Jun 23, 2009 1:01 pm US/Pacific
EPA Plans Hearings For DDT Off SoCal Coast
LOS ANGELES (AP) ―
The
Environmental Protection Agency
plans to hold the first of several public hearings on a proposal to
deal with a vast, long-neglected deposit of the pesticide DDT on the
ocean floor off Southern California's Palos Verdes Peninsula.
The estimated $36 million proposal, to be discussed Tuesday, would
place a cap of sand over the most contaminated part of the
17-square-mile area declared a
Superfund site in 1996.
Environmentalists said they were pleased to see work might finally begin in 2011 on the polluted site.
"I think it's a huge development," said Mark Gold, the executive director of the watchdog group
Heal the Bay who has been involved with the issue for two decades.
"We have the worst DDT hotspot in the entire U.S.," he said. "That
we're still stuck with this horrible legacy decades later is awful."
From 1947 to 1971, the
Montrose Chemical Corp. released tons of the banned pesticide and 10 tons of toxic PCBs into
Los Angeles sewers, which then emptied into the
Pacific Ocean.
The pesticide manufacturing process also contaminated the
groundwater and surface soil at the Montrose plant property several
miles inland.
The EPA estimates that over 1,700 tons of DDT were discharged
between the late 1950s and early 1970s, when the poison was finally
banned. Several other industries also discharged PCBs into the sewer
system.
In 2000, the now-defunct Montrose firm and two other chemical
companies agreed to pay a total of $73 million to help restore the
ocean environment off
Palos Verdes, north of
Long Beach.
(© 2009 The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.)
Click to enlarge
Stumble It!
Comments