By MICHELE STUDEBAKER

By MICHELE STUDEBAKER

Arundel Newspapers Staff Writer

The Shenandoah is not alone in its struggle against pollution by the cancer-causing chemical, PCB.

New York’s Hudson River suffered a massive contamination of PCB’s which left the river with more than 192 miles of its length banned to private and commercial fishing. The New York Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) is still trying to find a uray to clean up a potentially deadly mess.

According to a report compiled by research biologists and the New York Department of Health, the PEC first detected PCB’s in the Hudson in 1965, through a monitoring program similar to the one which alerted the Virginia State Water Control Board to the Shenandoah’s contamination.

However, it was not until 1975 that the levels rose enough to be considered a public health problem. That same year, the DEC discovered the source of the river’s six year history of PCB pollution — two General Electric capacitor maufacturing plants on the river’s edge.

The DEC estimated that the two plants had dumped PCB’s, byproducts of the manufacturing process, into the Hudson at the rate of over ten pounds a day for 30 years. The , report stated that the compounds were primarily Aroclor 1242 and. 1016, similar to the substance found in the Shenandoah.

According to Mary Werner, one of the scientists who wrote the PCB report, the Aroclors in the Hudson River were some of the less chlorinated of the compounds. Werner explained that the last two numbers of the compound designation indicate the percentage of the mixture’s chlorination. Thus, the ‘42’ indicates a 42 per cent chlorination. Wener also said that the more highly chlorinated the mixture is, the more stable, and therefore more toxic, it is.

The PCB compounds found in the Shenandoah were Aroclors 1254, 1260, and 1262, mixtures Werner 7 said were, “among the most highly chlorinated in the family.”

"Most scientists think that the toxicity is proportionate to the amount of chlorination,” she said. Werner said that the more chlorine in the compound, the more likely it is to be stored, permanently, in the fat of those creatures who consume it.

After the General Electric plants • were identified as the source of the I contamination, the Department for ; Environmental Conservation filed ; suit against the national electric • company for violation of the New • York Environmental Conservation ! Law. By 1976, a settlement i agreement called for a graduated re] duction in the amount of PCB’s re; leased into the river, from the previous 10 pounds to 2.2 pounds a ; day by 1977. ' General Electric was also required to set aside $7 million to as' sess the problem and research • possible solutions. ' The most practical of the remei dial actions studied, which even in