BOSTON, Massachusetts, September 10, 2008 (ENS) – General Electric’s cleanup proposal for PCB contamination of the Housatonic River south of Pittsfield, Massachusetts raises more than 150 concerns, according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The river sediment is polluted with polychlorinated biphenyls, PCBs, south of the GE property where the company formerly manufactured electrical equipment such as transformers and capacitors.

In comments sent to GE in a letter Tuesday, the federal agency details issues that are inadequately addressed in the company’s Corrective Measures Study, especially regarding impacts on the river ecosystem during cleanup work, and impacts on aesthetic enjoyment of the area by local residents.

GE must now address the concerns raised by the agency and submit additional detailed information within 90 days. Following review of the revised GE proposal, the EPA will propose its own preferred clean up alternative for a final cleanup remedy.

“Cleaning up the portions of the Housatonic River south of Pittsfield is one of the most significant environmental challenges for this generation of New Englanders,” said Robert Varney, regional administrator of EPA’s New England office.

“It will be complicated and challenging for us to both remove elevated levels of PCBs from the river, while also protecting the valuable aesthetic and recreational values of this beautiful rural waterway,” he said. “We can all agree that we need to do this work, and get it right.”

PCB warning sign on a tree beside the
Housatonic River (Photo courtesy EPA)

During the review of the 700-plus page Corrective Measures Study, EPA received hundreds of comments from area residents and involved parties, including several state government agencies in Massachusetts and Connecticut.

Varney said the public comments “reflected EPA concerns that the CMS as submitted did not adequately address impacts to the river ecosystem, to sensitive species, and to aesthetic, recreational and quality-of-life values of the river for area residents.”

He said the EPA also is concerned that the GE study does not provide adequate detail on potential placement of a landfill for consolidation of, or facilities for treatment of, the contaminated sediment that will be removed from the river.

Nor did GE adequately evaluate the use of rail transportation for off-site disposal alternatives, Varney said.

The Corrective Measures Study covers an area of the Housatonic River south of Pittsfield, Massachusetts from the confluence of the east and west branches of the river to the Derby dam in Connecticut.

Varney says the EPA’s primary concern is to ensure that GE’s cleanup work on the Housatonic River will be “fully protective” of public health and the health of the surrounding river ecosystem in both Massachusetts and Connecticut.

To accomplish this goal, Varney says the the final cleanup plan should include a phased and adaptive approach that allows the flexibility to accommodate new knowledge and advances in technology over time.

New cleanup technologies that are not yet proven to be effective may in the future become viable alternatives to ensure a clean river, while being potentially less disruptive to the river and ecosystem than current technologies, he said.

As cleanup work on the Housatonic moves from an urban, channelized river in Pittsfield to a more natural, meandering and rural environment downstream, the EPA believes it is critical that the remedy avoid or minimize negative impacts on sensitive plant and animal species and sensitive areas and restore the river and floodplain to its current character to the greatest extent possible.

EPA will continue with its outreach program throughout the lifespan of the project to ensure that the public continues to be actively involved as the clean up progresses, and as new developments occur in science or technology.

“We are very fortunate to have such a high level of interest among communities up and down the river, and EPA intends to continue to seek their involvement at each stage as we go forward,” said Varney.

The public is invited to attend the next meeting of the Citizens Coordinating Council for the GE Pittsfield / Housatonic River Project, which will meet on Wednesday, September 17, from 5:30 – 8:00 p.m. at the Lee Middle and High School Cafeteria.

GE says the company is working cooperatively with the EPA, and the Connecticut and Massachusetts governments to clean up the Housatonic River under a comprehensive settlement agreement reached in 2000.

Since 1990, GE says it has spent more than $495 million on this project, including more than $426 million on its environmental investigation and cleanup at its former transformer plant and nearby areas.

GE completed work on the first half-mile of remediation of PCBs from the Housatonic River in Pittsfield. GE is also undertaking a cleanup of the former plant area.

They company says in a statement on its website that it will transfer 52 acres of land to the Pittsfield Economic Development Authority for redevelopment in a large brownfields project.

