Source: http://www.greenvilleonline.com, August 22, 2017
By: Judith Bainbridge

For six months in 1986, four Greenville News reporters researched, investigated and interviewed experts and local citizens alike in order to write a six-week series on PCB (polychlorinated biphenyls) contamination in the waterways of Pickens County.

Suspected of causing cancer in humans, the major symptoms of PCB poisoning are skin and liver problems. The chemical wastes were dumped between 1955 and 1977 into landfills and streams that fed into Town Creek near the town of Pickens. They eventually contaminated Twelve Mile River and fish swimming in Lake Hartwell. The extensive reporting effort was triggered by a state fishing advisory for Lake Hartwell in 1985. Soil tests confirmed toxic PCBs at the Pickens Landfill.

The News articles alerted readers to the problem; it was confirmed when the property owner at the time agreed to pay $22 million to clean up the Superfund site. Several years ago, the Environmental Protection Agency oversaw the cleanup of PCBs and the removal of two dams on Twelve Mile Creek to allow the river to run over the contaminated sites.

As late as two years ago, however, elevated PCB levels were still found in fish caught in Lake Hartwell.