They are sup posed to tell you if thy don't" Many scientists now belfeve that PCBs, a close relative of DDT, are among the most subtle and tena cious toxic substances known to man. PCBs have been identified as capable of causing an awesome array of health defects, including liver dimage, miscarriages, birth defects, impotence. Jaundice, digestive disturbances, throat and respiretory irritations, severe headaches and chloracne. PCBs also are suspected of causing cancer because laboratory animals given PCB doses of 100 parts per million in their food developed malignant tumors. Jennlnga, hazardous waste expert for the Environ mental Protection Agency, said during an interview that scientists have not been able to show that pure PCBs are'harmful----------------------------------------------- The key phrase Is "pure PCBs." Most persons in the chemical industry believe that once PCBs have been Jiut into use and escape their containers, they are no onger pure and constitute an environmental hazard. Jennings said PCBs can be changed by the beat generated in electrical equipment so that they are no longer "pure " As an example, he said that PCBs found on utility poles have been found to cause changes In bacteria. Generally, any substance that causes a change in the genetic structure of bacteria is regarded as potential ly harmful to man. CJB. Merrymaa, manager of LG&Wi central ahopa and the man charged with handling LG&Ws PCBcontaining transformers and equipment, said Indus try tests snow that when PCBs are heated but not to the point that they are destroyed -- such as when 12^00 volts arc through them creating an explosion -- the normal PCB structure can be changed. When PCBs are heated to 410 degrees Fahrenheit they are changed to a dangerous family of chemicals known as PCDFs -- polychlorinated dlphenyifurans -- according to power industry reports to LG&W. Merryman said there also is some evidence that PCBs change slowly with the passage of time and become more dangerous. He said that LG&W is gradually phasing out equip ment that contains PCBs, but that the process could take another 30-35 years because tbe equipment, espe cially transformers, is long-lived. He said, hovtever, that LG&W is not able to repair or replace leaking PCB-laden transformers as quick ly as EPA would like because of technical problems. "It takes several days to replace a transformer, which means that customers would have to be with out power for a long period of time." - The problem of the transformers is compounded because they are all underground and have pumps that automatically operate when fluid is in the vault. Merryman said that LG&W is preparing to modify all its PCfrequipped transformer vaults with special pumping switches that can tell the difference be tween PCBs and water so that if an explosion occurs, the PCBs wi|l not be pumped into the environment Only one of the PCB-containing transformers has exploded since EPA began requiring reports on PCB incidents. That was late last year when the switching element of an underground transformer exploded at 969 Madison seriously injuring one LG&W worker and dumping 20-30 gallons of PCB fluid Into the transformer's vault Merryman said PCB contamination has never been known to make an LG&W employee ill. EPA records In Atlanta show that only two PCB Incidents have ever been reported by LG&W -- the transformer explosion at 969 Madison and a capacitor explosion last year in Germantown. Jennings said EPA did not follow up on the Madi son Incident but did follow up the Germantown ca pacitor explosion because it contaminated the soil. Merryman laid LG&W crews went to the Surrey Lane site after the capacitor exploded and removed all the soil and foliage that appeared to have been splattered by tbe PCB fluid. ___ "We didn't take any sojl samples during our Inspec tion," Jennings said, "because LG&W had re-sodded the area." No one knows how contaminated the area may be. Usually, he said, "If the PCB oil falls on soil, we dig up the soil and put It in cans for disposal in an approved landfill. If it falls on the street or on con crete, we wash the area with solvent, then use a material that absorbs the solvent Foliage is cut back." The fluids are packaged in spill-proof containers and shipped to one of two EPA-approved landfills -- one in western Arkansas, the other In Alabama. Merryman said that while LG&Wdoes not consider the PCB-loaded transformers and capacitors a haz ard, he said that if persons notice oil around either, they should not touch anything, but should notify LG&W. "Well know about it if a transformer breaks down, but we might not know very Quickly when a capaci tor goes ouL If one explodes, LG&W should be noti fied immediately," he said. i PCB-ARCH-EXT0378574 Objects to PCBs Incinerator By JOHN NOLAN TIFTONIA, LOCATED in the election year and we became a CHATTANOOGA (AP) -- A shadow of Lookout Mountain, is political football," Zechman said. Chattanooga food broker who ob an area _of mixed commercial "People have gotten alarmed jects to having for a neighbor an and residential development. about this before they found out incinerator which burns hazard Pyrotech is seeking federal ap what it was." 