In 2006, the EPA completed the next 1.5 miles of river cleanup, a project funded through a GE-EPA cost-sharing arrangement. In total, approximately 91,700 cubic yards of contaminated sediment and riverbank material was removed and disposed of.

After testing in 2007, the EPA reports that PCB concentrations in sediment and also in aquatic invertebrates were reduced from the pre-remediation concentrations by approximately 99 percent, indicating that the initial remediation was successful.

Fish sampling indicated the presence of a diverse and abundant post-remediation fish population, with greater fish presence near stone structures provided as part of habitat restoration in the river channel.

For a summary of the EPA’s 150-plus concerns with the GE Corrective Measures Study, click here [www.epa.gov].

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LOS ANGELES, California, August 25, 2008 (ENS) – Between 2002 and 2005, two large electrical transformers on an Exxon Mobil offshore oil and gas platform in the Santa Barbara Channel leaked nearly 400 gallons of fluid contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls, PCBs.

That long leak off the coast of Southern California has cost the Exxon Mobil Corporation $2.64 million in a settlement agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the EPA announced Thursday.

The leaking transformers on Platform Hondo, a part of Exxon’s Santa Ynez Unit, constitute illegal disposal of PCBs, a violation of the Toxic Substances Control Act, the federal agency says.

A transformer aboard Platform Hondo
in 2004 (Photo courtesy Minerals
Management Service)

“Today’s settlement sends a clear signal that companies must follow PCB regulations to protect communities and our environmental resources,” said Wayne Nastri, administrator for the EPA’s Pacific Southwest region.

In 2005, Exxon replaced the two transformers with others that contain no PCBs, but the company “allowed one of the transformers to leak for almost two years before repairing it,” said the EPA in a statement announcing the fine.

Exxon also failed to ensure that workers who cleaned up the leaked fluid were provided with protective clothing or equipment to guard against direct contact with and inhalation of PCBs.

PCBs are manufactured organic chemicals used in paints, industrial equipment, plastics, and cooling oil for electrical transformers.

When released into the environment, PCBs remain for decades. Tests have shown that PCBs cause cancer in animals and are suspected carcinogens in humans.

Acute PCB exposure can also adversely affect the nervous, immune, and endocrine systems as well as liver function.

More than 1.5 billion pounds of PCBs were manufactured in the United States before the EPA banned the production of this chemical class in 1978, and many PCB-containing materials are still in use today.

It was concerns about human health and the extensive presence and lengthy persistence of PCBs in the environment that led Congress to enact the Toxic Substances Control Act in 1976.

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DALLAS, Texas, August 20, 2008 (ENS) – Concentrations of polychlorinated biphenyls, PCBs, are elevated in fish tissue in four segments of the upper Trinity River located in the Dallas-Fort Worth area, according to Texas health officials.

Used in electrical equipment, PCBs have been banned in the United States since the late 1970s because they cause liver disorders and developmental delays in infants.

As a result, the Texas Department of State Health Services has issued a fish possession ban and a fish consumption advisory for parts of the Upper Trinity River, the Lower West Fork Trinity River, the Clear Fork Trinity River Below Benbrook Lake, and the West Fork Trinity River Below Lake Worth.

Their combined watersheds cover 1,540 square miles, including the densely populated Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan area.

To varying degrees, all the four segments are affected by municipal and industrial wastewater discharges, and by stormwater runoff from agricultural, industrial, and urban areas.

The upper Trinity River north of Dallas-Fort
Worth (Photo by Kinez)

The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality has scheduled a meeting to update stakeholders on development of a plan to address the PCBs found in the upper Trinity River.

Called a Total Maximum Daily Load, or TMDL, the plan is designed to restore water quality and reduce PCBs in fish tissue so that it is safe to eat fish caught in the four river segments.

A TMDL is like a budget for pollutants. It estimates the amount of a pollutant that a water body can receive and still support its designated uses. The load is then allocated among the sources of pollution within the watershed, and measures to reduce pollutant loads are developed as necessary.

