EPA plan targets vast DDT deposit off Calif. coast

A plan to cap a vast, long-neglected deposit of the pesticide DDT on the ocean floor off Southern California got its first public airing Tuesday — nearly four decades after the poison was banned from use. The estimated $36 million proposal by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency calls for a cover of sand and silt to be placed over the most contaminated part of the estimated 17-square-mile area declared a Superfund site in 1996. The cap won't clean the site, but it could reduce the health risks for people who eat fish caught off the Palos Verdes coast, said Mark Gold, executive director of the watchdog group Heal the Bay. "I think it's a huge development," he said. "We have the worst DDT hotspot in the entire U.S." From 1947 to 1971, the Montrose Chemical Corp. released more than 1,700 tons of the pesticide into Los Angeles sewers that emptied into the Pacific Ocean. Several other industries discharged PCBs into the sewer system. DDT was banned in 1972, but more than 110 tons of DDT remain in the contaminated sediment on the Palos Verdes shelf. In 2000, the now-defunct Montrose firm and three other chemical companies agreed to pay a total of $73 million to help restore the ocean environment off Palos Verdes, located southwest of the Port of Los Angeles...AP