Fact Sheet 10 PCBs In the Air - What are the Risks? By Sean Bushart, Ph.D. Postdoctoral Research Associate SUNY Research Foundation Wadsworth Center Albany, NY **************************************** Introduction by Andy Mele, Clearwater Environmental Director When I was researching my book, "Polluting For Pleasure," in 1992, I was trying to understand where the millions of pounds of hydrocarbons coming from the tailpipes of motorboats were going. They weren't showing up in sediments, and they were being found in bulk water at trace levels only. Then, more or less by accident, I read an article in Natural History, the glossy general-readership magazine published by the Museum of Natural History, entitled "Where the Sea Meets the Sky." It was about a little-known realm called the sea-surface microlayer, and it sent me in a direction I had never even considered. After finding (no small feat) and reading the author's scientific papers I realized that I had discovered the fate of the missing hydrocarbons. I literally owe my book to one scientist's willingness to write for a popular audience. One day in late September, during a visit to the Wadsworth Laboratories in Albany, I challenged post-doctoral research scientist Sean Bushart to do the same thing; to take a risk, ignoring the scientific community's distaste for popular writing, and describe the disturbing new revelations about PCB volatility in 1,000 words or less for an educated general audience - Navigator readers. I think you will find that Sean has done the job remarkably well. It's a big subject, with big implications. The biggest, in my mind, is that it looks as if our beloved Hudson River, site of the largest PCB spill on the planet, is exporting PCBs to the rest of the world via the same pathway Sean describes: evaporation. Those of you who attended Scenic Hudson's "Breaking the Chain" conference last May, the product of a joint Clearwater/Scenic Hudson grant from the W. Alton Jones Foundation, will remember Dr. David Carpenter telling us, for the first time, about PCB volatility and the inhalation pathway. Consider this article the next chapter in that story. There are certain to be many more. **************************************** The article by Sean Bushart As members of the Hudson Valley community most of us enjoy the Hudson River as a resource throughout the year. We run and bicycle along riverside paths; we enjoy spectacular sunsets and views from our many riverfront parks; and we attend festivals, concerts, and fireworks displays alongside the river. Many of us even live alongside the river. In all of our enjoyment of the Hudson, we tend to forget about the toxic chemicals such as PCBs that are still present in the sediments and water of the river. It is easy to be complacent about these PCBs and other toxins. Most of us don't eat fish from the river, or have a lot of direct contact with the river's water or sediments. We do, however, breathe the air when we are near the river, and this air most often contains elevated concentrations of PCBs. Despite the potential for human exposure from PCBs emitted to the air from the Hudson River, little is known about the degree of this exposure to the population, or about the risks associated with breathing PCBs. PCBs (short for Polychlorinated Biphenyls) were originally introduced into the upper Hudson River from two GE plants, located in Hudson Falls and Fort Edward, NY from 1946-1977, and then accumulated behind the Fort Edward Dam. When the dam was removed in 1973, the PCB contaminated sediments were released downstream, and are now deposited throughout the entire length of the lower Hudson River. PCBs have been linked to various health effects such as cancer, reproductive effects, skin disorders, and neurological disorders. In the complex question of how to treat PCB contaminated sediments, it was decided by the EPA and others that it would be best to leave most of them in place, as dredging would be a vast effort that would not only stir up more PCBs, but would pose a huge landfill problem. In addition, scientists discovered that bacteria living in the sediments had the ability to slowly transform some of these PCBs into other PCB forms. A recent study by the EPA and GE also indicates that PCBs may be much less of a cancer risk (from 2/3 to 1/20) than from what was previously thought. The overall picture, then, has been that the PCB problem in the Hudson River is slowly going away, and that risk to the public is minimal from PCB exposure. Several recent scientific discoveries, however, are challenging our complacency about having these hazardous chemicals in our backyard. In particular, we are learning more about the evaporation of Hudson River PCBs into the air, and about the possible health effects of those PCBs. The new interest in the release of PCBs into the air was triggered by researchers at SUNY Oswego who were working with PCB contaminated sediments from the St. Lawrence River. They found that when these wet sediments were air-dried, 14-23% of the PCBs evaporated into the surrounding air. We, at SUNY Albany and the NYS DOH, decided to see if we could repeat this with Hudson River sediments. Using tidal sediments from near Coeymans, NY, we found that 3-4% of the PCBs were lost to the air upon drying in one day, and that after rewetting the sediments and redrying them in the next day, another 3-4 % of the PCBs were lost. To us, this was startling, as it implied that every time wet sediments are dried, elevated levels of PCBs will be emitted into the air. This happens during every low tide, by storing dredged sediments, or