A TMDL is part of the state’s Water Quality Management Plan after it is adopted by the commission and approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The commission’s meeting will be held on August 26, 2008 from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. at the North Central Texas Council of Governments, Tom Vandergriff Conference Center in Arlington, Texas.

The meeting will include a discussion of the TMDL process, history of PCB impairment in the area, sampling results and other project information.

The public is invited. To see the project overview, meeting information, previous meeting summaries, and project documents, click here [www.tceq.state.tx.us].

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AUSTIN, Texas, June 9, 2008 (ENS) – Environmental groups have filed comments and numerous related documents with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in opposition to a company’s application for authorization to import and burn polychlorinated biphenyls, PCBs, in Southeast Texas.

Veolia Environmental Services proposes to import 20,000 tons of toxic liquid PCBs from Mexico to Port Arthur, Texas for incineration. Veolia Environmental Services North America is a subsidiary of Veolia Environnement SA, a publicly traded multinational French company.

Importing PCBs into the United States has been illegal since Congress passed the Toxic Substances Control Act in 1976, but Veolia is seeking an exemption to this federal law.

Four organizations – the Sierra Club, Earthjustice, the Chemical Weapons Working Group and Communities In-Power Development Association – warn that PCBs are a dangerous class of chemicals that accumulate in the human body, impact the brain and nervous system, and cause a range of health effects such as cancer, immune suppression, reproductive damage, birth defects, and fetal death.

“Moving these PCBs into the country by truck over highways to Port Arthur will expose millions of people to the possibility of an accident, release of PCBs during transport, and exposure to this dangerous toxin,” said Dr. Neil Carman, with the Lone Star Chapter of the Sierra Club.

“If there is no transportation accident, people will be exposed anyway if EPA allows Veolia to burn PCBs in Port Arthur,” he said.

Incineration at Veolia’s Port Arthur facility
(Photo courtesy Sierra Club
Lone Star Chapter)

Carman says, “Safer, cleaner, alternative non-burn technologies already exist and are readily portable so they could be used on site in Mexico to more safely handle the PCB disposal at each location.”

PCBs are a mixture of individual chemicals which are no longer produced in the United States. They have been used as coolants and lubricants in transformers, capacitors, and other electrical equipment because they don’t burn easily and are good insulators. The manufacture of PCBs was stopped in the United States in 1977 because of evidence they build up in the environment and can cause harmful health effects.

Low-income African-Americans in Port Arthur are already suffering from an unjust concentration of toxic facilities, the environmental groups maintain.

Petrochemical plants and industrial facilities in the Beaumont/Port Arthur area include EI DuPont de Nemours, Sabine River Works, Bayer Corporation, Huntsman Corporation, TDI Halter, ExxonMobil Corporation, Motiva Enterprises, Inland Eastex, Clark Port Arthur Refinery, Goodyear Tire and Rubber, and DuPont Beaumont Works in addition to Veolia.

With only four PCB incinerators in operation in the United States, Port Arthur’s Veolia is number one in the nation for PCB releases, according to the EPA’s Toxic Release Inventory, a database that tracks emissions from industrial facilities across the country.

Besides burning PCBs, Veolia in a highly-publicized case last year prevailed in burning military nerve gas waste despite an earlier injunction which was over-ruled by a federal circuit court judge.

“Texans are currently experiencing a heavy toxic exposure in our atmosphere because Veolia is already burning domestic PCBs and the toxic nerve gas waste called hydrolosate. Now it looks like we could suffer the burning of waste from abroad as well,” said Hilton Kelley, founding director of the Communities In-Power Development Association based in Port Arthur.

“The EPA must not allow Veolia to continue using Southeast Texas to burn America’s or the world’s most toxic waste,” Kelley said.

In response to environmental justice concerns, EPA Administrator Stephen Johnson approved a 45-day extension for public comments on the Veolia application, which ended on Thursday, June 5.

The EPA will hold a public meeting on the issue in Port Arthur on Thursday, June 19.

