Sierra Club - Lone Star Chapter
For Immediate Release
Tuesday, July 8, 1997
For Legal Questions:
Howard Fox, SCLDF (Washington, DC), 202-667-4500
For Scientific & Political Questions: Neil Carman, Sierra Club - (Texas), 512-472-1767
Charlie Cray, Greenpeace (Chicago), 312-563-6060
Rick Hind, Greenpeace (Washington, D.C.), 202-462-1177
Jane Williams, California Communities Against Toxics, pager 888-709-4949
AUSTIN, July 8—The Sierra Club won a major legal victory July 7 when a three judge panel with the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco struck down an import rule issued March 18, 1996 by the federal Environmental Protection Agency that allowed the importation of the dangerous chemicals PCBs—polychlorinated biphenyls—to the United States for incineration.
The Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund (an independent organization) filed a petition on March 28, 1996 asking the court to set aside the new regulation on the grounds that it violated a 1976 law under the Toxic Substances Control Act passed by Congress.
Chief Judge Proctor Hug, Jr. ruled 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 (TCSA), 15 U.S.C. SS 2601-2618 (1982 & Supp. 1987). We hold ... that the rule violates the statute.” Joining Chief Judge Hug in the unanimous ruling were Circuit Judges Thomas M. Reavley and Edward Leavy.
The position of the Sierra Club, Greenpeace, 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. Organizations in Mexico and Canada have registered their opposition to PCB incineration—whether in their own countries or abroad—with their national governments.
“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 Charlie Cray of Greenpeace.
Neil Carman of the Sierra Club’s Lone Star Chapter emphasized, “Safer alternatives are becoming available that do not involve incineration and release of dioxin. In fact there are at least five alternative disposal technologies coming into the marketplace and some involve portable, non-incineration PCB remediation technology for use anywhere in the U.S. and abroad.”
LaNell Anderson, a Sierra Club member and resident of Channelview, Texas, near the Deer Park incinerator, summed it all up: “This decision makes me hopeful that justice will finally prevail.”
Both the Mexican and Canadian borders were opened in 1996 to allow PCB importation for incineration in the US and now this practice will cease very quickly. PCB imports were also expected from many other foreign nations. Containment and safer disposal technologies will promote the safest approach to PCB remediation.
Howard Fox of SCLDF argued the Sierra Club’s case in November. Several intervenors also filed opinions siding with the EPA including Environmental Technology Council, S.D. Myers, Inc., and Chemical Waste Management, Inc.
°° 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.
°° 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 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.
°° TSCA 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 are located at:
Deer Park, Texas (Rollins, Inc.) Port Arthur, Texas (Chemical Waste Management)
West Chester, Pennsylvania (Weston, Inc.)
Coffeyville, Kansas (Aptus, Inc.)
Aragonite, Utah (Aptus, Inc.)
°° 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.
°° The EPA’s recent Dioxin Reassessment indicates that dioxin levels in the bodies and breast milk of the average American are already at levels of concern.
°° Dioxin (2,3,7,8 TCDD) is known to cause cancer at 5 parts per trillion in lab rats, and the EPA has known this fact since at least 1979 according to court records.
°° 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.”
°° Several alternative methods of PCB disposal that do not produce dioxins are under active development and are showing promise. --
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