http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=676&e=18&u=/usatoday/11765280
EPA
lifts ban on selling PCB sites
Tue Sep 2, 2003, 6:51 AM ET
By Peter Eisler, USA
TODAY
The Bush administration
has ended a 25-year-old ban on the
sale of land polluted with PCBs. The ban was intended to prevent
hundreds of polluted sites from being redeveloped in ways that
spread the toxin or raise public health risks.
The Environmental Protection
Agency decided the ban was
"an unnecessary barrier to redevelopment (and) may actually
delay the clean-up of contaminated properties," according
to
an internal memo issued last month to advise agency staff
of the change.
The decision, already
in effect, has not been made public.
It is being treated as a "new interpretation" of existing
law,
according to the memo, which was obtained by USA TODAY.
As such, no public comment was required.
Some EPA staffers have
raised concerns that the change could
make it hard to track the sale of PCB sites and ensure that
buyers don't spread contamination by developing property before
it's cleaned up, EPA officials say. The decision also is likely
to upset environmentalists and their congressional allies who
contend that the administration is easing environmental rules
to promote development.
The policy change opens
a door for sales of property fouled
with one of the most widespread pollutants of the post-World
War II era. EPA officials and other experts estimate that more
than 1,000 pieces of land nationwide are contaminated. PCBs
are present at about 500 of the 1,598 pollution sites listed
by the EPA as national cleanup priorities under its Superfund
restoration program.
"I see real problems
with the EPA and state agencies not having
resources, especially in today's budget climate, to monitor
these properties if they start getting transferred," says
Sean
Hecht, who runs UCLA's Environmental Law Center. The ban on
sales "provided leverage to force people to clean up these
sites."
The government believes
that PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls,
probably cause cancer. Congress banned their sale and use
beginning in 1978. The law has long been interpreted as
prohibiting the sale of polluted property unless PCBs had
been cleaned up.
The new interpretation
was developed under EPA general counsel
Robert Fabricant, who issued the Aug. 14 memo informing EPA staff.
The policy shift does
not affect cleanup standards and liability
rules for PCB sites. The memo says the change is needed to
resolve cases in which buyers want to clean up PCB-fouled
sites that are owned by people who lack the money or ability
to do it.
"The new owner
inherits responsibility for cleanup," EPA lawyer
Bob Perlis says.
But the EPA already
allowed its regional offices to waive the ban
on selling PCB-contaminated land when a buyer is willing to clean
it up. Regional officials say that process slowed the transfer
of a few properties but generally worked.
"I didn't see
a problem with the rules as they were," says
Peter deFur, a PCB expert who teaches at Virginia Commonwealth
University and consults on PCB studies and cleanups.
"The question now is whether some smaller (PCB) sites
will fall through the cracks."
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