“It is paramount that citizens and elected officials become aware of this issue and understand that we are already experiencing a toxic body burden in every American as a result of exposure to PCBs and dioxins in the ambient environment for years,” said Carman. “We cannot go backwards and allow the circumvention of a law passed to protect us from burning even more PCBs.”

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DALLAS, Texas, March 21, 2008 (ENS) – After eliminating 4,000 pounds of harmful chemicals, the management of Dallas Love Field airport is pledging to reduce 1,000 additional pounds as part of a national program run by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

The airport plans to reduce 1,000 pounds of polychlorinated biphenyls, PCBs, as part of the National Partnership for Environmental Priorities, NPEP, program.

In addition, it is pledging to eliminate 50 pounds of mercury by replacing light bulbs, thermometers, thermostats and other equipment under the NPEP Mercury Challenge campaign.

“More and more top facilities are finding smart, simple ways to conduct business and care for the environment at the same time,” said EPA Regional Administrator Richard Greene. “It is even more inspiring when members of industry not only stick with their commitments to the environment, but expand on them, as Dallas Love Field has done.”

The management of Love Field is
reducing harmful chemicals in
the airport building.
(Photo credit unknown)

The airport will replace fluorescent light ballasts and instruments containing mercury with modern equipment that is free of the harmful chemical. It will also recycle light bulbs that contain mercury.

“Our efforts at Love Field are an extension of citywide policies pertaining to environmental responsibility, which are implemented through our Environmental Management System,” said Director of Aviation Daniel Weber.

“Our success with removing harmful chemicals from the system follows our earlier program to reduce air emissions, in conjunction with our tenant airlines,” Weber said. “Our staff will continue to work at reducing all Dallas Airport System facilities’ impacts on the environment.”

The National Partnership for Environmental Priorities promotes the voluntary reduction of 31 priority chemicals. Through work with the EPA, both public and private organizations identify activities that will reduce the use of these chemicals, preventing their ability to accumulate in the environment and cause harm to humans and the ecosystem.

The Mercury Challenge promotes the voluntary, systematic elimination of equipment continaing mercury, a potent neurotoxin that can affect the brain, spinal cord, kidneys and liver.

More than 150 organizations nationwide have joined the NPEP program, which has set a goal of reducing the use or release of four million pounds of priority chemicals by 2011.

Dallas Love Field is one of only four airports nationwide to join the NPEP program and is the first to add more goals to its original commitment.

The airport covers 1,300 acres and has three runways. Love Field was the primary airport for Dallas until 1974, when Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport opened. Love Field is now Dallas’ secondary airport and serves as a major focus city for Southwest Airlines. Continental Express and American Eagle also offer service from Love Field.

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VANCOUVER, Washington, February 15, 2008 (ENS) – Alcoa submitted its formal request to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for permission to dredge portions of the Columbia River at Vancouver, Washington starting this fall. The dredging project will remove river sediments contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls, PCBs, toxic byproducts of more than 40 years of industrial activity on the property.

The Alcoa Vancouver site is located on the north bank of the Columbia River three miles northwest of downtown Vancouver. Alcoa constructed an aluminum smelter on the site in 1940. Between 1944 and 1970, a number of fabrication operations were added to form aluminum into finished goods such as wire, rod, and extrusions. Alcoa operated the entire facility for 45 years, until its closure in 1985.

The smelter was constructed during World War II and supplied aluminum to the war effort. But aluminum smelters built in the early 1940’s were constructed without control scrubbers and chemical waste water treatment systems.

Cleanup is taking place at the Alcoa
Vancouver smelter site. (Photo
courtesy Department of Ecology)

Industrial and solid wastes from construction and operation of the aluminum smelter were stored in waste piles and consolidated in landfills onsite over the years. Hazardous contaminants in these wastes include petroleum hydrocarbons, PCBs, cyanide, fluoride, trichloroethylene, low-level organic chemicals, and metals.

When approved, the Joint Aquatic Resource Permit Application will allow Alcoa to remove thousands of cubic yards of contaminated sediments from the Columbia River.

