EPA Toughens Rules on PCBs in Transformers

The Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday ordered the nation’s landlords and utilities to remove thousands of electrical transformers containing PCB fluids, or the fluids themselves, from commercial buildings over the next five years.

In a major stiffening of rules covering PCB transformers, the agency also said it was requiring increased electrical protection of PCB transformers that did not have to be removed.

The net cost of complying with the rules was estimated at $400 million, said Denise Keehner, chief of the regulations branch in the EPA’s Office of Pesticides and Toxic Substances.

PCBs, polychlorinated biphenyl compounds, can cause cancer and other disorders in laboratory animals. If subjected to incomplete burning, they can form still other, more powerful causes of cancer such as the dioxin compounds and the polychlorinated dibenzofurans, which are known to cause anemia and other blood disorders.

From 1929 to 1977, PCB fluids were used as electrical insulators, including transformer cooling fluids, because of their high fire resistance. Manufacture of PCB fluids in the United States was banned in 1977.

Not Initially Covered

Use in enclosed transformers until recently had not been covered by EPA regulations.

But after fires in Binghamton, N.Y., Chicago and San Francisco, nearby areas were found contaminated with products of partial combustion of PCBs from ruptured transformers. To settle a lawsuit brought by environmental groups, the agency agreed to take another look at its rules. Several similar fires have taken place since then.

About 140,000 PCB transformers were still in service in 1981, and the EPA believes about 77,000 of those were in commercial buildings. Tony Anthony, spokesman for the power industry’s Edison Electric Institute, said utilities own about 18,000 of the PCB transformers in commercial buildings.

The rule applies only to commercial buildings, but that is defined to include almost everything except single-family homes and industrial buildings. Transformers covered are those within 98 feet of the building.