PCB CONTAMINATION Health problems spread in the village

Seventy-five-year old Miguel Magofna has spent most of his life fishing in Tanapag, a village located in the northwestern coast of Saipan. Life was just doing fine until one day, he stepped on oil coming out of a leaking electrical capacitor buried along the beach while fishing.

Four days after the incident, Magofna’s feet became so itchy, he started scratching them so hard until they bled. He realized something was wrong when the skin disorder started spreading all over his body — from head to toe.

“Sometimes I cannot walk because my toes and joints are so painful,” he said. In search for cure, he tried using different kinds of ointment. But it only gave him temporary relief. When a U.S. Navy doctor examined his skin problem, he was told there is no cure for his disease.

During the time he was undergoing treatment, Magofna asked some of his doctors if they know something about the effects of polychlorinated biphenyl, a cancer-causing chemical. Some people in the village were already talking about the health hazards due to exposure to PCBs contained in the capacitors. Unfortunately, not one of his doctors knew anything about PCBs.

Magofna is not alone in suspecting that the diseases plaguing the village were due to PCB. “What else would have caused the people in the village to get sick and start dying if not for this chemical that was left to us many years ago?” he asked.
Deadly

PCBs are a group of manufactured organic chemicals that contain 209 individual chlorinated chemicals (known as congeners). They have been used widely as coolants and lubricants in transformers, capacitors and other electrical equipment.

According to the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, people exposed to PCBs in the air for a long time have experienced irritation of the nose, lungs, and skin.

It is not known yet whether PCBs may cause birth defects or reproductive problems in people. Some studies have shown that babies born to women who consumed PCB-contaminated fish had problems with their nervous system at birth. Still, there are no conclusive findings to blame these problems to exposure to PCBs and other toxic chemicals.

Manufacturing of PCB was stopped in the United States in 1977 because of evidences pointing to its harmful effects on the environment and one’s health.

Experiments conducted on animals show that PCBs caused cancer as well as affected their immune, reproductive, nervous and endocrine systems.

Studies in humans have raised further concerns regarding the cancer-causing potential of PCBs.

The capacitors were left on the island in the 1960s but the Division of Environmental Quality was only notified about their presence seven years ago. \

Angry

Looking back, Magofna said he now believes that the leaking capacitors on the beach caused the fishes to die on several occasions in the village. “I just saw the small and big fish floating near the beach when I went out fishing,” he said. Magofna now worries a lot that his family might have gotten the PCB too as they ate the fishes that might have been contaminated with the hazardous substance. He said PCB leak had reached the shores.

Tanapag residents have condemned the failure of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to clean up the area of the toxic substance. They pressed the Army Corps to immediately clear the village of the toxic wastes the American military had left.

“I am very angry because we only found out a few years ago that we have been exposed to this chemical for a long time,” said Crispin M. Pangelinan, also a fisherman in the village.

Pangelinan believes that his brother and father died of cancer due to exposure to PCB. They all played baseball in the area where the capacitors were used as barricades and bleachers.

Just like the rest of the people in the community, Ben Camacho, 32 would comfortably watch baseball games in the village every Sunday on top of the capacitors not knowing the effect of too much exposure from PCB. Camacho used to play with the other kids near the Headstart Center, where other leaking capacitors were found.

In 1989, Camacho started feeling sick — rashes and blisters were all over his body. At one point, it became so severe that his face swelled like a watermelon.

For a long time, the doctors did not know what was wrong with him. but one day, he was told he has leprosy. “I isolated myself because I was embarrassed to show myself to the people. Although they can no longer change what has happened to me, I want to make sure that I am already well for the future of my family,” said Camacho.