Veolia Environmental Services, the industrial incinerator in Port Arthur that is burning VX nerve agent waste for the U.S. Army, has asked for a federal exemption to import 22,000 tons of a suspected cancer-causing chemical compound from Mexico.

Federal law bans importation of the chemical. The compound is called polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, and was used as an insulator in electrical equipment until the Environmental Protection Agency banned its production in the United States in 1977.

Veolia has applied for an exemption to bring in the waste collected by what Veolia's environmental, health and safety manager, Dan Duncan, called its "sister company."

Veolia is headquartered in France.

Duncan said Veolia destroyed about 35 million pounds of PCBs - 17,500 tons - in 2007.

The amount represents about a third of total waste destroyed at the incinerator, he said.

"PCBs are our bread and butter," he said.

PCBs were used as insulators in electrical equipment like transformers - like the ones seen on poles in neighborhoods carrying electricity to homes.

Duncan said "there are thousands of transformers all over Texas" that still contain PCBs.

Debi Derrick, spokeswoman for Entergy Texas, said the utility's two generating plants in Texas - Lewis Creek near Conroe and the Sabine station near Bridge City - contain no PCBs, and that perhaps 3 percent to 5 percent of all transformers, numbering in the thousands, still have PCBs in them.

The utility has not put a transformer with PCBs into service since June 1979, and it is replacing those that do contain them through attrition.

The Web site of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services shows that PCBs persist in the environment. Levels in fish and marine mammals can be thousands of times higher than PCBs in the water.

That alarms Skip James, a fishing guide who makes his living taking people out on Sabine Lake and other Upper Texas coastal bay systems.

"Our pollution is airborne," James said. "That's what hurts our bay systems."

James said he fears PCBs, no matter how small the amount, will escape from Veolia and settle into the water where it will accumulate in fish.

"It's an environmental concern," he said. "There will be everlasting effects."

Duncan said Veolia's incinerator destroys PCBs to a rate of 99.9 percent, drawn out by six more "point 9s."

"We handle PCBs every day," he said. "We have a hazardous waste incinerator that we know can destroy PCBs."

He said Veolia's sister company, Rimsa, collected the PCBs from utilities and other sources in Mexico.

He said the PCBs were made in the United States and exported to Mexico and other countries for use in insulating electrical systems.

"All PCBs were manufactured in the United States, so we're trying to take responsibility," Duncan said.

He said the chemical likely would be shipped in drums aboard trucks. He said PCBs have a very low vapor pressure and would not evaporate into the air if exposed.

The EPA must approve the exemption to the import ban before Veolia can bring in the PCBs. That isn't likely until the fourth quarter of this year, said Veolia plant manager Mitch Osborne.

EPA will accept comments on Veolia's request for an exemption via electronic mail at: rcra-docket@epa.gov, attention Docket No. EPA-HQ-RCRA-2008-0123.

Duncan and Osborne said Veolia also is about three-fourths of the way through receiving and destroying the VX nerve agent waste sent to it by the Army from its Indiana chemical depot.

The nerve agent waste is transported in truck-hauled tanks. Veolia personnel have said the Army treats the nerve agent at its chemical depot, rendering it neutralized as a nerve agent. However, the wastewater still is caustic.

The incinerator has received 297 shipments of an expected 400 without incident.

dwallach@hearstnp.com
(409) 838-2876