during events such as the January 1996 flood. When we next went out to actual Hudson River sites that had exposed sediments and measured PCB concentrations in the air, we found elevated PCB levels similar to what we had seen in our lab experiments. What then, does this mean in terms of risk to people who come into contact with this air? Not surprisingly, we know very little about this type of exposure. Most research into PCB exposure from the Hudson River by the EPA and the DEC has focused on eating PCB- contaminated fish. It has been assumed that by putting restrictions on fish consumption from the river, we can control that risk. Why, then, can we clearly measure a PCB pattern that matches that of the river in people's blood who have grown up alongside the river, but who have never eaten fish from the river, or even come into direct contact with the river? Clearly there must be another PCB exposure route- such as inhalation- and clearly, we need to better understand what is happening. Our need to further understand how breathing PCBs effects us seems even more important now that we are gaining a better understanding of the health effects of PCBs. Although the recent EPA/GE study has determined that PCBs will cause cancer less often than what was previously thought, we can now more positively state that PCBs do cause cancer. In addition, according to Dr. David Carpenter, Dean of the School of Public Health at SUNY Albany, "PCBs have been linked to more than just cancer. In particular, they are known to mimic the female hormone estrogen, which could lead to reproductive effects such as lower sperm counts in men, and spontaneous abortion in women. PCBs may also have effects on behavior and the nervous system such as lowered IQs and learning deficits." Perhaps the most convincing evidence for the effects of PCBs on childhood learning development comes from the Jacobson study recently reported in the New England Journal of Medicine. This long-term investigation followed the intellectual development of children from birth to age 11 who were exposed to PCBs due to their mothers' consumption of contaminated fish from Lake Michigan before they were born. Loss of short term memory, lower average IQ scores, and lowered reading comprehension levels were all linked to PCB exposure. Currently the NYSDEC, USEPA, and the NYSDOH are undertaking a minimum of effort to determine if PCBs emitted from the Hudson River sediments (and from the river itself) pose a health risk to the people who live or recreate near the Hudson. More also needs to be done to determine if there is a link between PCB exposure and specific health effects such as breast cancer, hormone dysfunctions or learning disorders among the people that live in the Hudson River environment. Opponents of this type of research claim that these health effects would most likely be insignificant. While this may (hopefully) turn out to be true, wouldn't it be wiser to more fully understand how we are effected by breathing PCBs? It seems that this information would be particularly valuable if the river continues to be untreated for another generation. **************************************** Postscript After learning about inhalation of PCBs, Clearwater Environmental Director Andy Mele had his blood analyzed by the Wadsworth Laboratories, where Dr. Bushart is a research scientist. Andy has lived on the banks of the river for over 20 years, and is now concerned about his family's health even though they eat no Hudson River fish. At this writing only preliminary results are available, but they indicate that he may have between 6.5 and 7 parts per billion blood levels of PCBs, which translates to about 200 ppb (0.2 ppm) in his body fat. There are few benchmarks to go by, but lab technicians stated that his levels were at the high end of the scale they are used to seeing. Andy is a member of the research committee for a PCB and pesticide breast cancer study at The Fern Feldman Anolick Breast Center in Kingston, and the highest PCB levels seen there so far are 360 ppb - in a woman with malignant cancer. Andy comments: "So-called 'invisible' toxins come to life dramatically when you see the numbers and know they came from your own body. I am not happy to find these levels of a toxic chemical in my body, and I am deeply concerned about the probability of finding comparable levels in my family. I am thinking about my wife's endometriosis, which appeared a few years after we moved to the river, and about possible problems down the road for my daughter. Many critical body hormones - the chemical messengers that trigger key body function and development - operate at levels far, far lower than 6 or 7 ppb. I never gave anyone permission to put this stuff in my body, or in my family's body. It would be one thing if we had ignored the advisories and eaten Hudson River fish, but we haven't. Our only crime has been breathing." The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) recently turned down a funding request by Dr. Bushart and his colleagues for a large-scale study of PCB levels in Hudson River families. We can help them find alternate sources of funding by supporting this extremely critical research initiative. Please call or write: Bob Hinckley Public Affairs Group Executive Division NYS Department of Health Empire State Plaza Albany, NY 12237 (518) 474-7354 Tell Mr. Hinckley that you want to know whether or not it is safe to live in the Hudson Valley, and that answers will not be forthcoming until the research community can do its job.

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Updated 1/1/97