http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/0903-06.htm
Published on Wednesday,
September 3, 2003 by the Los Angeles Times
EPA Switch Allows Sale of PCB-Tainted
Sites
by Elizabeth Shogren
QUOTE:
"Taking away one of the few protections we have against
some of the most dangerous chemicals in the world is
not good for public health.", Julie Wolk, US PIRG
WASHINGTON - The Bush administration has quietly allowed the sale
of properties contaminated with PCBs, reversing a 25-year-old
policy
aimed at protecting people from exposure to the highly toxic chemicals.
The Environmental Protection
Agency said the change would speed
the redevelopment, and possibly even the cleanup, of former
military installations and other hazardous sites.
Environmental activists
and congressional Democrats warned
that the action removed a needed incentive to clean contaminated
properties and could result in some properties being redeveloped
while still tainted.
Under the old rules,
said Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.),
the federal government in effect oversaw the transfer of
PCB-contaminated properties because the properties could
not be sold until the seller proved that the PCBs were gone.
Now, she warned, that protection seemed to be lost.
"I can't believe
they would ease the rules around one of the
most persistent and dangerous chemicals known to mankind,"
Boxer said. "This administration is really waging war against
our health."
Boxer, a member of
the Senate Environment and Public Works
Committee, promised to raise the issue at the confirmation
hearing of Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt, Bush's nominee to head
the EPA. She also said she would introduce legislation to
reverse the EPA action.
Environmentalists also
complained that the change, which
took effect in the middle of last month, was made without
involving or even informing the public. The EPA released
information about its new policy Tuesday, after a story
about it appeared in USA Today.
PCBs were used for
decades as coolants and lubricants in
electronic equipment, paint, dyes and many other industrial
and commercial products. Congress considered them so dangerous
to humans that they were the only chemical substances
specifically banned as part of the 1976 Toxic Substances
Control Act, or Superfund act.
Tests on animals have
shown that PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls)
cause cancer and can damage immune, reproductive and nervous
systems. Studies suggest that humans can be similarly affected.
More than 900 families were forced to leave the community of
Love Canal in Niagara Falls, N.Y., 25 years ago because of
fear of the effects of PCB contamination.
An Aug. 14 memo from
the EPA's general counsel about the
policy change cites the transfer of the former Navy facility
on Mare Island in Northern California to the city of Vallejo
as an example of PCB contamination hindering the redevelopment
of valuable land.
But that property was
transferred in March, before the cleanup.
EPA's old policy allowed the sale of a property if EPA had
first approved a cleanup plan. State and EPA officials approved
the cleanup plan for Mare Island last year, according to EPA
officials in California.
"The PCBs issue
did not significantly delay the transfer,"
said Katherine Taylor, an associate director of EPA's Region
9 office, which covers California. "However, it complicated
the transfer."
Taylor said the EPA
was not aware of any other completed or
potential sales or transfers of contaminated property in
California where PCBs had been an issue. EPA officials did
not cite any examples of cases where the previous policy had
prevented redevelopment or was currently blocking redevelopment.
But the Aug. 14 memo stressed that the desire to stimulate
redevelopment provided the motivation for the policy change.
"[T]he agency
is deeply concerned that its previous
interpretation of [the Superfund law] could frustrate
the intent of the law to encourage the cleanup and return
to productive use of contaminated or potentially-contaminated
properties," reads the memo, which was signed by EPA general
counsel Robert E. Fabricant, who left the agency at the end
of last month.
Many environmental
groups said they were taken by surprise
by the change and could not tell what impact it would have.
But Julie Wolk, environmental
health advocate for U.S. Public
Interest Research Group, which represents many organizations
in states, said that "taking away one of the few protections
we have against some of the most dangerous chemicals in the
world is not good for public health."
"It takes away
the incentive to clean up property," Wolk said.
Under the old rules, "you were stuck with it until it was
clean."
But EPA spokeswoman
Lisa Harrison said that "the buyers still
are responsible for the cleanup of the sites."
Copyright 2003 Los
Angeles Times
###
