Tests Find Area Decontaminated : Navy Lab Back in Commission After PCB Spill

The Navy has re-opened a laboratory at the Naval Ocean Systems Center on Point Loma in light of a contractor’s report that the building is no longer contaminated from a transformer that leaked oil containing a suspected carcinogen.

Joel Meriwether, a public affairs officer for the center, said Thursday that “wipe samples” taken from floors and surfaces in Room 2101 of Building 33 after decontamination showed levels of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) far below the federal standard for unsafe exposure.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency standard is 10 micrograms per 100 square centimeters, according to the report from Crosby & Overton Environmental Management Inc., the contractor. The eight samples showed less than 0.5 micrograms, Meriwether said, quoting a letter from the contractor.

‘Work Area Safe’

The contractor also analyzed air samples taken before the decontamination and compared them to the federal standard of 0.5 milligrams per cubic meter for airborne concentrations. The only high level found was in the storeroom containing the transformer, where PCB concentrations in the air before decontamination were 12 milligrams.

Meriwether said Crosby & Overton, an environmental cleanup firm based in Garden Grove, concluded that the decontamination procedure conducted May 23 and 24 was complete and “the work area (is) considered safe for re-entry by employees.”

Meriwether said that “as a precaution” the Navy has asked employees who were working near the storeroom housing the transformer at the time of the leak to have their blood tested at the Navy dispensary for PCB levels. Navy firefighters who examined a smoking power panel in the same room as the transformer were also urged to undergo testing.

Meriwether said fewer than 30 employees were to be tested.

Leak Happened May 7

According to Meriwether, the transformer leak occurred the afternoon of May 7 and was cleaned up within two hours. However, the Navy elected to close off parts of the communications laboratory around the storeroom until its own hazardous materials investigators and the independent consultant completed their studies.

PCBs are man-made chlorinated hydrocarbons that were used for many years in transformers and condensers. Production of PCBs was banned in 1978 after evidence indicated that they cause cancer in animals and have harmful effects on humans.

They still exist, however, in pre-1978 equipment. Firms and agencies that have such equipment are required by federal law to gradually phase it out.