PCBs and Volatilization

by Mitch Rice
March 6. 1997
from the Bloomington Voice

We all know that Clear Creek is highly contaminated by PCBs, the State has rated it at Level 5 - no fish should be eaten from Clear Creek at anytime for any reason, the fish are that dangerous to consume.

So we know the water is polluted, especially the sediments - PCBs bind easily to the clay, but are not very soluble in water. But did you how that PCBs are also highly volatile? That is, they evaporate easily. If water is highly contaminated with PCBs, and it is turbulent [as is the case at the Illinois Central Springs whenever there is a hard rain], then PCBs enter the atmosphere. You can test this for yourself by standing near the stream that issues from the ICC Springs. Take a whiff, that slightly sweet smell, the same smell that used to come from carbonless copy paper, is PCBs.

The following quote is from a paper entitled "Review of PCB Levels in the Environment", published by the EPA Office of Toxic Substances, dated January 1976. "The transfer of PCB's from water to the air environment may be significantly faster than expected when considering that these compounds have a high molecular weight, low solubilities, and low vapor pressures. These compounds exhibit very high activity coefficients in aqueous solutions resulting in .... high evaporation rates. The rates are relatively insensitive to temperature" This means that PCBs are evaporating from the ICC springs [and the other springs that are connected to the Lemon Lane karst system] both winter and summer, and we are breathing these vapors.

According to ATSDR's PCB ToxFaq, http://atsdr1.atsdr.cdc.gov:8080/tfacts17.html: "They [PCBs] enter air as solid or liquid aerosols or vapor and can stay in air more than 10 days. When in air, they can travel long distances in the wind. They move from air to soil and water when it snows or rains." According to the same document, there are four main routes of exposure:

1. Breathing workplace air (indoor air around electrical parts or outdoor air at waste sites)

2. Drinking water, skin contact with soil, or breathing air that is contaminated from nearby waste sites

3. Eating fatty foods such as fish, seafood, dairy, or fatty meats contaminated with PCBs

4. Breast milk from mothers exposed to PCBs.

So while we can avoid eating contaminated animals, how can we stop breathing? And since all Bloomington mothers breath our contaminated air, is it safe for our babies to drink their mother's milk? This is a question I have been trying to get an honest answer for since we first moved to Bloomington with our baby daughter. You now have some of the relevant information, what do you think? Want to learn more? Visit the COPA website at http://copa.org, or send an email with your questions to: info@copa.org.

CIC

"The Citizen's Information Committee (CIC) was formed in November, 1989 to provide an avenue for information sharing and dialogue between U.S. EPA Region 5 and the community. The committee is composed of private citizens and representatives of local and state government, environmental activist groups, Indiana University, the legal community, medical and health professionals, and the Bloomington Chamber of Commerce. The committee meets monthly to discuss issues of immediate community concern regarding the local PCB sites. Committee members are charged with the responsibility of disseminating information to their constituents and providing a meeting space and a chairperson for the committee. "

This description of the CIC (from 1989) now needs some revision. We now meet about every six weeks, rather than monthly. Our next meeting is in the Hooker Room in City Hall on March 6 at 7:00 PM, and you are invited to attend. We are actively soliciting new members to sit on the committee. If you are a member of any local group that wishes to know more of the technical details concerning the process of cleaning up our PCB contamination, please come to the meeting, and we will seat you. The idea is that you become educated about the current happenings, and then you can take this information back to your respective groups. Though CIC members do ask questions and give some feedback to the EPA (and the representatives of the governmental parties), please understand that the CIC is not intended to be a forum for community input into the process; rather the intention is to distribute information to the community about the current status of the cleanup, and to explicate the more technical details of the process.

However at our last meeting, we were informed by the EPA that at the national level there is a push to rename committees such as ours the "Citizen's Advisory Committees". At our last meeting this change in name was strongly resisted by our chairman, Michael List, who rightly pointed out that the CIC has no advisory role in the process, and that to change our name to the Citizen's Advisory Committee would be misleading. There are many community members who would welcome an input mechanism into the process, but the CIC is not that mechanism. Right now the average citizen's only option for input is through City or County government, so let your government officials know what you think about the process.