$36 million to clean up DDT mess


One more reminder that DDT is a deadly substance:  EPA announced a program to cap render harmless the largest DDT dump, off the coast of California.

Jeff Gottlieb writes in The Los Angeles Times:

The federal Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday proposed spending at least $36 million to clean up the world’s largest deposit of banned pesticide DDT, which lies 200 feet underwater off the Palos Verdes Peninsula.

Montrose Chemical Corp., which was based near Torrance, released 110 tons of DDT and 10 tons of toxic PCBs into the sewers from 1947 through 1971. The chemicals then flowed into the Pacific.

What do you think?  A substance that is deadly, makes one of the largest and deadliest Superfund sites in America, and costs $36 million in taxpayer smackaroons just to seal up so it won’t kill again — is it “perfectly safe” as the advocates claim?

This is one subject you will not see discussed at Steven Milloy’s sites, Junk Science, nor Green Hell.  You won’t find the Chronically Obsessed with Rachel Carson (COWRC) mentioning this clean-up.

Remind them.

Public hearings on this plan are scheduled for June 23 and 25.

Tip of the old scrub brush to Audublog.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 12th, 2009 at 9:44 am and is filed under DDT, Economics, Environmental protection, Natural history, oceans, Public health, Rachel Carson, Science, Wildlife. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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