PCB News

E.P.A. Relaxes Restrictions On Sale of Contaminated Land

The Environmental Protection Agency has relaxed restrictions on selling some land contaminated with PCB's for redevelopment, reversing a 25-year-old policy.

According to an internal memorandum issued in mid-August, the agency will no longer prohibit the sale of PCB-contaminated land unless the property is severely poisoned. The memorandum was first reported in today's USA Today.

Robert E. Fabricant, whose resignation as general counsel of the environmental agency is effective on Wednesday, wrote that the old policy was "an unnecessary barrier to economic redevelopment" and that it might "actually delay the cleanup of contaminated properties as well."

Lisa Harrison, an agency spokeswoman, said: "Right now, PCB sites may be sitting unused and undeveloped because this prohibition on the sale or transfer of PCB's was a disincentive to property transfers."

Ms. Harrison added, "By reducing the obstacle, we can increase the number of properties cleaned up and reused."

But environmental groups and some agency employees say smaller abandoned sites contaminated by PCB's could fall through the cracks more easily under the new policy.

"There is a pattern developing where E.P.A. is making it easier to redevelop contaminated sites at the expense of public health," said Julie Wolk, an environmental health advocate from the U.S. Public Interest Research Group.

PCB's, or polychlorinated biphenyls, are toxic substances that take a long time to break down in the environment. They are known to cause neurological and immunodeficiency development disorders in children.

Environmental agency employees say that the 500 or so most severely PCB- contaminated sites, like land along the Hudson River that was contaminated by the General Electric Company, fall under the federal Superfund law and will not be affected by the change in agency policy.

But the agency does not know how many other contaminated sites there are, in part because there is no uniform requirement for property owners to notify the agency of the PCB contamination.

Ms. Wolk said the agency's online database listed only eight PCB-contaminated sites in New York that are not Superfund sites.

Environmental groups and some environmental agency employees estimate, however, that several thousand contaminated sites around the country are not under the purview of the Superfund law.

Some agency employees say the longstanding restriction on the sale of PCB- contaminated land served as an incentive for owners to notify the agency of the contamination and clean up their property. Notifying the agency before the sale of contaminated property and getting the agency's approval of a cleanup plan helped protect sellers from liability after the sale. About 100 sites a year came up for agency approval, employees say.

"You take away the incentive to make it happen now, there is a big difference in what gets cleaned up and how quickly," Ms. Wolk said. "You use an extra layer of protection which says that unless E.P.A. approves a good cleanup plan for it, it doesn't get sold."

Some employees say that the only way for the agency to force the cleanup of these smaller contaminated sites now will be through more cumbersome enforcement actions and settlement negotiations.

The production of PCB's was banned in 1977, and their distribution was banned the following year.