Researcher Hid Severity of Bay Contamination, Aide Charges

A high-ranking member of the Southern California Coastal Water Research Project has charged that the organization’s director has distorted scientific findings and tried to censor staff members in order to mislead the public about the severity of toxic contamination in Santa Monica and San Pedro bays.

David Brown, head of the project’s chemistry department, said director Willard Bascom routinely withheld information that would have been damaging to the waste dischargers that fund the research organization. Brown also accused Bascom of using “random numbers” to justify his scientific conclusions.

Brown’s allegations came in a five-page letter to Assemblyman Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica), head of a state task force investigating the bays. After reviewing the letter, Hayden called for Bascom’s immediate resignation and said health officials should disregard his public testimony.

Hayden forwarded a copy of Brown’s allegations Tuesday to Robert Ghirelli, director of the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board.

In a cover letter to Ghirelli, Hayden said Bascom should be called before a joint meeting of the board and the Assembly task force to answer Brown’s allegations.

Hayden also called on the water board to reassess its position on the Hyperion waste water treatment plant, which used Bascom’s findings in its recent application for a waiver that would allow the plant to dump partly treated sewage into waters off El Segundo.

In his 12 years as director of the coastal research project, which is supported by the sanitation districts of Los Angeles and Orange counties and other public agencies, Bascom has frequently testified at public hearings on contamination of the bays. In several instances, he has disputed the testimony of scientists and residents who contended that discharges of toxic chemicals were seriously damaging marine life.

Brown’s letter also accused Bascom of trying to coerce the staff into producing information that would help the Hyperion plant win its controversial waiver. To support the allegation, Brown produced an internal memo in which Bascom chided the staff for forgetting the “purpose” of the organization.

Struggle With EPA Noted

“The data we assemble may be used by the dischargers to rebut the unsupported allegations of environmentalists . . . ,” Bascom said in the memo. “The main reason why the cities and counties of Southern California are willing to pay for our studies is because they are engaged in a long-term struggle with the EPA over whether secondary treatment is to be required of every discharger.”

Bascom was out of town Tuesday and could not be reached for comment. In the past, the 68-year-old director, who plans to retire later this year, has accused his critics of being uninformed.

People familiar with the organization say that relations between Bascom and Brown have been strained for several months.

Their first public clash came at Hayden’s task force meeting last Friday. Testifying before the committee, Brown said Bascom had once warned staff members that they could lose their jobs is they released a study reporting high toxic levels in marine mammals.

Bascom admitted that he had tried to stop the report but said he was mainly concerned that the findings were inaccurate.

Brown, who reportedly was angered by Bascom’s explanation, fired off a letter to Hayden the next day. Saying he wanted to be “more candid” than he had been at the hearing, Brown accused Bascom of providing “an unsuspecting public and unsuspecting officials with false information.”

Charge of Misrepresentation

In his most serious charge, Brown accused his boss of misrepresenting the hazard caused by DDT and other chemicals in the bays by claiming Friday that concentrations of those chemicals were decreasing.

“What he didn’t tell you is that there is evidence to indicate that the peak concentrations of DDT at Palos Verdes are decreasing because the DDT contamination is spreading to a wider area of coastal Southern California,” Brown said. “What he also didn’t tell you was that . . . while we show concentrations of DDT and PCBs decreasing in Dover sole . . . we see them increasing in Pacific sand dabs.”

In his appearance before the task force, Bascom also said that sport fishermen had an extremely low chance of getting cancer, based on federal health standards. But what Bascom did not mention, Brown said, is that the average Southern California sports fisherman eats four times more fish than the national average, thereby increasing his chances of getting cancer.

Moreover, Brown said, Bascom failed to mention that the agency usually measures just two chemicals in fish--DDT and PCBs. According to Brown, several other chemicals may be much more hazardous than DDT or PCBs, but have not been studied because “Mr. Bascom has concluded that these are not a problem.”

According to Brown, Bascom based his conclusion on two to five fishing trawls, while 17 to 29 trawls are necessary to draw valid scientific conclusions. “At any given time,” Brown said, “two to five other trawls could have been done and produced the opposite results. In fact, we have done just that.”