Review of PCB level in Tanapag sought • EPA, DEQ officials in Hawaii to hammer out cleanup criteria

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Division of Environmental Quality will meet today with the U.S. Army Corps in Hawaii to possibly come up with a cleanup criteria in Tanapag village and Cemetery 2 amid contamination of polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB).

Norman Lovelace, program manager at EPA Region 9, said he will press with the Army Corps officials the importance of carrying out a cleanup of the cemetery before Nov. 1 as demanded by the village residents during last week’s public hearing.

Mr. Lovelace said he is optimistic that the cemetery, which has been ordered closed by the governor, will be cleared of PCB contamination as soon as possible. “It will be done and it should be done because that’s what the people want,” he said.

The meeting in Hawaii was prompted by an assessment on the PCB contamination in Tanapag village conducted in December 1999 by Ramon Mendoza, environmental engineer, and Patrick Wilson, toxicologist, both from the U.S. EPA Region IX, showed the village has not been cleaned 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.

“We recommended specific levels which the Army Corps used and evaluated those levels against the cleanup policy of TSCA. We made those recommendations after undergoing a scientific process,” said Mr. Wilson.

Results of EPA’s review only bolstered earlier suspicions by residents that the village is still contaminated with the cancer-causing chemicals.

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

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

The review also revealed that the village has not been remediated by the Army Corps following federal PCB regulations as stated in the Army Corps work plans. In fact, several sites appear to have been closed before the cleanup was completed.

Tanapag residents expressed concern to US EPA the possibility that fish and crabs harvested in the village are safe for consumption as they questioned earlier cleanup conducted by the Army Corps.

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.

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