Anniston Star
May 17, 2003

Pell City company loses PCBs contract

By Sara Clemence
Star Staff Writer
05-18-2003

The Department of Defense no longer will ship PCB-tainted electrical equipment from Japan to Pell City for processing, military officials said this week.

In January, the Star discovered that the military planned to ship, with little public notice, tons of PCB-containing equipment from Japan and Wake Island to Alabama. Elected officials who had not been notified expressed dismay at the plan when it was revealed.

Earlier, more open attempts at shipments to Canada and Seattle had been met with protests and lawsuits.

The contract with Trans-Cycle Industries, the Pell City company that was processing the equipment for disposal, was up for renewal in February.

"They were not awarded the contract," said Jack Hooper, spokesman for the Defense Logistics Agency. "We have some other contractors that are able to do this."

State and federal environmental officials said they had been told the same thing.

Hooper said he did not know why TCI had not won the contract.

"There was no problem with the company, I can tell you that," Hooper said.

The company had processed two shipments from Japan, part of the estimated seven million pounds of equipment from the Pacific the military needs to get rid of over the next several years.

The company was not able to provide information on the contract.
"At this point I don't believe there's anything official," said Jerry Habib, chief operating officer for TCI. "That's about all I can say."

Polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, form a group of odorless chemicals that are extremely heat-resistant. Before Congress banned them in the 1970s, they were principally used to insulate electrical equipment.

PCBs have been linked to a range of health effects, from learning disorders to cancer.

The equipment has become a source of diplomatic tension with Japan, the Defense Department has said in reports. There are no disposal facilities available to the military in Japan, officials say, and other countries are increasingly reluctant to accept the waste.