NCD980602163_19820505_Warren County PCB Landfill_SERB C_Chemical Week - Bugs tame hazardous spills and dumpsites-OCR

Philip W. Spraker
Technical Manager
Sybron Chemical Division
P.O. Box 808, Salem, Virginia 24153
[phone] [phone]
Telex: 843407 or 6851083
I
[phone] Biomass Engineering •m
MR. TONY NASSEF, P.E.
District Manager
P.O. Box 766, Gonzalez, FL 32560
POLV BAC C O R P O R A T I O N
Bugs tame hazardous
spills and dumpsites
On Mar. 25, a vandal opened a valve on a
railroad tank car in Ukiah, Calif., spill-
ing 20,000 gal of formaldehyde a'.nd con-
taminating the ground around the car
and the nearby Russian River. As of last
week, mutant bacteria had reduced the
residual formaldehyde in the final stage
of the soil cleanup from 1,000 parts per
million to under 50 ppm after 15 days of
treatment. This type of treatment is a
good indication that the use of mutant
bacteria may be coming of age in the
treatment of hazardous chemical spills
and abandoned hazardous waste sites.
These bugs have for some time been
used on spills of oil and petroleum prod-
ucts. But with the huge number of aban-
doned hazardous-waste sites around the
country looming as a vast future market
for their creations, biotechnology firms
have been working to develop new
strains of microorganisms that can ·
Hardy mutant bacteria
detoxify soll contaminated
v;Uh complex materials
readily handle chemical wastes that are
more complex and more toxic.
"It's the most effective approach in
terms of ultimate disposal that we
have," says Thomas G. Zitrides, presi-
dent of Polybac Corp. (Allentown, Pa.),
one of the largest firms in this fledgling
industry. Zitrides, whose firm made the
bacteria used on the Ukiah spill, main-
tains that specialized microorganisms
can degrade a great variety of hazardous
organic compounds. And, he says, "since
the microorganisms [completely] destroy
many hazardous materials, this tech-
nique eliminates the possibility of a con-
tingent liability'' arising from the pres-
ence of a residue from a lesser degree of ·
detoxification.
Most recently, Polybac's microorgan-
isms have been used to provide· residual
cleanup of soil contaminated with pen-
tachlorophenol, a tough chemical to bio-
degrade. And Zitrides says his firm soon
will demonstrate the ability of mutant
bacteria to detoxify polychlorinated bi-
phenyls (PCBs) in a test sanctioned by
the Environmental Protection Agency.
Further, he says, the bacteria can be
used on not just crude oil and fuel oil, as
is common in the oil business, but also
on other aliphatic and aromatic hydro-
carbons, halogenated aliphatics and aro-
matics, phenols such as ortho-chlorophe-
nol, and cyanides and nitriles.
"The unfortunate thing is that so
many [hazardous waste] cases involve
chemical soups-mixtures of all kinds of
chemicals,'; says R.B. Grubbs, general
manager of the environmental cultures
division of Flow Laboratories (Engle-
wood, N.J.). With pure chemicals, like
those ofteri involved in rail car spills, he
explains, it is relatively easy to develop a
bug to do the job.
However, it is not always harder
to tackle a complex waste by bio-
technical means. Sometimes "mix-
tures can make biodegradation of
the chemicals easier," Grubbs
says. "Sometimes we can induce
'co-metabolism,' where the enzyme
produced in breaking down one
chemical will aid in breaking down
the second."
A temperate view. Most company
executives who are responsible for
emergency cleanup programs, and
companies in the cleanup business,
temper their enthusiasm for a bio-
technological approach to hazard-
ous-waste cleanup. "It's not going
. to solve all the problems, but it
could be very useful," says Donald
R. Fuchs, superintendent of waste-
treatment operations at American
Cyanamid's Bound Brook, N.J.,
plant. And an environmental spe-
cialist with Rohm & Haas says
only that "after a major spill has
been cleaned up, there may be
some practicality in using bacteria
to treat the residue in the
ground."
At O.H. Materials, a Findlay, 0.,
waste-treatment company, there is some
outright skepticism over the role of bio-
technology in the cleanup of abandoned
hazardous waste sites. The complexity of
the chemicals and the surrounding envi-
ronment can pose a threat to the suc-
cessful use of bacteria. Therefore, "the
effort required to analyze a major [haz-
ardous waste] site should not be taken
lightly," says Walter C. Studabaker,
O.H. Materials' director of technical ser-
vices.
Most biotechnology entrepreneurs
would agree. Philip W. Spraker, techni-
cal services manager for Sybron Bio-
~
chemical (Salem, Va.), which claims to
be Polybac's "arch competitor," main-
tains that in addition to having the spe-
cific bacteria for a particular applica-
tion, the most important thing is "appli-
cations technology." Spraker. says Sy~
bron's concentration on applications has
allowed it to be successful in the six
cases of chemical ground spill it has been
involved with. He says he tells potential
customers to find a biotechnology firm
that will work with them in applying
bacteria to a chemical spill. "Don't buy a
pig in a poke," he warns.
Tough sell. While caution or skepticism
among potential customers has made
biotreatment of wastes a tough sell ( CW,
Jan. 14, 1981, p. 40), it has not deterred
companies from entering the business.
There are half a dozen or more compa-
. nies providing microorganisms for the
Zitrides: an approach to "ultimate disposal."
treatment of chemical wastes. "The
potential is big," says Grubbs of Flow
Laboratories," but just how much busi-
ness there will eventually be in hazard-
ous wastes is a political question."
Grubbs says he is not "staking his
business on the potential hazardous-·
waste market." Rather, he says, he is
concentrating on conventional industrial
wastes. Business will come, he says,
"when the money comes and when the
regulatory people apply the thumb-
screws and demand that something be
done with hazardous wastes." But that
could be a long wait, given the new
anti-regulatory climate. D
May 5, 1982/Chemlcal Week 49