GE Told to Suspend Part of Anaheim Operations

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has determined that General Electric has seriously mishandled toxic waste that endangers workers at its plant here and ordered the company to suspend part of its operations, officials said Thursday.

The EPA took the unusually strong action this week after discovering that the plant’s grounds and equipment are contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs.

General Electric is one of the nation’s largest handlers of PCBs, which were banned from production in the United States in 1979 because of their toxicity. The chemicals were widely used in electrical equipment. Workers at the Anaheim plant drain the PCBs from old transformers.

GE Anaheim plant manager Mel Dinkel said Thursday in a written statement that the company believes it has not violated the law.

“We are in contact with the EPA to better understand its findings,” Dinkel said. “It is GE’s intention to both cooperate completely with the EPA and its investigation and to continue to operate our facility in a safe manner.”

The suspension means GE Apparatus Service Center, which employs 94 people, can accept no more shipments of PCB waste until it corrects the violations, officials said.

The EPA mounted an investigation last fall after GE employees complained that the company permitted unsafe practices.

Four GE workers told The Times that their supervisors advised them to follow health and safety laws only when a corporate or government inspector was present.

The Anaheim plant is the only facility in Southern California--and one of the largest in the West--that removes PCBs from electrical equipment. It handles about 2 million pounds of the waste per year, and its customers, including many military bases, are spread throughout the West.