Environment: The Menace of PCB

The Menance of PCB Environmentalists were confident that they had ferreted out the nation's major pollutants after they put the finger on substances like DDT, mercury, lead and phosphates. Now an important newcomer has cropped up in the form of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), colorless, odorless, syrupy chemicals that are manufactured in the U.S. under the trade name Aroclor by the Monsanto Co. Until recently, PCBs were used in industry in many ways, for instance as softeners in plastics, paints and rubber, as additives in printing inks and papers. Although they are now used primarily as agents in heat exchangers, there is growing evidence that alarming quantities of PCBs have found their way into living organisms and that they pose a potent new threat to the environment.

Two years ago. New York Democratic Congressman William F. Ryan was told by a constituent about the dangers of PCB. Checking further. Ryan found studies showing that large amounts of PCBs had been discovered in the fish and sea birds of several countries. The studies also revealed that the compounds can cause liver damage in mice and disrupt the calcium metabolism of birds, which then lay thin-shelled eggs. Alarmed by the findings, Ryan delivered a House speech on PCBs. The Department of Agriculture responded by halting the use of PCBs—but only in pesticides. Then, despite complaints from customers, Monsanto announced that, as of September 1970, it would stop sales of PCBs except for "absolutely essential" use in electrical equipment.

Polluted Poultry. To the public, however, PCB was still largely unknown —until the disclosure, in December 1970, that Campbell Soup had found high PCB levels in some New York State chickens destined for its products. Once notified, the New York and federal departments of agriculture stopped poultry shipments from the three counties supplying Campbell and ordered the burial of 146,000 contaminated birds. Where did the PCB come from? Officials speculated that it had been transmitted by chicken feed made from stale bakery goods that had been wrapped in PCB-coated plastic bags.

One of the worst instances of PCB pollution occurred last spring. A North Carolina poultry raiser, worried over the low hatching rate of his chickens, ran independent tests and found that the fatty tissue of the birds contained up to 40 p.p.m. of PCBs (the federal limit for poultry is 5 p.p.m.). The contamination was traced to a Wilmington, N.C., fish-meal plant where PCBs were leaking from a pipe in a heating system into the meal. Officials were dismayed to learn that the leak had gone undiscovered for nearly two months and that 13,000 tons of tainted feed had been sent to 64 customers in twelve Southern and Midwestern states.

Ryan was furious. "The Federal Government's actions are inexcusable," he said. "This entire incident could have been prevented if the Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration had lived up to their responsibilities to protect the public." He then introduced legislation that would totally ban PCBs from interstate commerce.