Nearly 40 years after pesticide dumping stopped off the Palos Verdes Peninsula, federal environmental regulators have selected a long-
delayed cleanup strategy to address the toxic mess left behind.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said Monday that it has chosen a plan – first announced as an alternative in June – to begin capping a contaminated area of an underwater formation known as the Palos Verdes Shelf.
The $50 million project, the subject of nearly a decade of study, would dump 18 inches of clean sand and silt on the most toxic parts of a 9-mile-long area that is contaminated with 110 tons of the now-banned pesticide DDT.
Several more studies are needed before the EPA can begin the work, which is designed to reduce contamination that is passed from ocean organisms to fish and up the food chain to birds and humans.
Capping is expected to start in 2011, four decades after DDT was banned.
“It’s a complicated area,” said Carmen White, EPA remediation project manager. “I don’t blame anyone for complaining. It does take a long time.”
DDT was dumped from the 1950s until 1971 by the now-defunct, Harbor Gateway-based Montrose Chemical Corp., once the world’s largest manufacturer of the pesticide.
Along with 10 tons of toxic material called PCBs, DDT entered the ocean through county sewer outfalls, killing marine life from Point Fermin northwest to the underwater Redondo Canyon.
“It’s one of the most ecologically devastating pollution problems in the history of this country,” said Mark Gold, executive director of the advocacy group Heal the Bay.
The contaminated sediment does not directly affect humans who dive or swim in the area, but fish caught in around the Palos Verdes Peninsula may contain elevated levels of toxins that can be unhealthy if eaten.
In June, state officials added several kinds of locally caught fish to a list of species that should be avoided or consumed in limited quantities.
That state advisory, along with the EPA’s cleanup plans, has come as the waters off the Palos Verdes Peninsula have emerged as one of the most debated areas in a regional effort to outline no-fishing zones off the state’s coastline through the Marine Life Protection Act.
The contamination of the Palos Verdes Shelf has contributed to a tug-of-war over fishing access to nearby, richer waters – habitat that environmentalists want to see protected.
Some fishers have supported protecting parts of the Palos Verdes Shelf instead, arguing that would help the area recover.
The cleanup project announced Monday comes after a lengthy court battle resulting in a $136 million settlement that in 2001 mandated restoration of the contaminated area. Initial EPA studies showed mixed results for capping, leading to delays in a full-scale cleanup strategy.
The new plan is an interim solution that would cap 320 acres of the Palos Verdes Shelf, covering about a third of the DDT deposit. Ongoing monitoring and additional studies will bring a re-evaluation and possible expansion of capping plans in 10 more years, White said.
“We are seeing recovery and we want to really get a handle on the natural breakdown. You don’t want to put a clean cover over and interfere with reductive dechlorination,” White said, referring to a process that has been shown to break down the toxic chemicals naturally.
Next year, EPA will study how to speed dechlorination. The agency also plans next spring to tag fish with receivers to get a better sense of where contaminated species are encountering pollution.
This month, the agency will begin a study funded by the county Sanitation Districts to take samples of the sediment. Once the samples are evaluated and mapped, scientists will have a clearer outline of the contaminated area.
Some local environmental groups have complained the cleanup process has been too slow and doesn’t go far enough.
“It has been way too long. People still have been fishing and eating contaminated fish. And the ecology has suffered from the top of the food chain all the way down,” said Gold, whose group advocated a larger, more costly capping alternative that was rejected.
Wilmington-based Coalition for a Safe Environment called for dredging the contaminated sediment, which is more than 200 feet below the surface.
“Our proposal was to do what is required – just remove as much as possible of the contaminated sediment underwater,” said Jesse Marquez, the group’s executive director. “It’s a large area, but you could do it section by section.”
EPA officials and other environmental groups have warned that dredging would stir up contaminants, making matters worse.
Marquez suggested doing the dredging under a large Plexiglas dome, a plan that White said was not feasible.
“Yes, I wish I had a magic wand,” White said, “but I don’t.”