EPA tries to seal DDT site in California ocean floor

A 300-foot hopper dredge in Long Beach Harbor, above, sucks up sand which is then dropped into the sea to cover a DDT "hot spot" on the ocean floor

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From Jim Hill CNN Correspondent

LOS ANGELES COUNTY, California (CNN) -- One mile off California's scenic Palos Verdes peninsula, experts are trying to seal off a huge ocean-floor "hot spot" containing the now banned pesticide DDT.

"This is one of the worst hazardous waste sites in the country," said Randy Wittorp of the Environmental Protection Agency.

As part of the agency's pilot project, a 300-foot hopper dredge boat is sucking up tons of clean sand off Long Beach Harbor and then dropping it over the hot-spot to cover the pesticide.

"We haven't seen anything that's said to us that it shouldn't work," said project manager Steven Lawrence.

Years ago, DDT was one of the chemicals most widely used for controlling insects that attack crops or carry diseases such as malaria and typhus.

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The pesticide was banned in the United States in 1972 after its toxic effects were found to thin the egg shells of birds like the bald eagle and brown pelican.

Before then, the Montrose Chemical Company legally manufactured DDT and used the Torrance, California, sewer system to dump its tainted waste water, a practice also legal at the time.

Underwater sewage pipes discharged DDT into the ocean for more than 25 years

For more than 25 years, water laden with DDT flowed through the sewer pipes and out into the ocean. By one estimate, 100 tons of the pesticide settled over 17-square miles of ocean floor.

Montrose Chemical said its team of scientists studied the area around the underwater sewage discharge pipe.

"THE DDT in the sediments is biodegrading and the substances out there collectively don't present any genuine risk to human health or to the environment," said Montrose attorney Karl Lytz.

Environmental groups say DDT still turns up in wildlife like the White Croaker fish, which has been declared off-limits for commercial fishing in the area.

"It still gets into the food chain through clams, through worms and the like and all the various different fish that eat those organisms," said Mark Gold of the Save the Bay Organization.

If the EPA's pilot project is successful, it hopes to cover the worst of the tainted area by 2003.

In a trial set for next month, the EPA will try to force Montrose Chemical to pay the cleanup bill, which could exceed $100-million.

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