NCD980602163_19961218_Warren County PCB Landfill_SERB C_PCB - Air Sampling Results-OCR

State of North Carolina
Department of Environment,
Health and Natural Resources
Division of Solid Waste Management
James B. Hunt, Jr., Governor
Jonathan B. Howes, Secretary
William L. Meyer, Director
MEMORANDUM
TO: Luanne Williams
FROM: Bill M~yer~
DATE: December 18, 1996
SUBJECT: PCB -Air Sampling Results
Thanks for your 12/9/96 response.
Section 3 -1st sentence -"typical background"
R'A
DEHNR
I would delete this sentence since Section 5 .4-1 of the attachment states, "levels
from one location cannot be compared with levels from another because of
differing emission sources".
With regard to your voice mail of 12/16 with the new/latest EPA report on
tox. equivalent of PCB 's. There are two issues here:
(I) source of PCB's (fingerprint) unless the separate AROCLOR(s) is identified,
or ratios determined it will not allow identification of source( s) ( or elimination of
sources) and we could end up making the wrong decision. This issue is not a
health issue but one of common sense and we will continue to identify PCB' s by
specific AROCLORs and use totals for exposure determinations, if that is the
standard;
(2) if totals (PCB's) only are used for health determinations, I assume
that all the AROCLORs would still be determined (since they occur as different
peaks) and then totaled? It is also interesting that toxicity of all AROCLORs
would be considered equivalent since 1260 can be biologically degraded
anaerobically but not aerobically and the reverse is true for the lower chlorine
saturated PCBs. Even bug physiology tells us they are different. Then we might
not be as smart as the bugs.
C:wpfiles/pcblf71-willia.mem
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