Main DDT Production Site Added to U.S. Cleanup List

The former Montrose Chemical Corp. site in Harbor Gateway, once the nation’s primary source of the pesticide DDT, has been placed on the Environmental Protection Agency’s Superfund cleanup list.

The 13-acre site, where production was shut down in 1982, is the source of extensive DDT contamination in the immediate area, in shallow ground-water tables, in local sewers and--at one time--in Santa Monica and San Pedro bays.

Montrose was first proposed for inclusion on the Superfund list in October, 1984, and has been treated as if it actually were on the list ever since, said Nathan Lau, chief of the agency’s regional Enforcement Response Section.

Final placement on the list, which includes more than 900 sites nationwide, means only that Montrose is eligible for a portion of the $8.5-billion Superfund trust fund, if the company fails to clean up the site itself.

But Lau said he doubts that will be necessary.

“The relationship between Montrose and the EPA has improved substantially” since the site first was proposed for the Superfund list, Lau said. “They have signed a consent order to do the work themselves under our supervision.”

Montrose has submitted a rough draft of proposed cleanup measures it would like to test at the site, Lau said. Preliminary testing of those measures could begin by January, 1990.

Lau expects a final cleanup program to be ready by the end of 1991.

Agency tests last year found the banned insecticide and another hazardous chemical called monochlorobenzene in the Bellflower and Gage aquifers, which lie underneath the former chemical plant on Normandie Avenue between Torrance Boulevard and 190th Street.

Traces of DDT and other contaminants also were found in the attics of 23 nearby homes and businesses in the same period.

The EPA has spent between $400,000 and $500,000 studying the site over the last five years, Lau said. Montrose officials have spent at least as much, he said, but no figures were available and company representatives Friday did not return telephone calls.

DDT contained in sewage pumped from the Montrose plant, where the pesticide was manufactured from 1947 to 1982, has been blamed for reproductive problems that nearly wiped out the California brown pelican in the 1970s, and high levels of the chemical were found in local fish.