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PCB Deadline Looms: Electrical Transformers and Capacitors Most Targeted Equipment
June, 2009
By Barbara Carss
Property owners accountable under new federal regulations could fail to meet a looming compliance deadline if they haven’t already begun to decommission or retrofit equipment containing polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs). The PCB Regulations (SOR/2008-273) introduced in September 2008 include requirements for taking prescribed PCB-containing equipment out of service, destroying PCBs currently in storage, labelling PCB-containing equipment, and reporting and documenting the process.
Affected parties must register equipment and storage sites and outline their progress in decommissioning and destroying PCBs, but many still have not submitted required status reports for 2008, even though Environment Canada extended the original March 31, 2009 deadline to late May – in part to account for technical difficulties with the on-line reporting system launched on March 30. “We notice a slow incoming response,” says Francine Laperrière, Head of Environment Canada’s PCB Program.
The PCB Regulations, which fall under the auspices of the Canadian Environmental Protection Act, support Canada’s national and international commitments. Policy makers envision that 90% of PCBs currently in use in Canada and all PCB-related waste in storage will be destroyed by the end of this year. The most recent available figures from 2005 estimate the national PCB inventory at approximately 8,000 tonnes of PCBs still in use and 112,500 tonnes of waste at 1,615 storage sites.
COMPLIANCE THRESHOLDS
PCBs in concentrations of 500 milligrams or more per kilogram (500 parts per million) will be prohibited across Canada as of December 31, 2009, with the exception of a few permitted activities. Property owners and managers are now advised to determine the age and ownership of electrical transformers (with the exception of those on pole tops) and capacitors that serve their buildings. Prior to 1978 when manufacturers stopped using the chemicals, electrical equipment was often insulated with PCB-enriched fluid because PCBs do not conduct electricity, are highly stable and fire-resistant and are excellent heat transfer agents.
“The transformers that were installed inside of buildings prior to ’78 were typically PCB-filled, or askarel, because that was what manufacturers were providing to the marketplace. PCBs had a long-established track record as a superior dielectric and the transformers could have life expectancies of several decades if they were well maintained,” says Dr. Eric Smith, President of PCB Disposal Inc., a company specializing in PCB management and abatement. “It is safe to say that there are thousands of PCB capacitors, hundreds of askarel transformers and tens of thousands of litres of liquid that have to be disposed of in accordance with regulations.
The PCB Regulations set an even lower threshold – at less than 50 milligrams per kilogram (50 ppm) – for the allowable level of PCBs in equipment located in designated sensitive areas in or within 100 metres of child care facilities, primary and secondary schools, health care and seniors’ care facilities, drinking water treatment plants and food or feed processing plants. Ultimately, even light ballasts containing PCBs in these designated sensitive areas will have to be removed and sent for destruction, but property owners/managers have until December 31, 2025 to do so.
Similarly, equipment in non-sensitive areas containing PCB concentrations from 50 mg/kg up to 499 mg/kg will have to be decommissioned by the end of 2025. In the interim, the PCB Regulations stipulate that equipment still in use or in storage must be labelled.
Environment Canada estimates that hydro utilities across Canada collectively own about 29% of the PCBs and equipment containing PCBs now in use. In such cases, the utilities will be responsible for decommissioning PCB-filled transformers and replacing them. However, indoor transformers in large commercial and industrial buildings are typically the building owner’s responsibility.
BUDGET, TIMING & LOGISTIC CONSIDERATIONS
Several major property owners have PCB transformer replacement projects underway. For example, Cadillac Fairview Corporation is in the midst of four major decommissioning and replacement projects in Toronto and Vancouver. Company officials had been watching the multi-year consultation process in advance of the regulations’ confirmation last fall and were prepared to act.
“It’s going to involve several million dollars in expenditure, but this is something that has been talked about for a number of years so we had budgeted for it and we are going to be able to replace all of our transformers by the December 31 deadline,” says Wayne Banting, Director of Environmental Services, Health & Safety with Cadillac Fairview.
In addition to health and safety safeguards necessary when dealing with a hazardous material, it can be logistically cumbersome to dismantle and replace transformers, particularly if they are located in upper storeys of high-rise towers. PCB-filled fluid is first drained from the transformer then it frequently must be dismantled into pieces small enough to be removed from the building, although there is sometimes an option to lift the equipment out wholly with a crane.
