Letting Polychlorinated biphenyls(PCB) spread could be a dangerous threat to our environment

Inside of the Raisin River, near the Port of Monroe, traces of a banned insulating chemical know as PCB’s,or Polychlorinated biphenyls. The Monroe evening news said in a test all the back to 2007 a process called dredging, which is part of the river cleaning process, high levels of PCB’s were found, and the current dredgings have been known to have up to 10,000 parts per billion. These traces of PCB are dangerous to the health and are linked to be known as a chemical that causes cancer, liver dysfunction, digestive disorders, chloracne, headaches, nausea and fatigue This work is an effort by the Environmental Protection Agency to clear pollution from waterways which is one solution they are trying out to this problem. A barrier to this solution would be the fact that these protections of the river aren’t cheap and it could cost around 13.7 million dollars.   The State Department of Environmental conservation has agreed to 3 million cubic yards of the most contaminated substances in the waterways. If the spread of PCB’s continues then there could be the fear of humans consuming contaminated fish that live in the area. The dredging and clean-up of this area would permanently restrict the future travel of PCB’s throughout the river, causing less of the water and the population of those who live in the water to be contaminated. This would reduce risk to our health and help restore the environment. The problem to this is if PCB sediment isn’t captured quick enough is can disperse into the bottom of the river which would make it impossible to recapture. And if a flood comes then the PCP sediment will be washed into the lower river and contaminate it as well. The spreading of PCP is more dangerous than most realize and all we need is money and political will to stop it, in my eyes it needs to be stopped before its contaminating all the fish of one area that contaminate the humans and that in turn causes a global problem when it could have been cleaned up by the Environmental protection agency.


http://www.rpi.edu/dept/environ/orgs/Clearwater/dredging.html