Pickens County Wants More Than EPA Testing for PCBs

By: Duane Craig

The Pickens County Council in South Carolina is questioning whether the Environmental Protection Agency can effectively manage an old PCB contamination of Twelve Mile Creek, according to a report in IndependentMail.com.

The doubts stem from EPA plans to do some follow-up testing along a couple of miles of the creek. The county, however, hired its own consultant hydrologist, and he says the entire 24 miles needs to be tested. Apparently, landowners want some assurance that the land they own along the creek is not contaminated with polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCB. Without tests showing there is no contamination, they expect their property values will drop.

From 1955 to 1977, a capacitor manufacturer dumped 400,000 pounds of PCB in the area, leading to Superfund designation in 1990. Get the whole story at the link above.