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Friday, April 15, 2005
Environment - PCB at Marble Hill: Answers sought on plans to expand storage
"PCB at Marble Hill Answers sought on plans to expand storage" is the headline to a story today in the Madison Courier, a followup to the story featured in this ILB entry from March 25th. Some quotes from today's story by Jenny Jones:
Transformer Decommissioning LLC, an Indianapolis-based company that recycles electrical transformers, applied to the EPA and the IDEM in February. The company wants a permit to store transformers with PCBs of greater than 50 parts per million at its Marble Hill facility.People who live near Marble Hill are concerned about storing PCBs near their homes, water wells and the river. PCBs are known to have negative health effects to those who are exposed to large quantities of the waste, according to the Web site for the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.
About eight residents attended an information session from 3 to 6 p.m. Tuesday. During the session, residents were able to ask EPA, IDEM and Transformer Decommissioning LLC representatives questions. * * *
In 1998, VPI bought buildings at Marble Hill and began recycling there. Then in 1999, two of the country’s largest transformer recycling companies left the industry, Van Vliet said.
Electric companies began asking VPI to recycle nonregulated transformers, those with PCBs of less than 50 parts per million, Van Vliet said. That’s when Transformer Decommissioning LLC was formed and it began recycling transformers.
“We were already at Marble Hill,” Van Vliet said.
Residents wanted to know more about how the transformers are shipped to Marble Hill, what the company does with transformers that contain PCBs and how those PCBs are stored.
Priscilla Fonseca of the EPA explained that the transformers are delivered to Transformer Decommissioning LLC in hazardous-waste vehicles. When they arrive, the transformers are tested for PCB, she said.
Transformers that test positive for PCBs are put into a secondary storage area that has a sealed concrete floor, sealed joints and a roof. Transformers that contain PCBs are not opened, Fonseca said.
Residents seemed a little less anxious about the PCBs once they understood how they are stored and shipped, but they were still concerned about the future of the facility. They wanted to know how long the PCBs would be stored at Marble Hill and if Transformer Decommissioning LLC would ever want to incinerate the waste.
Fonseca said the company does not receive a lot of transformers that contain commercial PCBs because there are only about 200,000 PCB transformers left in the country. PCB production was stopped in 1976 because of health and environmental concerns. “We work hard to encourage electric companies to phase out PCBs,” she said.
When the company does receive transformers that contain PCBs, it is allowed to store them for no more than a year, Fonseca said. Within a year they have to be shipped to an incinerator, she said.
Transformer Decommissioning LLC will never be able to incinerate the PCB waste itself because its facilities would not meet federal requirements to do so, Fonseca said. * * *
After the information session, the EPA and IDEM held a public hearing. About 10 residents attended the hearing, some of whom did not attend the session in the afternoon.
When the hearing started, residents were asked to speak into a microphone to record their comments and concerns. There would not be any responses given to residents’ questions or comments during the hearing, said Don de Blasio, community involvement coordinator with the EPA.
Many residents were upset to learn that their comments would not be addressed during the hearing. “I do wish today’s meeting, all of it, could have been tonight,” said Donna Watkins of Nabb.
Residents approached the microphone one-by-one to state their thoughts, but most of them really wanted answers to their questions.
After the hearing, EPA and IDEM representatives agreed to address questions because many residents said they were not able to get off work to attend the information session.
Residents were grateful.
Posted by Marcia Oddi on April 15, 2005 12:04 PM
Posted to Environment