Document jgMk1NLr8v36war2OE84edVVp

State Must Curb PCB Threat Tlllv LATKST entry on the danger list of the state has warned consumers not to eat alphabetical poisons is the widely used and more than one salmoo meal a week. insidious croup of industrial chemicals known ns PCB*. They rapidly are becoming a (local io human and environmental health exceeding even that posed by the now out* lawcdUDT. ` .. And the PCB contamination doesn't stop -with fish. Gulls have been declining at an abnormal rate aroond Saginaw Bay and Grand Traverse Bay recently, with one dead herring gull from the latter site showing an ,,:> .1 PCBs are far more resistant than DDT to astounding 2.600 parts per million of Aroclor degradation hy u.u qral fbreea. and have accu 1254 (a PC B) in its liver and brain. mulated in tlic cnvifionAtciu to a greater de* PCBs have turned up in Wisconsin snow' gree than that pesticidA Further. PCBs have falls. They've been monitored in polar bear \ been in popular usosince 1929, a decade flesh. Mink fed Great Lakes fish containing onger than DDT. ' PCBs have failed to reproduce, and PCB pol nd because man has not shown the same lution has been blamed for forcing some mink alarht over this industrial pollutant, it liter growers out of business. ally has infested the world. "It's all over the And, finally, there are grim indications that place--we find PCBs everywhere we look." PCBs could cause cancer in man. just as they he toxic substances director of the Knviron* have caused liver cancer in laboratory rats. It menial Protection Agency said recently. is known that more than 1.000 Japanese suf Yet. strangely. PCBs continue to flourish unregulated hy law, despite every evidence the danger ihcy present is real and near. fered a disfiguring skin disease that later was traced to rice oil that had been contaminated by PCBs. f Though the Monsanto Co., the sole U.S. man* uleciurcr. has sliced production in half volun tarily, the effect on the pollution rate has been negligible. Forty million pounds still are sold annually to some 40 PCB outlets. The case lor severely restricting the use ol PCBs in clear. While this theoretically could be achieved by passage ol the federal Toxic Substances Control Act, the PCB threat is too great to leave its control to a The ubiquitous ehemieals are used in elec trical transformers and capacitators. and in such diverse products as various lubricants, walerporofing chemicals and "carbonless" du plicating paper. The awlul effect of the PCB buildup has proposed law that consistently has been shoved to the concessional back burner. It's clear that if Michigan ( to get relief from the PCB peril, state action is required. Rep. David Bonior's HB 5619 would ban the manufacture, sale or use of items containing a been particularly left in Michigan. The fed PCBs in quantities of more than one part per era! Food and Drug Administration set maximum safety levels hr human com sumption of fish at live parts per million-- million after Jan. 1, 1976. The sole exception would be PCBs employed in a closed system as a dielectric fluid (or electrical transformers m levels that curtent research suggest may be and capacitators. too high. But recent samplings from Lake Michigan show the decimated bloater chub with an av-' rrage of 5.6 parts per million, the coho salmon with 105 parts per million, and large lake trout with 229 parts per million. Since 1972 Disposal of liquid or solid wastes resulting from PCB use would be tightly restricted after the first of next year. This iscritical, since there currently are no lawsor guidelines impeding the discharge of PCBs from facto ries. - # 10^ t 'ilTthe-WmjuglPlace LAST JUNIi^Wtten the Democrats bTcoit* Mr. Bonior's House Marine Affairs Com mittee is holding hearings on the bill now. Reason dictates it should be enacted as quickly as possible. . gress tjpadetf every vote they could get to overrule President Ford's veto of a strong tmp-mining bill. Kep. John Convers staved I MQNS 03^576