NCD980602163_19970107_Warren County PCB Landfill_SERB C_Email from Terry Bidleman to Dr. Bob Lewis-OCR

APRD .':\"ERL-RTP [4]001 :002 Ol :Oi :9i 12 :13 '5'919 5-11 0239 ___:==-----==--==--=~==-=-==
Post-It"' brand fax transmittal memo 7671 "01 page~ •
From: Terry Bidleman <[e-mail]>
To:
Date:
BOB-DR LEWIS <[e-mail].~ Fax i' ~ ( _ ;J J'" z / Fax# 7 / J--3 6 o)" 1ll/97 10:50am ~-=---"--'--~~-.:.._ _ __. _______ __,"'----
Subject: Re: N. C. PCB Landfill -Forwarded
Hello Bob,
Yes, I did get the package from Bill Meyer shortly before Christmas. 6e
assured that I will pick up the gauntlet and respond to il Bill did not
give a time frame in which he expected a response, but I hope that this can
wait until February. January is the month in which we at AES submit
proposals for next year's work and I am also gone for a week to an arctic
workshop. Finally, I am writing a report on long-range transport of
pesticides in North America for a NAFT A group called Commission for
Environmental Cooperation, and this is also due at the end of the month!
A quick look at Hirschhorn's comments and re-reading of your paper indicates
that several issues are involved. One is the quality of the data and its
interpretation in the ES& T paper, and a separate one is the follow-up (or
lack of it) by the state in continuing to monitor the landfill. I see these
as two separate issues, although Hirschhorn wants to link them.
Essentially your paper reports measurements of PCBs around the Warren Co.
landfill which were made with LV samplers. Because of the low air volumes.
limits of detection were high and in fact most of the measurements were
below the LOD. There were a few hits, and Hirschhorn is placing a lot of
emphasis on them.
Here is why I think a lot of Hirshhorn's statements are a buncti of hooey:
a) The analyses in the 1985 paper were done by packed-column GC and
apparently without silicic acid or florisil separation of PCBs from OC
pesticides.-Thus it is quite likely that there could have been interference
from other OCs, especially toxaphene and chlordane. Hirschhorn makes a big
case of differences between 1242 and 1260, but from the chromatogram in Fig.
3 it is clear that 1242 would have been difficult to quantify except in
high-level samples --a good portion of it is masked by the solvent front.
For these reasons I can't see making a big deal out of the differences in
the two PCB mixtures, and I agree that the ambient air concentrations
reported are upper limits. The "false positive" results may well have been
due to interfering pesticides. -
b) Hirshhorn's comments about the landfill being a source do not take into
account other potential sources of atmospheric PCBs. The biggest source -
and the likely reason why ambient levels exceeded those predicted from the
dispersion model --is volatilization from contaminated soils in the region.
Kevin Jones argues that outgassing of PCBs from soils is probably the most
important source to the atmosphere in the U.K. (Internal. J. Environ. Anal.
Chem. 59: 167-178, 1995). Also, a large area of NC was contaminated by the
PCB spills. Although a lot of cleanup was done, surely all the contaminated
soil was not removed. The measurements by Kathy Macleod show levels of 1260
in the air at the contaminated roadside sites before and after cleanup
(paper by Kathy and yourself in the ASTM volume 721). Concentrations at
roadside areas after cleanup were in the range of the highest levels found
in ambient air which were reported in the ES&T paper. So -it is it likely
that the ambient PCBs came not from the landfill but from contaminated soils
in Warren and surrounding counties?
c) On one issue I will agree with Hirshhorn: A follow-up study of the
landfill and indeed of ambient air PCB levels in the region is needed. We
Ol :Oi :9i 12:1-1 '5'919 5.U 0239 APRD : ~"ERL-RTP
know a lot more about PCB properties now and congener-specific analysis is
now routine. Sophisticated statistical techniques such as principal
component analysis can be used to discriminate PCB patterns in soil and air
(see Grundy et al., ES& T 30, 2661, 1996). It is sad that Hirshhom is more
intent on assigning blame than on investigating the problem.
I need to write this up in a more organized manner and respond to other
issues raised by Hirshhom, but as explained in the first paragraph, I am
having difficulty finding time to do it right now. If Bill Meyer really
needs a response before the end of the month, I will provide one. But if he
can hold off until early February, it would certainly lighten my load.
Please let me know the situation.
We are continuing work on OCs in air, with a focus on the Great Lakes and
the Arctic. Some current projects are:
a) investigating sources of OC pesticides to the Great Lakes. This involves
air sampling over Lake Superior and also in suspected source regions such as
Alabama and South Carolina. Present-day levels of toxaphene are much higher
in these states than over the Great Lakes!
b) Using enantiomers of pesticides to discriminate racemic and non-racemic
(soil) sources , working with Renee Falconer of Youngstown State. So far
this has been most successful for chlordane and heptachlor epoxide. From
enantiomeric patterns we can distinguish chlordane in soils from chlordane
that arises from termiticide use. Also, the heptachlor epoxide in air
appears to come from soil emissions rather than oxidation processes in the
atmosphere.
c) Air-water gas exchange and distribution of pesticides in the Arctic. We
now have good coverage of both the eastern and western Arctic Ocean and have
made estimates of gas exchange for HCHs and toxaphene. Concentrations these
pesticides are higher under the ice cap of the Canada Basin than anywhere
else in the world!
d) Finally, Tom Hamer is finishing his work on partitioning of PCBs and
other semivo\atiles to Chicago aerosols. This is actually a project that
was supported by you guys under a cooperative agreement. Tom finds that the
octanol/air partition coefficient may be an improvement over vapor pressure
for describing partitioning to urban particles. Also, we found substantial
concentrations of polych\oro-naphthaffines (PCNs) in Chicago air -up to a
third of PCB levels!
Best wishes,
Terry
>Content-Type: text/plain
>Content-Disposition: inline
>Terry,
>
>I especially need your he!p on this problem since Ron
>Hites returned the package to the State of North Carolina
>saying that he could not help. Attached is an e-mail I sent
>to Ron asking him to reconsider.
>
>Bob