Document e596225kw8y3a6ew9LyVJQY9E

Environment FCBs: THE WEED OF PROGRESS BEARS DEADLY FRUIT l4ut fill, fishermen awaiting the annual salmon ran along Ontario's Credit River received a rude shock: the provincial Min istry of Health warned them not to eat any of their catch. The reason? The Ash were slay la a*oh Mnsttssst 'ns almost certain to contain dangerously high levels or K'ts--polychlorinated biphen yls--a highly toxic, potentially fatal chem* wal, once thought to be firmly under con trol. But the salmon warning was pan of mounting evidence that rets are still creeping into the environment in signifi cant and alarming numbers. And author ities predict that the current furor is noth- ingoompared to what's to come. Despite present regulations, for ex ample, 10 million pounds of rcu are an nually dumped in die United States, and virtually all human (issues so far tested have contained traces of the compound, Iso called askarels. Nor is concern con fined to industrialized regions--though counts are predictably highest there; pcb* have also been found in Rocky Mountain eagles, Baltic Ocean fish and Antarctic snow. "We find it almost everywhere wc look," says one U.S. scientist, "and the amounts seem to be increasing." The prob lem is potentially severe because poly chlorinated biphenyls, a combination of chlorine, hydrogen and carbon, are chem ically stable--they do not break down nat urallyin the environment. (This very prop erly. of course, has made them desirable and widely used industrial components since 1929, in everything from electrical equipment--fluorescent lights, air condi tioners, television sets--to printing inks and ceramic molds.) Worse, seas are non flammable, so attempts to incinerate mu nicipal waste containing the chemical only spreads them through the atmosphere. Perhaps moat worrisome: rc$ are bio-ac cumulative. increasing in concentration as they move up nature's food chain. The risk of pen to human health has kmg been known, but their extreme toxic ity was first underlined in 1968 when rice oil contaminated with the compound was sold for human consumption in western Japan. Thirteen hundred people were poi soned, many died; seven yean later, most of the victims still retain symptoms of the disease (called yusho. after the Japanese word for oil). In a second incident, 600 pounds ofa closely related chemical, poly- brominated biphenyl, were shipped to a Michigan cattle feed plant in 1973. The contaminated feed nearly wiped out the stale's dairy industry. But while isolated outbreaks have cap tured the headlines, environmental re searchers fear the slower, but equally deadly poisoning of entire populations by the steady accumulation ofFCBs in the en vironment Laboratory animal studies have already shown that small doses over a long period oftime yield extreme illness or death, birth defects and--in some cases-- liver cancer. "The Great Lakes," says Nathaniel Reed, assistant secretary in the U.S. Department ofthe Interior, "are a vir tual sink for pcbs. The fish are trying to tell us something, and what they're trying to tell us is that our environment stinks." Only one American ftrm.Jhe Monsanto Co. of St. Louis, now manufactures rciw, and since I97U Monsanto has restricted sales to closed electrical systems, to min imize (he leakage. Still, Monsanto's Sou- set, Illinois, plant produces some 40 mil lion pounds a year of pcbs in this single application, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency estimates another 300 million pounds--currendy hidden in products manufactured before 1970--will And their way into the environment. "Re- gantless of controls," says Environment Canada scientist Dr. Maurice Million, "I don't expect a decrease in rets in the 1970s." Nevertheless, half a dozen agencies, in cluding Ottawa's Environmental Protec tion Service, the epa and the UN's World Health Organization are about to stiffen controls. Ironically, one product that may be affected by the new regulations is the electrostatic precipitator, a device installed in thousands of factory smokestacks in North America in the early Seventies to re duce air pollution. BILL DAMPfEB 92-57 MACLEAN'S MAGAZINE 23 Tl. Yfl. 700,000 FEB 9 1976 Ibacons] MONS 033011