State Orders Firm to Halt PCB Discharge : Pollution: Agency charges scrap-metal exporter with sprinkling high levels of the carcinogen into Los Angeles Harbor.

In many ways, it’s an environmentalist’s dream.

Every day, the giant machine hammers hundreds of tons of discarded cars, refrigerators and other junk into fist-sized chunks, turning mountains of metal refuse into valuable scrap for export.

But water-quality officials say the metal-shredding plant on Terminal Island has a dark side.

As Hugo Neu-Proler Co. grinds up metal junk and loads it onto ships, it is sprinkling toxic polychlorinated biphenyls--PCBs--into Los Angeles Harbor, the state Regional Water Quality Control Board says--a charge the scrap metal company denies.

The agency has ordered the company to stop discharging metal-shredding waste into the water by Dec. 15, asserting that concentrations of PCBs are far higher near the plant than elsewhere in the harbor.

“This is a significant first step in controlling PCBs in the harbor,” said Robert Ghirelli, the board’s executive officer. “It means less pollutants entering our waters, fish are healthier, and that translates on up the food chain to humans.”

PCB contamination in the heavily industrial harbor area has been known for years, but now environmental officials are tracking down its sources as a first step toward a cleanup. Because the manufacture and use of PCBs has been banned since 1979 in the United States, most of the harbor contamination is believed to date from past releases.

In Hugo Neu-Proler, however, water-quality officials believe they have found an ongoing release of PCBs.

The scrap metal company pledges it will try to meet the agency’s bottom-line demand--that it prevent metal dust and debris from falling and blowing into the harbor.

But company officials say this does not mean they accept that the dust and debris carry PCBs. They assert that a key pollution study underlying the agency’s order is seriously flawed.

“We’re not saying we didn’t do anything,” said Donald Bright, Hugo Neu-Proler’s environmental consultant. “We’re saying that if we contributed (to the PCB problem), OK, let’s establish that with good evidence.”

The company is a joint venture of the Houston-based Proler International Corp. and the New York City-based Hugo Neu & Sons Inc. The Terminal Island plant grinds up more than 700 automobiles and 3,000 household appliances daily, fueling scrap exports by the company of more than 1 million tons a year.

Regulators believe PCBs are contained in some of the older scrap shredded at the waterfront facility. Before being banned, the chemicals were used widely in products ranging from electric appliances to hydraulic fluid.

The state has not yet set legal limits on PCB contamination of underwater sediment. But officials are concerned that the chemicals, which are carcinogens, are entering the marine food chain and may cause cancer in humans.

In this month’s order, the board relies in part on information from Mussel Watch, a state program that uses mussels to monitor coastal pollution levels. Since 1982, the board says, mussels placed near Hugo Neu-Proler’s loading pier have shown PCB concentrations two to three times higher than at a half-dozen other harbor checkpoints.

The board also cites a study by the Southern California Coastal Water Research Project (SCCWRP), a coastal research agency based in Long Beach. The agency sampled PCB levels throughout the harbor and used a new method of chemical analysis to distinguish among the pollution’s possible sources.

“We found there are at least three sources of PCB contamination,” said Robert Eganhouse, a senior environmental specialist with the research project. “One is the (former) Todd Shipyards. The second was coming down from the Dominguez Channel. Then the third was Neu-Proler.”

Of the dozen samples taken in the research project study, the highest PCB readings were found under a conveyor Hugo Neu-Proler uses to load shredded metal onto ships, usually for export to Asian steel manufacturers.

Concentrations in the underwater sediment there registered 11.4 parts per million, more than six times greater than the next highest reading--1.87 parts per million--found off the former Todd Shipyard.

After chemical analysis, the water research project concluded the PCBs were similar to those in metal-shredding debris collected on the Hugo Neu-Proler property--and dissimilar to PCBs found elsewhere in the harbor.

The coastal agency made a second connection between Hugo Neu-Proler and PCB pollution after analyzing what rearchers described as a “large brown slick” extending from the facility during loading operations.

PCB levels in the slick were 100 times higher than in water 10 centimeters below the surface. And the chemical composition of the PCBs was virtually identical to that in the metal-shredding debris, according to the water research project.

“This doesn’t mean that what they are doing is responsible for all the PCBs in Los Angeles Harbor,” said Shirley Birosik, an environmental specialist with the water-quality board. “But we feel we can say some of the contamination is from Neu-Proler. . . . We’re saying there’s a link between what’s on their dock and what’s in the water.”

Company officials dispute that conclusion on several grounds. Their main objection concerns the reliability of the water research project’s chemical analysis.

The test distinguishes among PCB pollution sources by analyzing their chemical components. Neu-Proler says the technique, developed three years ago, lacked proper quality controls and should not be used as a basis for regulatory action because it is so new.

“If you use data for a regulatory function, it ought to be supportable and repeatable so it isn’t a fluke,” said Bright, Hugo Neu-Proler’s environmental consultant.

Birosik, who assessed the research project study for the water-quality board, disagrees. “I stand by the results SCCWRP came up with,” he said.

Despite the differences over PCBs, Bright and Hugo Neu-Proler General Manager John Prudent says the metal-shredding company plans to install skirts on its conveyor as well as a water spray system to comply with the board order.

The order calls for a compliance plan by June 15 and a halt to “waterborne and airborne discharge of metal-shredder waste” by Dec. 15. Failure to comply could result in fines of up to $1,000 a day.

Water-quality officials say they have not ordered Neu-Proler to clean up contaminated harbor sediment because they have not yet determined how much of the pollution was caused by the company.

Ghirelli, the board’s executive officer, said that before requiring more aggressive cleanup action, regulators have to do more sleuthing. “We’re going to have to do more investigatory work,” he said. “It’s a real puzzle with a lot of pieces that have to be put together.”