Addressing Past Practices
Reorganizing our business did not mean we could forget our past activities or our neighbors’ understandable concerns about those activities. Here’s what we are doing about our legacy sites.
Copper Division Southwire (CDS) – Carrollt on, Georgia
1971 Southwire opened CDS – which included a secondary copper smelter – to provide a reliable source of high-quality copper.
1986 The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a report that named secondary copper smelters as a significant source of dioxin emissions to the air. At the time, relatively little was known about dioxins, and no regulatory limits existed regarding the release of dioxins. We saw no cause for alarm and continued operating our smelter.
1994-95 Southwire tested smelter air emissions and found dioxins were present in those emissions. We consulted outside professionals who advised us the emissions did not pose a serious health threat. Again, we saw no cause for alarm and continued operating the smelter.
2000 Southwire closed the smelter in May 2000. This action eliminated the source of over 99 percent of Southwire’s dioxin emissions. However, tests found dioxins inside the smelter’s bag houses – filter systems that removed particulates from the smelter’s air emissions before they were released. That same year, the EPA added dioxin to the list of compounds businesses were required to include in their annual Toxics Release Inventory (TRI) reports.
For the five months the Carrollton smelter operated in 2000, Southwire reported dioxin emissions of about two pounds – enough to make our smelter the largest reported dioxin source in the country. Had the smelter operated for the entire year, those releases would have totaled around six pounds. The EPA’s 2000 TRI report, including this information, was released in 2002. It aroused considerable public concern in Carroll County.
In response to the concern, Southwire took several steps to foster a better understanding of our dioxin emissions and their possible effects:
• Southwire paid for the Carroll County Health Board to hire a consultant to review our dioxin data.
• Southwire paid for leading authorities on dioxin at the University of Michigan to meet with the health board, local officials, the community and Southwire management. The discussion focused on what the authorities learned from a study of dioxin emissions at another company’s facility in Midland, Michigan.
In addition, Southwire commissioned a study of 64 former CDS employees to determine the levels of dioxin in their blood. The participants were among those with the greatest potential exposure to dioxin. Southwire compared its results with data from NHANES (National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey), an annual national study conducted by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. We measured our data against blood serum levels collected in the 2001-02 NHANES study, the most current survey at the time.
Completed during the fall of 2007, Southwire’s study found levels of dioxin in employees’ blood were similar to dioxin levels found in the NHANES study. Not surprisingly, employees’ blood-dioxin levels averaged a little higher than the national average. The independent review board of outside experts concluded that these results should be reassuring to neighbors concerned about their own possible blood-dioxin levels, which would be expected to be lower than the levels in the CDS employees tested.
A more recent NHANES study has been published using serum levels collected in 2003-04. The latest survey includes more recent data that was available when Southwire published the findings of its 2007 employee study.
The 2003-04 NHANES study data appears to show a decline in the levels of dioxin-like compounds in the general U.S. population. As a result, more participants in Southwire’s study may fall above the 95th percentile of the range, when compared to these newer and lower benchmarks.
Southwire will continue monitoring new research on dioxin, as well as Carroll County health statistics and we will share new and important findings – whether they are reassuring or alarming – with our employees and our neighbors.
Moving forward, while looking back, Southwire is working with the EPA and the Georgia Environmental Protection Division under a Resource Conservation and Recovery Act permit to clean up the former CDS site.
Wyre Wynd – Jewett City, Connecticut
Southwire’s remedial action plan for this former Southwire manufacturing facility is awaiting regulatory approval.
Gaston Copper Recycling Corporation – Gaston, South Carolina
Gaston Copper Recycling Corporation is a former copper smelter. The remediation plan approved by the EPA and the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control has been completed. Operation and monitoring of the corrective action is ongoing.
NSA – Hawesville, Kentucky
Southwire operated NSA as a primary aluminum smelter from 1969 until its sale in 2001. The remediation plan approved by the EPA and the Kentucky Department of Environmental Protection has bee completed. Operation and monitoring of the corrective action remedy is ongoing.
Southwire International Corporation – Puerto Rico
Southwire International Corporation has worked with the EPA and the Puerto Rico Environmental Quality Board under a consent order to clean up this former manufacturing site. Surface cleanup activities are complete, with only grading of the site for flood control to be completed.
