Transformer Oil News

(Thomson Reuters Foundation) - The morning scene is increasingly routine for Kenyans. When it's time to start the day, the power is already out. Somewhere nearby, the shell of a wrecked electrical transformer lies on its side underneath the pole where it had been fixed 20 feet off the ground. The culprit is an unusual one: A vandal who is selling the toxic oil, drawn from the transformer, to chefs who use it for frying food in roadside stalls. Five liters of the viscous, PCB-laden liquid sells for $60. It looks like cooking oil, but lasts much longer, users say. Kenyans' appetite for fried food and cheap frying oil is stalling the country's urgent efforts to build a modern electrical grid, even as it sews the seeds of a public health crisis, experts say.

Response personnel conduct inspections prior to Port Valdez, Alaska, stevedores shifting cargo to facilitate decontamination of the BBC Arizona's deck, June 7-8, 2013. Multiple containers stored on deck, each holding a plastic bladder filled with transformer oil, began leaking during the ship's transit to Valdez. A Unified Command, consisting of the Coast Guard, Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, City of Valdez, and Gallagher Marine Systems, LLC, directed containers to be shifted on deck to facilitate removal of bridge parts stored below.