“If you’ve left a trap door in your roof that gives you a way of getting it out, but, otherwise, it’s more problematic,” Banting notes. In the Cadillac Fairview projects, the decommissioned transformers and their replacements have to be transported in sections via the buildings’ freight elevators.
There is now little room for procrastination. “The ordering of equipment and supplies is what’s going to take a lot of time, and if people haven’t started yet they are probably going to need to get an extension,” says Jay Inman, Technical Manager of the Hazardous Materials Group with the environmental consulting firm, Pinchin Environmental.
In that case, many proponents could find themselves in non-compliance since onerous engineering complications are one of the only factors that building owners can plead in requesting an extension to the December 31, 2009 decommissioning deadline. The PCB Regulations allow for an extension of up to five years, to December 31, 2014, if owners provide evidence that it is not technically feasible to comply by the end of this year, or if the building is going to be demolished – with associated decommissioning and remediation of hazardous substances and materials – within the next five years.
“Most PCB owners cannot take advantage of either of these exemption options,” Smith says. Even those who do will have to apply for the extension by August 31, 2009.
RISK MANAGEMENT
Owners may be able to reduce the amount of PCBs within transformers that contain a mineral oil based solution to an allowable level of less than 500 mg/kg, but that would only be an option if the equipment could still operate viably. For askarel transformers, however, replacement is now the only option.
Replacement may also make more sense from a risk management perspective. PCBs within the transformers pose no threat as long as they are safely contained and cannot be released into the environment, but the spectre of a catastrophic incident such as a fire in the transformer room makes some owners and their insurers nervous. In a notorious example in a government building in Binghamton, New York, the cleanup after a PCB-transformer fire took 15 years and cost $49 million (US).
Since a significant amount of rental housing predates the 1978 PCB ban, landlords and managers in that sector are urged to determine the status of transformers on their properties. However, it appears budget impacts should be negligible in Toronto and surrounding suburban areas despite the older vintage of the vast majority of Ontario’s rental housing stock.
“We’ve met with Toronto Hydro senior managers who have advised us that there are no PCBs in any of the underground hydro vaults in Toronto,” reports Brad Butt, Executive Director of the Greater Toronto Apartment Association. “Regardless, any inspection, remediation or anything that would need to be done would be strictly the hydro utilities’ responsibility. Apartment owners have no ownership or access to the hydro vault rooms.”
Toronto Hydro did not respond to attempts to confirm this statement about the absence of PCBs. Meanwhile, many property owners and their consultants are now communicating with utilities to try to verify the ownership of transformers.“We’re suggesting to clients that they put it in writing to their utilities as part of the due diligence and management strategy,” says Jason McGonigle, an Associate Senior Consultant in Golder Associates Ltd’s environmental health and safety practice.
STORAGE, LABELLING & REPORTING REQUIREMENTS
In addition to decommissioning existing equipment, property owners still storing PCB-containing equipment on-site – such as ballasts removed during earlier lighting retrofit projects – must ensure that the material is removed and sent to an approved destruction facility before December 31, 2009 in non-sensitive areas, or before September 5, 2009 in sensitive areas.
In the future, decommissioned material must be removed and destroyed at an approved facility within one year of being taken out of service, but few property owners are expected to hold materials in that interim because the regulations also impose stringent storage standards that would be costly to comply with. PCB-containing materials can be stored on a remediation project jobsite for the duration of that project, but property owners/developers will be required to first file notice of their plans with Environment Canada.
Property owners are further required to register on-line with Environment Canada’s PCB registry and submit annual reports as outlined in the Regulations. They are also required to keep records of their activities on file to verify their compliance.
“Environment Canada doesn’t issue any documentation for the end of use of PCBs or for the closure of a PCB storage site,” Laperrière says. “The onus is on the owner to demonstrate that they no longer have PCBs on their sites.”
As with all statutes and regulations, ignorance will not be a defence for non-compliance. “If there is a release and Environment Canada is called to investigate and discovers that you are not doing things in accordance, the teeth in the regulation are quite substantial,” McGonigle warns.
Penalties could include fines of up to $1 million or imprisonment.
For more information, see Environment Canada’s web site at http://www.ec.gc.ca/CEPARegistry/regulations/ and go to the link for PCB Regulations.
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