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Draft Technical Guidance for Determining Presence of PCBs at Regulated Concentrations on Vessels to be Reflagged

How to Submit Comments

Email your comments to: ORCRPCBShipGuidance@epa.gov

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EPA has developed a draft guidance document “Draft Technical Guidance for Determining the Presence of Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs) at Regulated Concentrations on Vessels (Ships) to be Reflagged” to assist ship owners in complying with Maritime Administration (MARAD) procedures for requesting a transfer of a US flagged ship to a foreign registry. MARAD requires such owners to certify prior to reflagging that there are no regulated levels of PCBs in shipboard materials, such as paint, electrical cabling, and gaskets, on the vessel.

The draft comprehensive technical guidance will also help protect human health and the environment by assisting vessel owners in complying with the requirements of the Toxic Substance Control Act and the implementing PCB regulations, which generally prohibit the export of regulated levels of PCBs from the US.

Request for comments:

EPA is soliciting comments on the entire draft technical guidance document. However, EPA specifically requests comments on the following:

  1. The proposed approaches to:
  2. The question of whether elements of this proposed guidance could be applied to ship-related activities other than the reflagging process.
  3. The question of whether there is an appropriate date of a vessel’s construction after which it could be assumed that because of the PCB ban, materials on that vessel do not contain PCBs.

Full details on EPA’s request for comments (PDF) (99 pp, 1.17 Mb)

How to submit comments:

The comment period ended on March 31, 2013.

 

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