Anniston, Ala. ? Millions of pounds of PCB-tainted military equipment, once set for processing in Alabama in shipments from Japan, will now be sent to other states — including Kansas.

The Anniston Star reported in January that the military planned to ship tons of PCB waste from Japan and Wake Island to a Pell City firm, giving little public notice.

The Pell City firm, Trans-Cycle Industries, already had accepted two shipments of equipment for draining and recycling. But TCI’s contract wasn’t renewed.

Spokesman Dawn Dearden at the Defense Logistics Agency in the Defense Department told The Star for a story Sunday that the shipment would be going to Nevada, Kansas and West Virginia.

The total value of the contracts is about $3.7 million.

The shipment is part of the 7 million pounds of electrical transformers, capacitors and other items the Defense Department must remove from Japan and Wake Island.

Polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, are heat-resistant chemicals. Congress banned them as a health threat in the 1970s. PCBs had been used to insulate electrical equipment.