Document zMBeZ2YNmYNOkagOgm5EKeXR

* Suffolk Closeup f Karl Grossman . ' | Under its all in America are millions and millions of slowly-exploding time bombs--PCBs. For 48 years the man made substance, suspected of causing cancer and other Illnesses, has been manufactured In the United States. In lahdflll sites across the country lie an estimated 100 million pounds of PCBs, issching into our groundwster and waterways at what It was contained in rusts and corrodes ewey. . Hie problem, which is not expected by the Federal Environmental Protec tion Agency to go away for 60 years or more--even .though the sole U.S. manufacturer of PCBs plans to stop making the toxic chemical in October-- ie particularly acute for 8uffolk. Wc get our water supply from the groundwater below, like no other major populated area. Poisons put Into dumps latch out Into our water supply. This is sn island with a strong fishing bass, much of it involving striped bate and bluefiah, two species notably prone to PCB contamination. Lost of Ravenna Last year New York 8tate Com merce Commissioner John Dyson was complaining about loss of revenue to the 8tate If two General Electric plants which spewed PCBs into the Hudson were forced to dose. Instead, the Hudson was closed to most commercial fishing. Off our shores, bluefish and striped bass, tome of which spawn in tha Hudson, bring in 8688,000 yearly to Suffolk fishermen. And now Island fishermen, who've had a hard enough time trying to oke out a living faced with fleets of foreign "factory" ships, fear economic disaster anew this time from the products of domestic factories if new Federal standards lowering the permissible level of PCBs in flah take effect General Electric, under. pressure, found a substitute for PCBs. 8o did Japan, a nation not noted for environ mental sensitivity, after ten died and a thousand cams down with serious Illnesses, including cancer, after eating rice oil containing PCBs leaked from an electrical device. Oil Derivatives On s visit to Suffolk last year, arranged by Representative Thomas A. Downey of West Islip, Korlshi Saito, a Japanese government official in charge of watchdogging the country's chemical industry at the time of the 1668 Incident, said mineral oil deriva tives wars put Into uae--non-toxic substances which break down in nature. He Japanese banned production or importation of PCBs soon after the 1 ____ a mats poisoning, but here In tbs U.8. government was etUi talking about what to do last year. He charge by Mr. Downey was they the sola maker of PCBs here, Monsanto Chemicals Co. and big users like GE, were "lighting tooth and nail against banning H." Finally, public ooncern built to a high point. "W* have identified a mad dog in PCBs and it's time to got rid of lt."; declared a Maryland Congressman in' arguing for the Toxic SubU}c* Control Act. Politicians had a "moral responsibility . to the people," said California Representative Ron Delluma. Widespread Uae He alphabet soup designation of PCBs might not strike a responsive chord. Infect, PCBs.have been and still are in widespread use in this country-- despite their toxic qualities and despite the Japanese incident nearly a decade ago. They've been a basic Item in the great plastic boom of tbe poet-WerM War Two yeara, usad as a plasticiser and in paiota, for carbonless copy paper, hydraulic fluid, soap, even printing ink. HAMPTQH, N.L 8.1?S JUN 2 1977 tXjU Inert and fire resistant, they're a central component in many electrical devices. Every fluorescent light fixture wars faulty. has a capacitor containing PCBs. Hey're in tv sets, air conditioners and especially in Urge industrial trans formers and capacitors. All this stuff wears out or is discardsd, is thrown in dumps and breaks down--but not tha PCBs. Naturo, through eons of time, created a system in which everything breaks down and Ufa rises again, a continuing circle. Modern man has thrown a monkey wrench lnte this system and one of nature'* reeetlon* ha* been cancer, all but becoming a He full ntmtyb polychlorinated biphenyls, n chlorinated hydrocarbon modern pUgu*. Hie harvest of poison | will not be eliminated in our lifetisfesy quite similar to DDT. And like so many ; of tha organic chemicals developed in the past decades, it's not readily biodegradenbla. It needs incineration at a temperature higher than 2,700 degrees fahrenheit to be eliminated.1 Food Chain Heavier than water, it sinks to be ingested by micro-organlems and be comes part of the food chain, tending to accumuUte in longer-lived animals. It seeks fatty tissue. PCBs are not alone. Some 1,000 other new chemical compounds are created each year in tha U.8., accord ing to the Environmental Protection Agency, and until the Toxic Substances Control Act was passed there was no government control Now, Industry will have to toet chemicals they produce for toxicity. Whether Industry will police Itself U debatable. GE last year conceded findings it provided on PCBs contamination In the Hudson ,,ONS 00959