PCB cleanup soon to start at former Ward Transformer site
USA, North Carolina: In the next few weeks, environmental scientists will start tests to determine how much cleanup work will be needed to remove PCBs in the stream beds and lake bottoms near the former Ward Transformer plant in Raleigh.
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USA, North Carolina: In the next few weeks, environmental scientists will start tests to determine how much cleanup work will be needed to remove PCBs in the stream beds and lake bottoms near the former Ward Transformer plant in Raleigh.
Persistence makes PCBs a public health threat as the chemicals become concentrated in fat tissues as they climb the food chain. Instead of dissolving in streams and groundwater, PCB molecules usually attach themselves to soil particles and then lie undisturbed for years in streambeds without breaking down.
PCBs were used in insulating oils to keep power transformers from overheating. Ward Transformer began operation in 1964 at its plant near RDU, eventually employing 50 workers to repair and recycle transformers for customers including the electric utility now known as Duke Energy Progress.
Years have passed since new toxins washed into the streams from Ward Transformer. Now the EPA is ready to address the PCBs that have been found over the past decade in the creeks and lakes. According to plans the EPA outlined in 2008, workers will dig out the worst sediment contamination in streams between the Ward site and Lake Crabtree.
Before it went out of business years ago, Ward Transformer paid the state $3.5 million to help clean up the highway shoulders that were sprayed with PCBs in 1978. Duke Energy Progress, PCS Phosphate and CONSOL Energy are partners in a trust set up to pay most of the $82 million cost for the cleanup work so far.
Other former customers of Ward Transformer will pay an expected $6 million for the downstream work getting underway with testing this summer and streambed excavation next year.
Source: News Observer
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