Star Staff Writer
People who live close to the Solutia plant likely are breathing in PCBs, says a federal report released last week.
The data is insufficient to say how serious the problem is, or how far it extends from the plant, according to the study from the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), a federal environmental health agency.
“We don’t know what their exposure is, but there is some exposure,” said Lynn Wilder, environmental health scientist for the agency.
Environmental regulators have not yet focused on figuring out where the PCBs are coming from.
The report is a more strongly worded version of one the agency put out for public comment about a year ago. It says Solutia workers also could be exposed to PCBs, as well as workers who dig up soil in the area.
The plant in western Anniston is where Monsanto made polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, from the 1930s to the 1970s. Solutia, the company that spun off from Monsanto in 1997, now owns the property.
“We wouldn’t disagree with the conclusion that people who live adjacent to the fence line could be exposed to PCBs in air,” said Craig Branchfield, remedial projects manager for Solutia. “I think the main question is, are those PCBs in air an unusually high risk? And I think the answer to that question is no. They are consistent with normal urban background levels.”
Wilder said there is no way for people who live near the plant to reduce their exposure.
Congress banned PCBs in the late 1970s because of health concerns, but the chemicals, which were used as lubricants and insulators, don’t break down easily in the environment.
Today, PCBs contaminate local waterways and properties, and have been found in the blood of some residents. PCBs have been linked to health problems such as liver, thyroid and learning disorders, and are known to cause cancer in animals.
The Environmental Protection Agency is overseeing a broad-scale study and cleanup of PCBs in the Anniston area. But it has not made much effort to pinpoint how PCBs are getting into the air here.
“We just haven’t gotten to that point in the project,” said Pam Scully, site manager for the Anniston PCBs cleanup. “Hopefully this year we’ll come up with work plans.”
Some in the community have speculated that Monsanto landfills, which the EPA estimates could contain about 10 million pounds of PCBs, may be to blame.
But the highest PCB levels in the study turned up near the northern perimeter of the Solutia property, not the southern side, where the landfills are located.
Monitors outside the plant, including one on Ware Street and 9th Street, picked up PCBs. But others, farther away in Wellborn and on Noble Street, barely showed any.
Most of the air samples used for the report are from 2000, and were collected by Solutia. A few were taken by the EPA.
The PCBs could be vaporizing from contaminated soil in the area, Scully said. As part of the cleanup, Solutia contractors are replacing soil in some of the most contaminated yards in the area.
“Any kind of source control we can do should improve the air quality, and that’s why we want to move on the properties,” she said.
Branchfield said that he can only speculate on the source of the chemicals.
“I think it’s logical to suggest that some of the PCBs in air may be coming from our plant site,” Branchfield said. “I mean, we manufactured PCBs there for 50 years.”
It’s also possible, he said, that PCBs are coming from other manufacturing facilities that used the chemicals in the past.
The air levels have been going down over the past five years, Branchfield said.
The company is still collecting air samples, he said, and is in the middle of a project to figure out why the air levels are as high as they are.
“I don’t think it’s an accurate portrayal of the air situation in Anniston, just looking at our fence line,” Branchfield said.
As far as workers are concerned, “I haven’t seen any data to suggest our workers are being exposed to high levels of PCBs,” he said. The levels being detected at the plant are far below federal occupational standards, he said.
The report is available at the Anniston Public Library, Bethel Baptist Church, Carver Library, Community Against Pollution, First Missionary Baptist Church, Seventeenth Street Baptist Church and the local EPA office on 10th Street.