PCB CONTAMINATION EPA to conduct risk assessment in May

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will carry out its own risk assessment study in Tanapag in the first week of May to find out whether the northern coastal village in Saipan is free from contamination of polychlorinated biphenyls, according to Norman Lovelace, manager for Pacific Insular Area Program.

Although the U.S. Army Corps. has already conducted a clean-up of the village, residents have demanded that new testings be made to find out if the area is safe.

As part of the study, soil samples in different areas of the village where the capacitors were formerly located will be taken. EPA will look at the sites in the village which the Army Corps did not include in the remediation process because they believed that the level of PCB concentration was too low.

EPA will also collect sediment samples from the drainage particularly from the area where the suspected dumpsite of the military was found in Upper Tanapag. Aside from this, sludge samples from the petroleum tanks that are still existing in the village will be taken as well as water samples from wells in the village and the
Lower Base area.

“It is just to confirm what levels of clean-up did they achieve and if there is any remaining contamination that we should be concerned about,” said Mr. Lovelace.

Other samples to be taken will include fishes from nearshore areas, land crabs, chicken eggs and other local food that are eaten in the community.

About six people from EPA and private contractors will be arriving here to carry out the risk assessment survey. The collection of samples will take at least two to three weeks.

A field test kit will be used during the survey which will give at least some indication on the presence of PCB but EPA will still send most of the samples off-island for 100 percent reliability. Experts in California will validate further the results of the tests before they are released in August of this year.

The environmental problem in Tanapag began when an unknown quantity of ceramic capacitors containing PCBs were shipped to Saipan in the 1960s by the Department of Defense. These contained Arochlor 1254 and PCB oil and were manufactured by Cornell-Dublier Electronics as part of the Defense Department’s Nike-Zeus contract for its
ballistic missile early warning system radar installation.

When DEQ was notified about its presence in 1988, the electrical capacitors in the village were already being used as barricades, boundary markers, road blocks for driveways, windbreaks for barbecue sites and headstones.

Some capacitors were even found open as their inner phenolic linings were used to decorate rooftops and cemeteries in the village. DEQ had the contents of the capacitors analyzed by the Guam Environmental Protection Agency which revealed that these contained 100 percent PCB oil.