Sierra Club's Lone Star Chapter & Community In-Powerment Development Association (CIDA)

Neil Carman, Sierra Club (Texas), 512-472-1767, 512-299-5776
Hilton Kelley, CIDA, Port Arthur, Texas, 409-498-1088

For Immediate Release Thursday, March 20, 2008

CIDA AND SIERRA CLUB DECLARE COMMUNITY UNDER SEIGE:
REQUEST US EPA TO HOLD HEARING IN PORT ARTHUR, TEXAS
ON IMPORT OF DEADLY CHEMICAL FOR INCINERATION

AUSTIN, March 20- Veolia Environmental Services in Port Arthur, Texas seeks an exemption from federal law to import 20,000 tons of liquid PCB waste from Mexico for incineration.

"Our community in Port Arthur, Texas is has been living for years under a siege of toxic chemicals in the air, said Hilton Kelley, executive director of CIDA, a Port Arthur based community organization. "We don't need PCBs burned here because it will bring
more toxic chemical hazards to our air and bodies," Kelley added. He added: "CIDA believes that its time for the Veolia incinerator to
close its door because they do not take into consideration the health and well-being of the citizens of Port Arthur, Texas when burning
toxic waste or encouraging other companies to send their toxic waste here."

The position of the Sierra Club, CIDA, and many other organizations and scientists is that incineration is the most dangerous possible
way to dispose of PCBs because the incineration process produces dioxins and furans, the most toxic chemicals known. Unburned PCBs are also released along with other byproducts of incomplete combustion because incinerators do not achieve 100% efficiency during incineration.

"Burning PCBs is dangerous and unnecessary no matter where you do it. There is no justice in polluting communities and the global
environment with dioxin," said Neil Carman of the Sierra Club. "This is just an industry rush to burn." Carman emphasized, "Safer
alternatives are available that do not involve incineration and release of dioxin. In fact there are several alternative disposal
technologies available into the marketplace and some involve portable, non-incineration PCB remediation technology for use
anywhere in the U.S. and abroad."

The Community In-Powerment Development Association (CIDA) and the Sierra Club sent a request to the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today to hold a public hearing in Port Arthur, Texas on an effort by Veolia to import the dangerous chemicals
PCBs-polychlorinated biphenyls-to the United States for incineration at its Port Arthur commercial toxic waste incinerator.

Since 1976, federal law under the Toxic Substances Control Act passed by Congress has strictly forbid the importation of PCBs into the
United States even for the purposes of disposal. A federal court ruling issued July 1997 ruled against a previous attempt by the EPA to grant an exemption from TSCA and the judges stated that "this case involves the authority of the Environmental Protection Agency ("EPA") to promulgate a final rule which allows for the importation of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) into the United States for purposes of disposal. The principal issue in this case is whether EPA's rule allowing importation of PCBs for disposal violates the statutory prohibitions concerning PCBs contained in section 6(e)(3)(A)(i) of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA), 15 U.S.C. SS 2601-2618 (1982 & Supp. 1987). We hold ... that the rule violates the statute."

Containment and safer disposal technologies will promote the safest approach to PCB remediation and treatment.

The Port Arthur, Texas incinerator has not yet installed a dioxin and PCB Continuous Emissions Monitoring System (CEMS) in its smokestack, and without use of a dioxin and PCB CEMS, the incinerator can not measure the quantity of dioxin and PCB emissions discharged from its smokestack. See the attached PCB Importation Fact Sheet on hazards of incineration and safe, alternative treatment technologies verified by the EPA as effective for PCB disposal.

According to the company's website, Veolia Environmental Services is a subsidiary of Veolia Environnement SA which is a multinational French company. http://www.veoliaes.com/Home

FACT SHEET: IMPORTING PCBs FOR INCINERATION

* Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) are a dangerous class of chemicals that bioaccumulate in the body and cause a range of adverse health effects including cancer, immune suppression, reproductive damage, birth defects, and fetal death. EPA recognizes PCBs as endocrine disrupting chemicals. ATSDR's ToxFAQs on PCBs: http://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/tfacts17.html

* Prenatal exposures to even very low amounts of PCBs can result in lower IQs, according to a study of 212 Michigan fifth
graders who have been studied since birth by scientists at Wayne State University in Detroit. Mothers of the children had
PCB-consumed contaminated fish from Lake Michigan. Joseph L. Jacobson and Sandra W. Jacobson, "Intellectual Impairment in Children Exposed to Polychlorinated Biphenyls in Utero," New England Journal of Medicine Vol. 335 No. 11, September 12, 1996, 783-789.

