Re: GG1 PCB's
Author: Dr Zarkoff
Date: 04-24-2014 - 12:27
>I'm sure many of you will hate me for this, but aren't there a bunch of them still out there?
There are quite a few, and all have had the transformers drained, flushed, and had sand sprinkled inside to absorb any PCB remnants.
The one at IRM caused some sort of an internal EPA scandal because one region of the EPA wanted it out of the state where it was in order to indulge in some statistical hocus-pocus because if it went out of state, cleaned or not, it could be counted as "remedied" in their region. I forget whether it was remedied before departure, enroute, or after it arrived IRM, and the process involved removing the transformer, which had the switch group attached to it. I think someone went to a scrap yard and obtained a replacement switch group (it's been a while since I heard about this, so I'm probably a little off here and there in the story).
PCBs (poly chlorinated biphenyls) are not only carcinogenic, they cause DNA replication errors, which is the main reason they now so verboten.
As for the cracked frames, the seriousness of this varies depending on how they were repaired. Nonetheless, it can be remedied (special welding practices, followed by stress relief, soaking, etc.); just bring that big fat checkbook. Personally, I'd like to see one made operational again; it's just that my checkbook isn't sufficiently rotund.