Residents Call for Speedier Cleanup of 2 Toxic Waste Sites

Neighbors of two toxic waste sites east of Torrance pleaded last week with government regulators to speed cleanup of the contaminated properties and to continue monitoring the health of residents.

But officials from the state Department of Health Services told a gathering of about 25 residents Thursday evening that cleanup of the Del Amo and Montrose waste sites is still several years away at best and that another comprehensive health survey is not planned.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, however, is planning further investigations at the Montrose site to determine whether the pesticide DDT has seeped into an underground aquifer that supplies drinking water to much of the South Bay. Water company officials said previous tests have shown that the Silverado Aquifer is safe.

Skeptical of Health Study

The meeting at Van Deene Elementary School was to discuss a health study near the two dumps, which are in City of Los Angeles southwest of the junction of the Harbor and San Diego freeways. The health survey found no increased levels of cancer, birth defects or death among residents, but did detect more sore throats, skin and eye irritation than expected.

Residents said they were skeptical of the survey results and described six cases of cancer that they said may be connected to the contaminated properties. The studies were done in residential neighborhoods adjacent to the dumps.

Dr. Kenneth Satin of the state’s Epidemiological Studies and Surveillance Section told the audience that a connection between cancer and the waste sites could not be absolutely ruled out because of the survey’s limitations. The average resident lives for just six years in the neighborhoods south of Del Amo Boulevard, but environmentally caused cancers take 15 to 20 years to materialize. Most residents who lived in the area more than 10 years ago have already moved and were not tracked by the survey, Satin said.

State officials will make a more comprehensive check for cancer by studying USC’s Tumor Registry. The university keeps a log of every malignant cancer diagnosed in the county, and researchers are expected to report by July whether an unusually high number of cancers has been logged from the Montrose and Del Amo neighborhoods. The registry has the most comprehensive information on cancer in the area, although it cannot track the health of those who have moved away.

The six-acre Del Amo site, at the northwest corner of Del Amo Boulevard and Vermont Avenue, was used from 1942 until 1973 in the production of rubber and related products. On a 13-acre property just a few blocks west, Montrose Chemical Corp. produced the pesticide DDT from 1947 until 1982.

Neighbors at Thursday’s meeting grumbled about what they said was the state’s attempt to downplay the health threats from the waste.

Longtime resident Bob Campbell doubted whether health officials surveyed enough residents. “I don’t think (the survey) was done in a full, wholehearted way,” Campbell said, claiming that few people were interviewed in his Torrance Boulevard neighborhood.

Others urged Satin to continue monitoring health problems in their neighborhood. But Satin said that further research probably will not be needed, unless USC’s tumor survey reveals an unusually high cancer rate.

Neighbors became more agitated when discussion turned to cleanup efforts.

“It’s extremely frustrating,” said Chris Venn, who lived for 12 years next door to the Del Amo property. “We’ve worked on this for so long and we still don’t have a target date for the cleanup.”

“We’re very skeptical” about cleanup, Campbell said. Delays “have happened so many times, you can’t blame us for doubting.”

High levels of naphthalene, styrene and polystyrene--compounds believed to cause cancer and less serious illnesses in humans--have been found on the Del Amo property, where chemicals were once dumped into shallow ponds. The health study showed that throat, skin and eye irritation were more common in the Del Amo study area than the one next to the Montrose site.

Dividing the cost of the Del Amo cleanup will be complicated, officials said, because as many as a dozen companies manufactured rubber and other products there.

The state Department of Health Services signed an agreement in 1985 with three of the companies that it believes should pay for the cleanup of the Del Amo site. The agreement was designed as the first step toward cleansing the land, but squabbling over several legal issues prevented the plan from moving ahead.

State officials said they hope to sign a new cleanup agreement within three weeks with Cadillac Farview/California Inc., the property owner, and two of the firms that operated there--Dow Chemical and Shell Oil.

The state might also begin the cleanup and then attempt to recover the costs from companies that manufactured products there, according to John E. Scandura, a supervisor with the state’s Toxic Substances Control Division.

No target date for the work has been set.

Before any cleanup can begin, there must be a lengthy period for feasibility studies and public reviews that could take two years, according to Scandura. Removal or destruction of the toxics could take up to three years after that, he said.

Cleanup of the Montrose property, originally scheduled for completion in early 1986, is also languishing.

The property is one of 11 in the county on the EPA’s Superfund list, which contains the nation’s worst toxic sites. Montrose Chemical has already agreed to pay for the costs of eliminating contamination, according to Alexis Strauss, chief of enforcement for the EPA’s Western Region.

“In 1985 the state was just for capping (the waste) and walking away,” Strauss said in an interview. “Then we saw it was a more serious problem. The more samples we have taken, the more serious and complex the problem has become.”

Two underground aquifers are contaminated with DDT, and the federal agency recently ordered Montrose to drill two wells, more than 300 feet underground, to make sure that a deeper underground drinking water supply is not contaminated.

It will take at least two more years to determine how far the underground pollution has travelled and how it can be removed, Strauss said.

Supplies 32,000 Customers

South Bay water companies pump water from the Silverado Aquifer to supplement water obtained from the Colorado River and the eastern Sierras. An official at the Dominguez Water Co., which supplies 32,000 customers in the Torrance/Carson area and draws water from the aquifer, said that previous tests of company wells have shown its water is not contaminated.

To deal with surface contamination by DDT, the EPA has ordered Montrose to extend a 3-inch-thick asphalt cap on the site to cover a storm ditch east of the property and a dirt road to the south. The asphalt should prevent DDT-tainted dust from blowing about the neighborhood, Strauss said.

Underground cleanup near the Montrose and Del Amo properties may be more complicated, according to Strauss, because pollution from a number of South Bay manufacturers has run together underground.

“What’s troubling me is, I don’t think we’ll ever get to the point where we find no contamination,” Strauss said. “All we will run into is the contamination problems from nearby industrial customers. It may be difficult to separate.”

Not far from the waste sites in Torrance, for instance, water quality officials have detected underground hydrocarbons that they suspect leaked from the Mobil Oil Refinery.

Both state and federal regulators suggested that all industrial polluters in the region might be asked to contribute to a fund to pay for the cleanup of the underground water tables.

Legacy of Company

The legacy of Montrose Chemical Corp. has been felt far beyond the dump site, scientists said.

A 1986 study found that two DDT ocean dump sites near Santa Catalina Island were probably responsible for the disappearance in the area of the bald eagle and the peregrine falcon.

Investigators said a chemical “fingerprint” from the dumps showed that the DDT came from the Montrose plant, at one time the world’s largest producer of the pesticide. The company dumped 20 to 40 tons of the chemical a year into the San Pedro Channel, from 1947 until 1961, according to Robert Risebrough, an ecologist at the University of California, Santa Cruz.

During the 1960s, Montrose shifted its dumping to the county sewer system, which in turn emptied into the harbor area, according to a study that Risebrough completed for the state Regional Water Quality Control Board. In 1970, the company shifted the bulk of its DDT disposal to a landfill in Rolling Hills Estates, according to a state report, cutting the 638 pounds per day that was going into the sewers to 9 pounds a day.

Montrose maintained a 30-foot-deep waste pond on the property.

Montrose General Manager Daniel Greeno said Thursday that he is “not qualified to comment” on the dumping. “That happened long before my time,” he said from Connecticut.

But Greeno said the DDT plant never violated regulatory guidelines for disposal of DDT and other substances. And EPA officials said Montrose is cooperating with efforts to clean up the toxic waste that it left behind.