Trial Over Huge Offshore Deposit of DDT Begins

Kicking off one of the largest and longest-delayed environmental trials in the nation, government and industry attorneys battled Tuesday over who is to blame for DDT that has been harming bald eagles and marine life off Southern California for the past five decades.

After nearly 11 years of legal wrangling, U.S. District Judge Manuel L. Real will decide whether Montrose Chemical Corp. and three other companies will have to pay to restore resources and compensate the public. The government is seeking damages that could run into the hundreds of millions of dollars, including $16 million sought to help restore eagle and falcon populations. The potential damages would be surpassed among natural resources cases only by the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska.

The case centers on a DDT deposit, now totaling about 100 tons, that has been on the ocean floor off the Palos Verdes Peninsula ever since Montrose Chemical Corp. manufactured the pesticide at a Los Angeles plant near Torrance. The ocean site off Palos Verdes is the largest known deposit of DDT in the world.

Because of its scope and the importance of issues at stake, the case is being watched by environmental experts across the nation.

From 1947 until 1971, the Montrose plant discharged DDT into Los Angeles County sewers that empty into the ocean. The pesticide was banned in the United States in the early 1970s after it was linked to severe reproductive problems in birds and other wildlife and cancer in humans.

Real, who will hear the case without a jury, already has ruled that birds and fish in the region were injured by DDT and that the DDT on the sea floor came from the Montrose plant.

He must still answer two main questions: Is the DDT that caused the injuries the same DDT that is on the sea floor? And, if so, what are the injuries to natural resources worth?

“It’s just one little central link we need to prove,” said Steve O’Rourke of the Justice Department, who is lead attorney in the case. “The people of Southern California suffered losses of natural resources and they deserve compensation for that loss.”

Layn Phillips, an attorney representing the state of California, told the judge that Montrose broke a classic playground rule: “Clean up your own mess.”

“They were discharging huge, staggering amounts of DDT unlawfully . . . year after year, decade after decade,” he said.

But in his opening statement, Montrose attorney Harvey Wolkoff said the government has no proof that DDT in the birds and fish came from the plant. The pesticide is likely to have come from runoff from old agricultural fields instead, he said. Wolkoff also argued the company was operating under a lawful permit to discharge into county sewers.

And Wolkoff described the injury to the birds and fish as minimal, saying just as many falcons and eagles populate the Channel Islands now as before the Montrose plant began operating.

“At every turn, the government exaggerates what really happened,” Wolkoff said.

Government experts say bald eagles on Santa Catalina Island remain so contaminated with DDT that they cannot reproduce without human help. Peregrine falcons on the Channel Islands have been laying eggs with thin shells, and bottom-dwelling fish in Santa Monica Bay contain amounts of the pesticide considered unsafe for human consumption, they say.

Tuesday’s testimony focused largely on 30-year-old data about the amounts of DDT that flowed from the plant into county sewers. The government estimates that 1,800 tons of DDT was discharged; Montrose disputes that figure.

Attorneys have estimated that the case could last longer than a month, but Real has a reputation for being impatient with long arguments. During cross-examination of the first of eight witnesses, the judge demanded of a Montrose attorney, “Why are you wasting time?”

The case originally involved many other defendants, led by the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts, which have already settled. Only four defendants are left, led by Montrose, a defunct company with no employees, only consultants and outside lawyers. Montrose’s parent company, Chris Craft Industries, is arguing that it is not liable because it was not involved in operating the plant. The other defendants are Aventis CropScience USA Inc., formerly Rhone-Poulenc, and Atkemix Thirty-Seven Inc.

The two sides on Tuesday reached an agreement on a small part of the case--Montrose will pay $5.125 million to the Environmental Protection Agency for past costs of cleaning up an onshore site where the plant formerly operated.

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DDT Lawsuit

The federal government is seeking tens of millions of dollars from Montrose Chemical Corp. and three other companies that were involved in the production of DDT at a plant near Torrance.

Source: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency