Dopo After 40 years form the STOP to the production of PCBs in the USA and after about 30 years (1979) from the first official regulation on the PCBs problem, the EPA (also designated as USEPA – United States Environmental Protection Agency) is questioning the need for modifying or not current regulations.
The document released by the EPA, dated 30th April 2010, deals with a revision of federal law “40CFR part 761” tilted: Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs); Reassessment of Use Authorizations.
The technical coordinator is a great experts of world wide reputation. doct. John Smith of the National Program Chemicals Division, office for the prevention of contaminations of the EPA in Washington DC.
The EPA document touches the various aspects of contamination, from causes to effects, with particular emphasis to the specific fields where the authorisation to use PCBs remains.
Among the environmental crises due to contamination by PCBs, the document mentions the Belgian and the Irish cases. The first one, designated as “Belgian PCB/dioxin crisis”, involves pork production: 50 kg of PCBs contaminate about 1 g of dioxins was accidentally added to a stock of recycled grease for the production of about 500 tons of animal feedstock in Belgium.
The first signs of contamination where notified in February 1999, and only in May 1999, there was an official communication of the fact, once the contamination was involving 2500 pork and chicken farms. The Belgian government estimated that the crisis cost about 493 million dollars, 106 of them in the pork sector only. Other Countries , also, where involved by this contamination, to the point that a temporary stop to export was implemented.
The second case quoted is the Irish one. In December 2008, pork meat and its derivatives where taken away from the market. This provision was taken by the Food Safety Authority of Ireland after discovering a concentration of PCBs PCDDs exceeding the concentration limits established by the European Community for foodstuff. Investigations showed that the contamination was coming from a single producer of feedstock. In that case, the contamination was caused by equipment containing oil with PCBs that was in contact with the feedstock, distributed in Ireland and Northern Ireland. All the products deriving from pork marketed after 1st September were taken of the market until December.
For what the Life Cycle Management of electric equipment with fluids contaminated by PCBs is concerned, the EPA sets forth a series of cases warranting particular attention since they are potential vehicles or causes of contamination by PCBs:
- transformers for railway systems in locomotives and coaches;
- the transmission and distribution grids for gas, that have produced or are still producing contamination until the usage point, including homes;
- the increment of the failure rate of the equipment;
- incidents caused by acts of vandalism;
- impact by natural events or disasters in case of hurricanes, flooding, earthquake, volcanic eruption or other natural disasters;
- impact by self- copying paper;
- capacitors present in fluorescent lights (ballasts) widely used in public buildings (schools, hospitals etc.).
Particular attention is also paid to equipment containing liquids in closed or not totally closed systems, for example electric transformers, train powering transformers, mining equipment, heat transfer systems, hydraulic systems, electric solenoids, switches, voltage regulators, capacitors, oil insulated cables, rectifiers.
