PCBs Presence Confirmed in New Testing

State health officials said new test results available Thursday confirmed that cancer-causing PCBs are present at alarmingly high concentrations in automobile shredder waste at an Anaheim salvage yard.

With the latest battery of tests showing levels of PCBs at double the state limit, state toxics officials said Thursday that 38,000 tons of fine metal dust at Orange County Steel Salvage Inc. will have to be handled as an extremely hazardous waste.

But exactly what owner George Adams Jr. will be required to do with the waste he has been stockpiling in violation of state and local laws has not been determined.

“We just received these results this morning . . . and at this time we are evaluating a range of options,” Nestor Acedera, deputy chief for toxics cleanup for the state Department of Health Services, said Thursday.

Acedera said PCBs were found at levels exceeding the state limit in seven of 10 samples taken Jan. 24 at Orange County Steel Salvage. The results ranged from 19 parts per million to 101 parts per million. The state limit is 50 parts per million for solid materials.

Last month, five samples taken from Adams’ facility in late October were found to contain PCBs at levels higher than the limit. A second sampling was taken to confirm those findings before action was considered, health officials said.

PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, were widely used in electrical transformer insulation and hydraulic systems. Slow to break down in nature, they are considered highly toxic and are thought to cause cancer in humans. Their manufacture was discontinued in the United States in 1976, and their disposal is strictly regulated.

Transformers Suspected

Acedera said Adams was informed of the findings Thursday. Adams could not be reached late Thursday for comment.

Acedera said health officials suspect the contamination was caused by the shredding of electrical transformer cases laced with PCBs.

“It is likely that automobiles that came in (to Orange County Steel) had some transformers mixed up in them,” Acedera said Thursday.

Adams has strongly denied the practice and vowed to have independent tests performed if PCBs turned up in the second set of samples.

“He could be right,” Acedera conceded. “But at this point, the only thing that we know of that could be the source of PCBs are the transformers.”

At the moment, Acedera said, the stockpiled waste--known in the industry as “fluff”--does not appear to be an immediate public health threat. But he said his staff will assess the stability of the waste today as work begins on a containment and cleanup plan.

Enforcement action against Adams for storing the material without a hazardous waste permit may also be considered, Acedera said.

More Testing Due

Acedera said he views the finding of PCBs in shredder waste at Orange County Steel Salvage as “atypical” of the industry as a whole. But, in part because low levels of PCBs were found in fluff residue at a Terminal Island automobile shredding yard last year, Acedera said tests would be conducted on fluff at other companies.

Industry officials have been battling to ease disposal restrictions on shredder waste since the classification of fluff as marginally hazardous waste because of its levels of lead oxide and other metals.

Dennis Valentine, Sacramento lobbyist for the scrap metal industry, said he was “just astounded” by the discovery of PCBs in shredder waste.

“There is nothing in an automobile that is going to give you PCBs,” said Valentine, who helped push through legislation last year that permitted industry to take shredder waste to ordinary landfills.

Findings ‘in Contradiction’

Sen. Marian Bergeson (R-Newport Beach), who carried that legislation, said Thursday that if PCBs are found to be in shredder waste “it is very much in contradiction of what was said in the committee hearings.”

Bergeson said state health officials had given her no indication that PCBs were a new concern, although her office had been in frequent contact regarding the auto shredder residue.

She said the findings heighten her concern that the 38,000 tons of waste stockpiled in Anaheim should not be allowed to remain much longer. “The concern there has been the . . . fire hazard it poses,” she said. “It is necessary to get that pile out of there.”