By David Ball
The Port Arthur News
PORT ARTHUR
June 17, 2008 08:13 pm
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The eleventh hour is soon to strike for a public hearing to determine if an environmental company will be able to incinerate Polychlorinated Biphenyls, PCBs, a known carcinogen, at a Port Arthur plant.
A public hearing, scheduled by the Environmental Protection Agency from 3:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., Thursday, June 19 in the Port Arthur City Council Chamber, is the one of the steps in determining if Veolia’s Environmental Services can incinerate PCBs from Mexico.
There will be a break between the early and later sessions of the hearing to accommodate people who get off work at a later time, Hilton Kelley, Community In-Power Development Association, or CIDA, executive director, said.
“I received some calls from the LA Times and the New York Times on this. The issue is national because PCBs are almost global,” Kelley said.
Kelley said other countries have been downsizing PCB operations, but it seems to him this area has only increased.
Veolia Environmental Services manager Mitch Osborne, said the France-based company has petitioned the EPA for an exemption that would allow Veolia’s Port Arthur facility to incinerate 20,000 tons of liquid PCBs from RIMSA, the company’s sister company in Monterey, Mexico.
Companies such as Veolia are permitted to dispose of the toxic substance contained in products manufactured before 1976, when the Toxic Substances Control Act became law. The act governs the management, clean-up and disposal of PCB wastes.
Kelley believes the EPA, under the current Bush administration, may allow the variance to Veolia and it would take a new administration to stop trucks coming to Port Arthur with PCBs if the EPA tables it.
“We’re inundated with toxic waste. We don’t need to set a precedent for other states or other countries to come here,” Kelley said. “It’s coming here on our own families.”
Veolia has been treating PCBs at their facility since 1992 and Kelley believes incinerating the PCBs emits more dioxins into the atmosphere. He would like to see new technologies used to neutralize PCB’s toxicity by dissolving them.
“But it’s cheaper to burn it and they’ll tell us nothing is wrong,” Kelley said. “There’s no monitoring of dioxins or PCBs. Just because there hasn’t been any incidents there doesn’t mean were not playing Russian roulette with people’s health.”
Kelley said he hopes more people attend the public hearing because “it’s up to the people to join up with CIDA and put pressure on elected officials.”
“They (the public) think they can’t do a whole lot about it and tell the government they don’t want it here. But we put these people into office,” Kelley said.
According to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, or ATSDR Web site, Polychlorinated biphenyls, PCBs, are a mixture of individual chemicals which are no longer produced in the United States, but are still found in the environment. Health effects have been associated with exposure to PCBs include acne-like skin conditions in adults and neurobehavioral and immunological changes in children. PCBs are known to cause cancer in animals.
PCBs 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 U.S. in 1977 because of evidence they build up in the environment and can cause harmful health effects. Products made before 1977 that may contain PCBs include old fluorescent lighting fixtures and electrical devices containing PCB capacitors, and old microscope and hydraulic oils.
Osborne said he has been receiving calls from national media outlets such as the Houston Chronicle, NBC and the New York Times.
“I appreciate our opponents concern, but if we didn’t feel the operation was safe, we wouldn’t ask the EPA for a variance,” he said.
Part of the variance process, Osborne said, is a public comment period followed by a public hearing if requested. He said his company has been anticipating the public hearing for the last 18 months. The variance would grant Veolia to legally import PCBs for a year.
Osborne said though there are other alternative methods of treating PCBs, some theoretical and practical, that depend on the concentrations of the materials, such as the density of the material. He believes that incineration is the most cost-effective and safest technique.
“We’re confident of a favorable opinion from the EPA. We’re expecting opposition at the public hearing and some support,” Osborne said. “This is a proven method for destroying the material. I don’t have a problem with our opponents expressing their concerns as long as it’s fair, unbiased and in consideration of the facts. I don’t know what the time frame is (for the EPA to render a decision).
“It’s an opportunity for public feedback and we want to be a good neighbor and a good corporate citizen.”
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