* PCBs accumulate in the environment and move toward the top of the food chain, contaminating fish, birds, and mammals, including humans.

* PCBs are the only chemical that Congress singled out for phase-out under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) of 1976.

* The TSCA law requires that "no person many manufacture any polychlorinated biphenyl after two years after January 1, 1997." "Manufacture" is defined to include "import into the customs territory of the United States."

* Commercial hazardous waste incinerators fully permitted under TSCA to burn PCBs in the U.S. are located according to the EPA at:
Deer Park, Texas (Clean Harbors Deer Park LP)
Port Arthur, Texas (Veolia ES Technical Solutions LLC)
Aragonite, Utah (Clean Harbors Aragonite LLC)
Tonkawa, Oklahoma (Transformer Disposal Specialists, Inc.)
See EPA PCB website: http://www.epa.gov/pcb/pubs/stordisp.htm

* PCBs, when incinerated, release dioxin (2,3,7,8-tetrachlorodibenzo-p-dioxin, or TCDD) and dioxin-like chemicals, the most toxic chemicals known. A small amount of unburned PCBs also results.

* Like PCBs, dioxins cause a range of adverse health effects and bioaccumulate. Dioxins are recognized as endocrine disrupting chemicals.

* The EPA's Dioxin Reassessment indicates that dioxin levels in the bodies and breast milk of the average American are already at levels of concern.

* Dioxin (TCDD) was recently classified as a known human carcinogen by a panel of 25 scientists convened by the International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) during a February 1997 meeting at Lyon, France. The IARC was established in 1965 by the World Health Organization. Dioxin (TCDD) is 300,000 times more potent than DDT, which was banned in 1972. The IARC panel took into account
1) "that TCDD causes cancer in multiple organs in experimental animals";
2) "that it has been shown to act in animals by a mechanism that is likely also to operate in humans;" and
3) "that tissue concentrations of TCDD are similar both in heavily exposed human populations in which an increased overall
cancer risk was observed and in rats exposed to carcinogenic doses."

* EPA tried to grant a TSCA exemption March 1996 to allow PCB imports into Ohio and a federal court ruled on July 8, 1997 that EPA's exemption violated TSCA .

* Alternative methods of PCB disposal are in commercial use that do not produce dioxins and unburned PCBs. EPA approved the first alternative, non-incineration PCB treatment technology in 1994 using a metal catalyst to dechlorinate PCBs at room temperature. See EPA PCB alternative treatment technology website: http://www.epa.gov/pcb/pubs/stordisp.htm

* Commodore's patented Solvated Electron Technology (SET) is unsurpassed in the destruction or neutralization of the halogenated (i.e. PCBs) materials that rank among the world's most persistent toxic pollutants and is fully approved by the EPA. Commodore's website: http://www.commodore.com/technologies/set_applications.htm

SET has several advantages:

* SET is transportable. Unlike incinerator units that require waste to be shipped to a fixed facility, SET units can be
transported to the waste site, reducing the risks and costs of transporting hazardous waste.
* SET is a non-thermal technology and operates at ambient temperatures. SET is a safe alternative to traditional incineration methods that operate at very hot temperatures and require complex filtration systems.
* SET is a closed loop system. It produces no hazardous secondary wastes or off-gases. All residual wastes can be disposed of in regulated landfills or simply be returned to the environment.
* Halogenated compounds are destroyed, not just removed or concentrated. Commodore has reached the highest level of expertise and competence in using the solvated electron technology to render hazardous waste non-toxic.
* SET is scalable and can accommodate the size of the project. Commodore's units can be efficiently and effectively scaled to treat any amount of waste, no matter how large or small.
* Unlike traditional remediation systems, SET requires minimal amounts of power, water and other outside resources.