[CINC] After decades DDT still poisoning animals

[staci at savzsea.com]

After decades DDT still poisoning animals
Sand cap proposed for sea floor to contain pesticide

http://www.venturacountystar.com/news/2009/jun/22/after-decades-ddt-still-poisoning-animals-sand/

When Paul Muller received the Nobel Prize in 1948 for inventing DDT, a
scientist lauded the pesticide by giving an example of its effectiveness
and longevity. He praised how an application of DDT continued to kill a
huge amount of bugs long after it had been wiped off a pane of glass.

“This little story amply illustrates how persistent DDT is and how
small the dosage required,” said professor G. Fischer before handing
Muller one of the world’s most coveted honors.

It’s as true today as it was 61 years ago, although the meaning is
more menacing than praise worthy. The chemical once lauded for its
ability to kill malaria-carrying mosquitoes and protect crops against
insect infestations is now considered the source of one of the worst
cases of environmental pollution in U.S. history.

Although the company that made DDT stopped dumping it into the Pacific
Ocean off the Palos Verdes peninsula more than 38 years ago, the
chemical is still damaging the ecosystem today and will continue to do
so for decades.

The DDT dumping grounds is more than 70 miles south of Ventura County,
but the long hand of the chemical is still felt in birds swimming off
our shores. DDT exposure causes egg shells to become so thin that they
crack during incubation.

The Environmental Protection Agency is proposing a series of
remediations off the Palos Verdes peninsula that could help reduce the
amount of DDT in the ecosystem by dumping thousands of tons of sand on
top of the contaminated area. It could reduce the amount of DDT that
creeps into the food chain.

But even if the $36.6 million project is approved and deemed a success,
it doesn’t mean DDT will be out of the ecosystem.

“We are hoping to see an acceleration in recovery, but we are still
talking decades,” said Carmen White, project manager with the EPA.
“The idea that it could take a long time is disheartening, but it’s
a reality.”

The EPA has written four different proposals on how to deal with the
Superfund site that arose after the Montrose Chemical Corp. in Torrance
— the nation’s largest DDT factory — sent tons of the pesticide
during manufacturing into the storm drain system that emptied into the
ocean near San Pedro. The plans range from monitoring the site to
spending $64 million to cap 640 acres of contaminated seabed with 18
inches of sand.

The EPA’s preferred plan is somewhere in the middle, calling for 320
acres to be capped with sediment with the hopes of lowering DDT levels
in the water to acceptable standards by 2023, and lowering
concentrations in the sediment by 2039. It would also help reduce the
amount of PCBs in the ecosystem, which were also widely dumped into the
storm drains.

The $36.6 million plan calls for 864,000 cubic yards of clean sand to be
piped to the ocean floor, where it would keep the DDT and PCBs from
entering the food chain. White said this approach has been used in lakes
and rivers, but this is the first time it would be used in the open
ocean. The idea presents challenges.

Winter storms can threaten to move the cap. Merely placing the sand on
top of the contaminated area could disturb the ground and spread the DDT
farther, White said.

Still, research shows that it may be the best alternative to slow
DDT’s creep. Sucking the contaminated sediment out of the ocean would
spread too much of the chemical around in the process, White said.

Although the waters closest to the storm drain outfall near San Pedro
show the highest levels of DDT contamination, there is still a
significant concentration in the ecosystem off Ventura County’s coast.

“It’s remarkable how far-reaching the impacts are,” said David
Witting, a fish biologist with the Montrose Settlements Restoration
Program. “There will be ongoing problems for decades.”

DDT travels through the ecosystem when fish eat the smaller animals that
live in the contaminated sediment. Bigger fish eat those fish, and those
are eventually eaten by either sea lions or birds. Although sea lions
themselves are not terribly affected by the DDT, it is stored in their
fat tissue, and when they die and birds feed upon them, the
contamination is passed onto the birds.

The state Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment recently
updated its safe-eating guidelines for fish caught off Southern
California because of PCBs and DDT. Consumers are warned to avoid white
croaker, barred sand bass and topsmelt from Santa Monica Beach to Seal
Beach Pier and children and women under the age of 45 are warned not to
eat black croaker or barracuda from Ventura Harbor to San Mateo Point.

Bald eagles, peregrine falcons and brown pelicans suffered massive
die-offs because DDT weakened their shells so much that they would break
during incubation. Without new birds being born, the birds were pushed
to the brink of extinction. Although eagle and pelican populations are
recovering and the birds have been taken off the Endangered Species
List, the DDT is still out there.

A survey of peregrine falcons two years ago found one-third of the eggs
on the Channel Islands failed because the shells broke. Birds on the
mainland are faring better because they don’t have as much exposure to
DDT, said Brian Latta, executive director of the Bird Group, which has
done work on the islands.

Bald eagle populations that once vanished from the islands because of
DDT exposure have been re-established in recent years with help from
biologists introducing them to the islands and sometimes incubating
their eggs to protect them from breaking. Eight of 10 nests on Catalina
Island successfully yielded healthy eggs without intervention this year.

Two years after birds were released on Santa Cruz and Santa Rosa
islands, however, DDT concentrations in their systems nearly tripled,
likely from feeding on sea lions and other birds that had the pollutant
in their bodies.

“What was done to the environment in the past, we still haven’t
recovered from,” said Peter Sharpe, a research wildlife ecologist with
the Institute for Wildlife Studies, which has been restoring the bald
eagles on the islands.

Many of the restoration projects have been funded through the Montrose
Settlements Restoration Program, in which Montrose put more than $100
million in a bank account for remediation and ecosystem restoration.
More than $9 million has been given to projects on the Channel Islands
to help with monitoring shorebirds, reintroducing eagles and removing
feral cats from San Nicholas Island.

Latta said it’s too early to tell how much the EPA plan would help the
ecosystem, although at this point, any solution is welcome.

“It’s hard to know what level of impact the EPA action will have,”
he said, “but I’m guessing there will be ongoing problems for
decades.”