The project is slated to begin at the earliest date possible for in-river work, in November 2008.

“Alcoa continues to be pleased with the progress and has made available all the necessary resources to meet our accelerated schedule,” said Alcoa’s director of asset management, Mark Stiffler.

“Alcoa and Ecology have been working intensely to prepare this application, and Ecology is pleased the company beat the accelerated timeline by nearly two weeks,” said Carol Kraege, manager of Ecology’s team overseeing Alcoa’s cleanup. “This gives everyone more time to focus on the big work ahead.”

The cleanup of industrial contamination at Alcoa has been underway since 1990, with $42 million spent to date. Approximately $34 million has been spent on controlling the sources of PCBs and stopping the flow of contaminants to the Columbia River.

Next steps for this site include the state Department of Ecology requesting public comment on the draft Remedial Investigation and Feasibility Study, documents which detail the extent and nature of contamination on the site and the cleanup options. Ecology will announce the public review period and a public meeting as soon as the documents are ready.

Alcoa is in the process of hiring a contractor to remove the last PCB-laden building on its property. That work should be underway in March. This is the final step in making sure the source of toxic contamination in the river has been shut off at its source.

The river cleanup will also involve the removal of freshwater clams along Alcoa’s beach.

Health information released last spring indicated high levels of PCBs in clam tissue taken from many places along the Columbia River shoreline.

The state Health Department has issued a health advisory prohibiting clam harvesting on Columbia River near Alcoa property and contaminated clam warning signs in eight languages have been placed at boat launches along the river.

Alcoa is monitoring river levels to determine when it may be necessary to put a protective boom in place to limit access to the clam beds for anyone attempting to illegally harvest clams at Alcoa’s property.

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SAN FRANCISCO, California, February 12, 2007 (ENS) – The global toxic trade watchdog organization, Basel Action Network, BAN, has contacted the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Justice Department and the Government of Singapore to warn them that a breach of U.S. and international law is likely to have occurred with the towing on Friday of the ex-ocean liner, SS Independence from San Francisco toward Singapore.

According to BAN, a vessel of the type and vintage as the 68 year old SS Independence contains large quantities of hazardous materials such as polychlorinated biphenyls, PCBs, and asbestos. The export and import of these materials are prohibited under the laws of the United States and Singapore.

“This sneaky export in Friday’s fog should never have happened as it is a blatant violation of the law,” said Jim Puckett, coordinator of the Basel Action Network. “Our laws prevent the export of PCBs either for commerce or disposal, and Singapore also is prohibited from importing this vessel from the U.S. under their international obligations. We demand that the U.S. government orders this renegade U.S. flagged ship returned to San Francisco at once.”

The Toxics Substances Control Act forbids the export of PCB-contaminated material from the United States. Ships built in the 1950s contain large quantities of material with high concentrations of PCBs, Puckett says.

The Basel Convention, an international treaty controlling trade in toxic waste, prevents any country that is Party to the Convention such as Singapore, from trading in waste with any country that is not a Party to the Convention such as the United States. For this reason BAN is surprised that the US Coast Guard allowed the towing permits.

The SS Independence was launched on June 3, 1950 by American Export Lines. Designed by famous marine architect Henry Dreyfuss, in 1951 she began sailing on the company’s New York – Mediterranean itinerary.

In 1968, with the decline in transatlantic travel, the Independence was laid up at Baltimore. C.Y. Tung bought the idle liner in January 1974 for his Atlantic Far East Lines and renamed her Oceanic Independence. The ship was refitted for 950 passengers for cruising, which included a Portuguese charter out of Africa. However, she was laid up again in January 1976 at Hong Kong.

In 1979 American Hawaii Cruises (C.Y. Tung Group) was formed and the laid up Oceanic Independence was refitted in Japan for inter-island Hawaiian service. On June 21, 1980 she began seven day cruises, sailing Hawaiian waters. In August 1999, Independence began her 1000th Hawaiian cruise with American Hawaii Cruises under American Classic Voyages.