1 ous wastes is the latest Tennes proval to., operate its incinerator Zechman said Pyrotech is ar sean to protest plans to locate the at sites in Tiftonia and rural ranging to conduct an informal unit in his area. Bledsoe County, but has. run "into public hearing in Chattanooga, William R. Healy, president of some opposition in Bledsoe Coun perhaps within four weeks, to Volunteer Sales Co., Inc., is ty. Pyrotech also dropped plans make a presentation to interest threatening to go to court if nec to request approval for a site in ed parties .and answer their ques essary to keep Pyrotech Systems, rural Grundy County earlier-this tions about the incinerator pro Inc., of Tullahoma, which deyel:. year after encountering resident cess. . oped the, incinerator, from build opposition there. - Holt has said -he considers ing or operating the unit in the A lawyer for Healy, in a letter Chattanooga the company's Tiftonia section of Chattanooga sent Wednesday to Pyrotech prime site because the city has near Healy's business. president William Holt, said Hea access to interstate highways ly is concerned that there could and has industries with which be accidents in transporting tox-. Pyrotech would like to do busi ic PCBs to the incinerator site ness. ' and that the unit's operation ALONG WITH operating an in could be harmful to area resi cinerator, Pyrotech proposes to dents and businesses. , manufacture other incinerators "YOU WOULD BE better at the site. The'two operations advised to seek another site in a would employ about 130 people. less populated area," lawyer H. Paul Clark, Chattanooga's pub 1 Whitney. Dqrand^wrbte; in' the let-, lic works commissioner,, has said /-ter 'sent for Healy to Holt.: v, -he -<jypiild welcome Pyrotech /to; ' v ,r Bill Zechman, a,,consultant and iS'p.okesman fpr,;Hq;lt>jsaid:yester-' day' that Healy does not appear' to be informed about Pyrotech's incinerator process and'did not contact the company to try and learn about it. "We're not in any particular hurry to respond to Mr. Healy, but we certainly will," Zechman said. . Chattanooga,, while Mayor" Chaples (Pat): Rose,/said he wgntsj more information'about the in cinerator. "The best thing that your polit ical leaders' in Chattanooga can' do for themselves, their commu nity and us is not to endorse us ... because their opposition' might pick up Pyrotech as an issue," Zechman said. "We don't want to become a political football again. PYROTECH HAS applied to 1 the Environmental Protection Agency for permission to use the We're saying we don't friends in high places." need . incinerator to commercially burn PCBs, short for polychlori nated biphenyls, which research ers have found causes cancer in ; animals used in laboratory tests. The. federal government banned in 1979 the manufacture of y PCBs, widely used for years as ' insulating or heat transfer fluids _ in transformers. ! Pyrotech is also applying to the EPA for permission to oper ate the mobile incinerator, which ! is mounted on flatbed trucks, at the sites in Tiftonia and Bledsoe County, a rural county about 50 miles north,of Chattanooga. Pyrotech says the incinerator is safe and has been found, in EPA-commissioned tests con ducted by Battelle Memorial In stitute of Columbus, Ohio, to ifi , cinerate PCBs beyond levels that laboratory instruments can de tect. The incinerator would give ' off water vapor, carbon dioxide/ oxygen and salt water. ' "THE PRINCIPAL reason that we had problems in Grundy County and more recently in 'Bledsoe County is that this is an PCB-ARCH-EXT0378575 m iy~ E RA ^Officials jlo.Qhserve H azci rdous Waste I n cinerdfo r electric'1 utilities,' industry tal Protection la' test of the: 1 roving hazardous ,.UUbW ,#lvwl j -- --r------- ; ---7 --,-------- ri -- ----------- - , -.,u, lunuuuii^ u, a erator next week at the Universi-iiards.' transformer';;^6bling>, fluid' /-for 'riext'wdek's test, Holt said. Pty of Tennessee Space Institute; The incinerator .; produces a1; more than 40 years; ;PCB isjone1 "This system represents a ma il .The incinerator's makers said ;!flame"'temperature Jof iaboutV of the most difficult of ah haz-;..jor advance over existing techno- i it represents a "major advance" i ! 4,000 degrees Farenheit,: abouttj.ardous chemicals.tp destroy:^.;i'-p4lbgjfes foriThfe Safe.and,complete tin the way industries do away'.i2,000 degrees more than1 what' Holt'said .fiye.d.ays^of ^burning, incirrieration of PCB and other Awith hazardous wastes, including ' conventional, systetns- Uahi pro-;; ,.will begin Monday; An iridepdnd^ hazardous;mhterlalsi" Holt said. -''.polychlorinated byphenyl (PCB), .'lduce, he said. r* H'-ent testing:;andresearch,organi?pi,,.Holt)said the system,' mounted whose manu'facture was , out-! Pyrotdch Systems', is'.'"seeking ' zation-will monitor the tests,andiron four flat-bed trailers, will en- flawed by Congress in 1978.!::' ''|EPA approval to.;destroy, a'wideS'~ce"-r^t!ify y,1.the,resUlts;Aiaublte'P"yrot*ec"h t*o eas.ily.t.ra.v.el.to ? j range - of toxic;,and.,.hazardouS{l -A.'s\jn .-^-hazardous waste dumps to clean WILLIAM HOLT, president of wastes t v', , : Thexcompany intends;'td; ser-A'themuprt: < , s - .. ' f'&Jl Kl / PCB-ARCH-EXT037857