PCB cleanup set to begin in July

Twelve years after the presence of electric capacitors containing polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) were discovered in Tanapag village, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will finally carry out an emergency removal of PCB contamination in Cemetery No. 2 (Lower Base Cemetery) between July and August of this year.

The Army Corps will also clean up seven areas in the village which were found to have high contamination level of the toxic chemical, according to Ike Cabrera, director of the Division of Environmental Quality.

The commitment of the Army Corps was relayed to the DEQ chief on Friday by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency after a meeting with the Army Corps officials in Hawaii.

“The target is for the cemetery and the village to be cleared of PCB contamination before November 1, All Souls’ Day,” Mr. Cabrera said. Representatives of U.S. EPA will be on site to oversee the whole cleanup project of the Army Corps.

Mr. Cabrera said the Army Corps is now reviewing three options in the PCB cleanup:

• put the contaminated soil inside a synthetic liner;

• ship the contaminated soil off-island; and

• implement bio remediation to treat the soil.

However, shipping the contaminated soil to the U.S. mainland may pose a problem since it is prohibited under federal law.

The seven sites in the village, which include the former Headstart School and the baseball field, were chosen after a recent risk assessment survey conducted by U.S. EPA using field test kits showed these areas still have high PCB contamination.

During Friday’s meeting, the Army Corps agreed to the PCB contamination level recommended by EPA and DEQ, which should be between .22 ppm (parts per million) to 1.1 ppm. to prevent health effects associated with exposure to the highly toxic chemical.

The recommended acceptable PCB contamination level was based on the study conducted by EPA Region 9 Environmental Engineer Ramon Mendoza and Toxicologist Patrick Wilson on the cleanup record of the Army Corps in the village which revealed that it was not conducted up to acceptable human health risk-based surface soil levels, nor in accordance with the PCB Spill Cleanup Policy under the Toxic Substances Control Act.

Based on the EPA’s review, the cleanup level criteria for surface oil at Tanapag village and Cemetery 2 are not adequate to protect public health, especially from non-cancer effects.

In a move to ensure the protection of public’s health, both Mr. Mendoza and Mr. Wilson recommended the implementation of human health risk-based surface soil cleanup levels.

Gov. Pedro P. Tenorio and Lt. Gov. Jesus R. Sablan have demanded an extensive cleanup of PCB contamination in Tanapag after residents expressed fears that the high rate of cancer diseases among the people in the village may be due to exposure to the highly toxic chemical.

CNMI Representative to Washington Juan N. Babauta has strongly lobbied to federal officials the need for immediate action on the environmental and health problem that has plagued the village since the late ’60s.

A health clinic has been established in the village to allow those who have lived in Tanapag to undergo medical evaluation. EPA recently finished collecting 450 samples of soil, water, food and fish in the village for PCB analysis which will be conducted by a laboratory in the U.S. mainland.

PCB contamination in the village began when unknown number of capacitors were left behind by the U.S. military in the 1960s. The ceramic capacitors were originally purchased by the U.S. Department of Defense and used on Kwajalein Atoll as part of the Nike Zeus missile radar system. DEQ, however, was only notified about the presence of the electrical capacitors in 1988.

These capacitors were later on used in the village as boundary markers, road blocks for driveways, windbreaks for barbecue sites and headstones. Some capacitors were found open as their inner phenolic linings were used to decorate rooftops and cemeteries in the village.

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