The SS Independence in Hawaiian
waters (Photo credit unknown)

She received “Ship Of The Year Award” for the year 2000 from the Steamship Historical Society of America in a gala week of celebration aboard the 50 year old liner.

American Classic Voyages declared bankruptcy in 2001 and the Independence stopped sailing and was laid up in San Francisco.

In 2003 Norwegian Cruise Lines bought the SS Independence and moved it to the former Mare Island Naval Base in Vallejo, California. She never cruised again.

In 2005 ownership was transferred to what Puckett believes to be “a shell company” known as California Manufacturing Corporation. Despite the name, the California Manufacturing Corporation is located in the same building as Star Cruises/NCL in Miami, Florida.

Citing the example of another old ship owned by NCL that was not refurbished but left on the beach at the shipbreaking complex in Alang, India, BAN asserts that that will be the fate of the Independence.

It is “almost a certainty that the SS Independence is headed for the breaking beaches of Bangladesh or India where massive profits can be made due to the high price of steel and because the ships will be dismantled by some of Asia’s poorest workers in horrific conditions without proper protective equipment and environmental safeguards being applied,” Puckett said.

As member organization of the NGO Platform on Shipbreaking, a global coalition of human rights, environmental, public health, and labor organizations, Puckett says BAN will be “putting out a global alert on the ship SS Independence to ensure that countries turn back the vessel as illegal traffick in hazardous waste.”

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ROCHESTER, New York, January 17, 2008 (ENS) – Some of the country’s largest corporations are required to reimburse the state of New York a total of nearly $1.6 million for cleanup costs at the Rochester Fire Academy, a hazardous waste site in Monroe County once used to train firefighters.

Attorney General Andrew Cuomo Wednesday announced a settlement with eight entities, including Bausch & Lomb, DuPont, Eastman Kodak, and Xerox, which all disposed of hazardous waste at the site from 1954 to 1980.

“My office will hold all polluters – even the nation’s largest corporations – accountable when they contaminate New York State,” said Cuomo.

He said the state will use the money from this fine to “rehabilitate other hazardous areas.”

“The settlement we achieved finally puts to rest a debt long owed to the State of New York,” he said. “The dangerous pollutants that put the community at risk have been removed and now those responsible have paid the price.”

A fire truck heads for the scene
of a blaze in Rochester, New
York (Photo credit unknown)

New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, DEC, Commissioner Pete Grannis said, “The former Fire Academy site presented a significant threat to the health of the community and greatly impacted the environment, so DEC worked closely with local government officials to perform a comprehensive cleanup that addressed the contamination and protected the public.”

The 18 acre Rochester Fire Academy site was opened on Scottsville Road in Rochester in 1954 to train firefighters to combat a range of hazards.

During its operation, private and public entities in the area sent waste solvents, petroleum products, and other flammable substances to the site for use in training exercises.

In 1980 and 1981, sampling conducted at the request of the Department of Environmental Conservation found high levels of toxic chemicals, including lead and cancer-causing polychlorinated biphenyls, PCBs, contaminating soil and groundwater at the site.

The DEC determined that the site posed a significant threat to public health and the environment and required cleanup, so the Fire Academy was listed as a hazardous waste site under New York state’s Superfund program.

The city of Rochester, with partial funding from the Superfund program cleaned up the site by removing polluted soil and treating contaminated groundwater.

The Attorney General’s office and the DEC joined forces to track down the parties that had sent hazardous waste to the Fire Academy site for use in firefighter training.

On November 15, 2005, the Attorney General’s Office sued eight private and public entities who sent waste to the site – Bausch & Lomb, E.I. du Pont de Nemours, Eastman Kodak Company, Xerox Corporation, Chloride Power Electronics, Rochester Gas & Electric, the University of Rochester, and Monroe County.

The settlement announced by the attorney general ends that lawsuit and requires the eight entities to collectively reimburse New York State $1,575,000.

Money collected in the settlement will be deposited in the State Superfund, where it will be used to help fund cleanups at other contaminated sites. Under DEC oversight, the city of Rochester continues to monitor the Rochester Fire Academy site for signs of pollution.

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