Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs)

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), heat-resistant and non-conductive liquids and resins, came into use in the 1930s as coolants and lubricants for various electrical equipment, including transformers, capacitors, vacuum pumps turbines, surface coatings, plasticizers, pesticide extenders and copy paper. By 1974, according to the U.S. government’s Report on Carcinogens, which says PCBs are “reasonably anticipated to be a human carcinogen, Monsanto Chemical Company manufactured 99 percent of the PCBs used by U.S. industry, producing 40 million pounds a year.

Studies in 1970s linked PCBs to cancer and other health problems. U.S. companies stopped manufacturing PCBs in 1977, and the Environmental Protection Agency banned most uses in 1979. But PCBs are extraordinarily persistent in the environment. Improper disposal of old PCB-laden equipment and industrial items continue to leach the chemical into soil and water, where they persist for decades and contaminate the marine food chain. According to EPA, from 1987 to 1993, PCB releases to land and water totaled over 74,000 pounds, much of them in California.

In 2003, the Environmental Working Group obtained documents showing that EPA’s cleanup agreement with Monsanto for PCB contamination at an old plant site in Anniston, Ala. had changed significantly in Monsanto’s favor shortly after President Bush’s first EPA administrator, Christine Todd Whitman, visited the site. EWG’s June 2003 report -- How did Monsanto avoid a pollution crackdown in Alabama? – led veteran Superfund attorney Janet MacGillivray to disclose that a senior Bush Department of Justice (DOJ) official tried to pressure her into not testifying in a federal court reviewing the pollution cleanup agreement.

Ultimately, Solutia, Monsanto’s successor company and EPA, reached a settlement calling for $600 million to be paid for a site cleanup and to 21,000 Anniston residents exposed to PCBs for decades. The cleanup is still going on.

In July 2003, EWG made a major national impact with the first-ever report showing that 7 of 10 farmed salmon were contaminated with PCBs at levels that raise concern about cancer risks. EWG’s analysis found that 800,000 American adults ingested enough farmed salmon to exceed lifetime cancer risk levels by a factor of 100.