Pollution Suit Doesn’t Solve the Problem of Cleaning It Up : Environment: The federal government has sued eight firms that it says dumped toxic chemicals onto an undersea shelf. But it isn’t sure how to deal with the contamination even if it wins.

It sounds good on paper. The federal government sues companies responsible for polluting the Palos Verdes undersea shelf off White Point, forcing them to pay for restoring the injured marine resources there.

That is the idea behind a lawsuit the government filed June 18 against eight companies that it holds responsible for polluting the shelf and several other areas of marine sediment along the Los Angeles County coast.

But the litigation raises a question: Even if the government wins in court, how can it restore an area as vast as the shelf?

High concentrations of the pesticide DDT, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and other toxic chemicals are embedded in the shelf’s sediment, much of it in water 200 feet deep.

It is far trickier territory than the shallows of the harbor at New Bedford, Mass., or Commencement Bay near Tacoma, Wash., two other sites where federal restoration projects are planned.

The shelf is “a nightmare cleanup situation,” said Mark Gold, the staff biologist for Heal the Bay, a Santa Monica environmental group. “I wouldn’t bet on anything.”

Federal officials plan a major study of all restoration options, including suction-dredging contaminated sediment, capping the area with clean sediment and cultivating microorganisms that break down the pollutants. They will also consider indirect methods, such as constructing hatcheries or artificial reefs to bolster marine life.

“We will do as good a job as we can,” said Grayson Cecil, special counsel for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the lead agency in the federal lawsuit. “To shrug our shoulders and say ‘Hey, let’s give up’ is just not acceptable.”

The suit, based on a federal law called the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act, assumes that some kind of restoration will be done.

The act permits the government to sue for damages to natural resources, but it requires that the money recovered in such litigation be used “only to restore, replace, or acquire the equivalent of such natural resources.”

Federal officials say a main goal of the law is to promote cleanup of polluted resources, but that is a tall order when it comes to the Palos Verdes shelf.

The pollution there consists mainly of DDT, PCBs and other toxins released into the sewer system and pumped through ocean outfalls into the waters off White Point in the 1940s, ‘50s, ‘60s and early ‘70s.

Large amounts of the toxins became embedded in sediments over a broad area of the shelf, and they are believed to have tainted the marine food chain, contaminating marine animals and birds that ate them.

The shelf’s sediments contain about 200 tons of DDT and between two and 20 tons of PCBs, according to the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts, which operates the White Point outfalls.

Testing of white croaker fish indicates that although much of the pollution is apparently sealed under a foot or more of newer sediment, it is still contaminating bottom-dwelling marine organisms.

Even for the people most interested in cleaning it up, the shelf appears forbidding.

“What you’ve got is a dark, cold, high-pressure and (oxygen-free) environment where chemicals like DDT will literally last for hundreds of years,” said Malcolm Gordon, a biology professor at UCLA. “These are pretty difficult conditions.”

Gordon and many other experts express doubt that suction dredging could be considered a viable alternative on the shelf.

Besides pointing to the size of the polluted area and the depths involved, they worry that dredging would disturb the sediment and release buried contaminants into the water.

Under certain conditions, dredging can be used to remove tainted sediments. As part of the restoration project in New Bedford, for instance, the federal Environmental Protection Agency plans to remove harbor sediment that is contaminated with extremely high levels of PCBs.

But the area being dredged is a small, well-defined “hot spot” of only five acres, and it is in shallow water. Experts fear that it might be far harder to control dredging off the Palos Verdes Peninsula.

“We don’t want to do anything that would resuspend these contaminants,” said Mark Helvey of the National Marine Fisheries Service, a division of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that is organizing a study of restoration alternatives. “That’s open ocean, not a protected area like New Bedford.”

Said Rodolfo Iturriaga, an assistant professor of biology at USC: “It’s like when you clean your carpet. Are you going to shake it out indoors and let the dust go inside the room?”

Another option is to cap the polluted sediments with clean fill, in hopes that the contaminants will break down naturally, sealed off from contact with marine life.

In Commencement Bay, an area of polluted sediment was capped in this manner in 1987, and several other sites in the area are slated for capping in coming years, EPA officials say.

But the sites in Washington state, like the hot spot in New Bedford, are well-defined areas of pollution in shallow water.

Experts say dumping tons of sediment to cover polluted ocean bottom off the peninsula might cost a great deal and still not work.

“Some marine geologists have been saying that if too heavy a load is deposited on top, it could cause the sediment to crack and slump and cause (DDT and PCB) releases,” said Jack Anderson, director of the Southern California Coastal Water Research Project. “There’s also some concern that marine animals could eventually reach down through that (clean) sediment.”

Some experts hold out hope that microorganisms capable of breaking down the pollutants could be isolated and nurtured on the shelf. Studies have shown that organisms exist that do break down DDT and PCBs, but it is uncertain how much of this can occur in the cold, oxygen-free shelf sediments.

Though the use of microorganisms to neutralize pollutants--a process called bioremediation--is a fast-growing industry, those familiar with the field say it is still in its early stages.

Douglas Allen, a consultant in the New Bedford restoration, said his firm could not recommend bioremediation for the Massachusetts project because the process is still undeveloped.

“I can shovel PCBs into an incinerator and tell you it will destroy 99% of them and cost you X amount,” said Allen, an engineer with ABB Environmental Services of Portland, Me. “With biodegradation you can’t do that. We’ve seen numbers, but they’re all over the board.”

That, however, could change.

“Hopefully, within the next decade someone will learn how to apply these processes (to marine sediments),” said Ronald Crawford, co-director of the Center for Hazardous Waste Remediation Research at the University of Idaho. “We know degradation occurs. Our next challenge is to learn how to speed it up.”

Gold of Heal the Bay says that although all cleanup options should be studied carefully, the federal government should also look at the possibility of forgoing direct restoration work.

If studies show that the contaminants on the shelf are breaking down naturally and are unlikely to escape their natural barrier in large quantities, the wisdom of direct restoration work has to be questioned, Gold said.

“Is it even worth risking the cleanup?” he asked. “If indeed a lot of (these) PCBs and DDT (were) resuspended, what would be the consequences?”

For now, federal officials say they will consider all options in studies expected to take up to two years.

“I don’t want to rule anything out and say anything is too far off the wall at this point,” said Helvey. “We’re trying to be good scientists here, to be objective and see whether restoration is feasible, effective and what the costs are.”