Anniston Star
March 6, 2003

PCB shipments to Pell City continue, foreign-produced PCBs expected in summer

By Sara Clemence
Star Staff Writer
03-06-2003

A second shipment of PCB-contaminated equipment is expected to leave Japan for Pell City in the next few days, sources in Washington said.

This time, officials have been briefed on the Defense Department's plan to dispose of the material in Alabama, the sources said.

The Defense Department also has been granted a waiver to bring additional, otherwise-illegal PCB waste into the country.

But whether the Defense Department will continue to send the material to Trans-Cycle Industries in Pell City is undecided, said Jack Hooper, spokesman for the Defense Logistics Agency.

The controversial cargo that will arrive in Alabama this month is a portion of the seven million tons of PCB-tainted equipment the Department of Defense has stored or in use at bases in Japan and on Wake Island.

The presence of the material, mostly old electrical transformers, causes tensions with the Japanese, and the military has not been able to dispose of it in other countries. Attempts to send it to Canada and Seattle for disposal were met with protests and lawsuits.

In January, The Star revealed a plan to quietly ship the material to Trans-Cycle Industries in Pell City. The information took elected officials by surprise.

"The Defense Department has not handled this process well in the past - they hid the program from the very people that should have been informed from the start," said Sen. Richard Shelby. "I take some encouragement from their decision to share details of this shipment with local, state and federal officials."

In a briefing to the Alabama Congressional delegation, the Defense Department has outlined a two-phase plan for dealing with the waste.

The first phase involves three airlifts from Japan to Maxwell Air Force Base in Montgomery. The first flight arrived in January. The second is scheduled for this month, though the Defense Logistics Agency would not confirm the dates.

The second phase of the plan involves transporting tainted equipment by boat from Japan and Wake Island to a West Coast port this summer, the briefing says.

Whether that equipment will come to Trans-Cycle is not decided, the DLA's Hooper said. Although the company is still processing waste for the military, its contract ended Feb. 3, and a bidding process for a new contract is under way.

Until recently, the Defense Department could only bring some of the waste back to the United States - the portion that was manufactured here. That changed Jan. 31, when the Environmental Protection Agency granted a one-year waiver allowing the military to bring back foreign-produced PCBs starting in April.

Polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, are odorless chemicals in liquid or solid form, principally used, before they were banned, to insulate electrical equipment.

Congress banned PCBs in the 1970s because they were linked to serious health effects. The Toxic Substances Control Act prohibits the manufacture or import of PCBs, but gives the EPA power to grant special exceptions.

Logan Martin Lake, where Pell City is situated, is contaminated with PCBs from Anniston's former Monsanto plant. In 1999, the company settled a lawsuit with local residents for more than $40 million.

Although the mayor of Pell City was surprised at the first shipment, he said he no longer is concerned, because Trans-Cycle is fully permitted and licensed and never has had an accident.

"My issue from the beginning was about notification," said Mayor Guin Robinson, who toured TCI Tuesday. "I think they're a wonderful company."

Sen. Shelby said he is "less than pleased" that the waste is coming here.

"However, it was through a competitive process that TCI was selected to receive these materials, Shelby said. "The fact of the matter is that there are not a lot of companies in the United States that have the technology or the experience to safely process these materials."