ANDERSON, Ind. —
Three city Water Pollution Control employees were disciplined recently after failing to notify supervisors that dried sludge used as fertilizer by some area farmers contained elevated levels of banned PCBs.
Superintendent Nara Manor discovered the reporting error last month as she was preparing the utility’s annual report to the Indiana Department of Environmental Management.
Manor immediately notified IDEM of those results and tested samples from all farm fields where sludge, or biosolids, was spread last year.
No PCBs were found in those tests; however, higher levels of the substance were discovered in a stockpile at one farm, she said. That material was collected and hauled to the Randolph Farms Landfill in Modoc,
The higher levels only showed up in lab tests for July, August and September. Manor does not know why she wasn’t informed of the results. “I know that the employees who were responsible had been to training on this,” she said.
Since the discovery, she has revised test methods and updated and reviewed laboratory procedures.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency’s website, PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls are part of a family of man-made organic chemicals that were manufactured from 1929 until 1979, at which time they were banned because they caused cancer and other serious non-cancer health problems in animals.
“PCBs were used in hundreds of industrial and commercial applications including electrical, heat transfer, and hydraulic equipment; as plasticizers in paints, plastics, and rubber products; in pigments, dyes and carbonless copy paper,” according to the EPA website.
The highest PCB levels found in sampling was 16 parts per million, while the allowable limit for the utility’s permitted use is 2 parts per million, said George Ritchotte, a senior environmental manager for IDEM.
That’s far below federal guidelines, which consider PCB concentrations of 50 parts per million hazardous.
Ritchotte said while he’s concerned about Anderson’s higher PCB levels during those three months last year, they weren’t high enough to pose a health risk to humans or animals.
In subsequent testing, the wastewater treatment plant was not able to recreate the highest PCB levels that were found in the original tests, Manor said. Testing continues, however, and the distribution of biosolids has been suspended.
How the PCBs got into the wastewater treatment plant remains a mystery.
“We believe (the PCBs were) something the utility received through its plumbing,” Ritchotte said.
“We are not sure of the source,” Anderson Mayor Kevin Smith said, but the detection did follow a sewer-cleaning operation.
“Nara Manor took all the appropriate steps to safeguard public health,” Smith said, adding that he supports her disciplinary measures.
“She is the director. An issue like that should be brought to her attention forthwith, just as she was required to bring it forthwith to the attention of state officials,” he said.
Contact Stuart Hirsch: 640-4861, stu.hirsch@heraldbulletin.com
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Superintendent of Water Pollution Control Nara Manor gives city engineer Mike Spyers a tour of the city's new lab facilities during a ribbon cutting. Don Knight
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Elevated levels of PCBs found
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