Last fall, a Los Angeles Times investigation found that tens of thousands of barrels of DDT, a now-banned pesticide, are sitting on the seafloor wedged between Catalina Island and the Palos Verdes Peninsula. And they’re leaking.
Last night, the Long Beach City Council unanimously voted to draft a resolution calling for the United States Congress and Environmental Protection Agency to address and mitigate future harm caused by the toxic pesticides.
“The amount of damage to our coastal assets and to marine life is significant,” Mayor Robert Garcia said, noting that further research is needed to assess the full impact of the toxins.
The council move came just ten days after the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors made a similar call to action. The board sent a letter to EPA Administrator Michael Regan urging the EPA to assess the DDT damage and to expedite the cleanup of the extensive dumpsite.
The board will also throw its support behind Assembly Joint Resolution 2, a resolution focused on mitigating the impacts of DDT on marine life. The resolution was introduced by Assemblyman Patrick O’Donnell in late 2020 and revised in April.
“DDT is bad stuff,” Assemblyman Patrick O’Donnell said during the meeting. “This situation needs rapid attention, and has the potential to become what I call a ‘huge unnatural disaster’ in that it is a disaster created by man and man must address it and fix it.”
Councilmember Al Austin noted that the pesticide, which was banned in 1972, causes significant environmental damage, especially to marine life such as sea lions, brown pelicans, California condors, dolphins and other birds and fish.
“The nation’s largest manufacturer of DDT was located in Los Angeles,” he said. “And they disposed toxic waste throughout the sewage pipes and poured it into the ocean, creating a super point site of contamination.”
At least 27,000 barrels of illegally dumped DDT have been identified, a statement from Supervisor Janice Hahn said, calling the event “appalling.”
“We need to know how this happened,” Councilmember Cindy Allen said. “And we need the EPA and Congress to step up and help us clean it.”
