EPA Announces Plan to Clean Up DDT deposit off of Paloos Verdes Peninsula

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.

The funds earmarked for the cleanup comes from a $140 million settlement in 1990 with Montrose Chemical, a company that manufactured DDT in the South Bay and dumped residue into sewer outfalls that emptied off of the Palos Verdes coastline.

The EPA had previously tested placing a cap on a smaller area with mixed results. The EPA proposal includes placing a cap of silt and sand over the most contaminated 320 acres. Critics of the plan claim it is not extensive enough and are proposing a $76 million plan to cap approx. 640 acres. EPA officials have stated that the DDT is breaking down into less harmful chemicals at a faster than anticipated rate and are not sure why this is happening.