Record Settlement to Pay for Coastal Cleanup : Pollution: Restoring waters damaged by DDT and PCBs to involve 150 agencies, at cost of $43.2 million.

In the nation’s largest settlement of an offshore chemical contamination case, more than 150 Southern California cities and special districts will spend about $43.2 million to restore coastal waters polluted by toxic sewage and runoff, The Times has learned.

The settlement, which is expected to be finalized in several days, could be used to clean up the pesticide DDT and toxic industrial chemicals called PCBs that were dumped into coastal waters from Southern California sewers from the 1950s through the 1970s.

If the cleanup is found to be too expensive or technically impossible, the money may be spent for wildlife projects that would benefit birds, fish and other marine creatures in the Los Angeles and Long Beach harbors, the San Pedro Channel and the Channel Islands, sources said.

The U.S. Department of Justice has refused to comment on the pending settlement, which must eventually be approved by a federal district judge in Los Angeles.

But other sources put the total at as much as $46.7 million, with $3.5 million to go to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to clean up a former DDT manufacturing site in Torrance that dumped the now-banned pesticide into county sewers under legal discharge permits. The remaining $43.2 million would pay for restoration of coastal waters.

About $8 million of it would be in the form of “in-kind” services, such as use of staff, offices or equipment. The entire settlement would be paid over four years. Sources said the dollar amount may change before the agreement is finalized, but not significantly.

“As we get closer and closer to settlement, some of the numbers can change,” said a source familiar with the settlement.

The cost will be borne by the cities and districts, with the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts paying the largest share. Payments from each defendant will range from hundreds of thousands of dollars to tens of millions, and sewer rates may be raised to cover their costs. How much each city or district will pay has not been disclosed.

“The taxpayers will be paying for this,” the source said.

Virtually every city in Los Angeles County, some in Ventura County, a handful in San Bernardino County and the Orange County Sanitation Districts are participating in the settlement, sources said. The parties also include sanitation, water and flood control districts.

Robert Horvath, an assistant department chief in charge of technical services for the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts, said their share will be paid through sewer fees, which range from $65 to $75 a year for most users.

“It’s not going to be a huge change compared to our current fees,” said Horvath, who refused to discuss the settlement amount or disclose the districts’ obligations under it. “It’s not going to get lost in the budget, but it’s not going to double the budget either.”

Federal and state government trustees will administer the money. Under the law, it must be used “only to restore, replace, or acquire the equivalent” of the damaged natural resources.

“The law is fairly flexible about how the money can be spent, but it has to have some connection with the mitigation of the damage,” said Brian Gorman, a spokesman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration or NOAA. “In some cases you can never set things straight, or to do so would be terribly expensive.”

The settlement stems from a suit filed in 1990 by NOAA, the U.S. Department of Interior and several state agencies against Montrose Chemical, the Torrance-based DDT manufacturer, and several companies that used PCBs that were released into Southern California’s coastal waters.

In addition to the companies, the government sought damages from the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts, whose sewer lines released the toxics into coastal waters.

The companies subsequently filed third-party complaints against other districts and cities, contending they also released toxic substances into the waters that contributed to the overall pollution. Two corporate polluters already have settled with the government for $12 million.

Gorman said NOAA and the other government agencies will continue to press their case against the corporations and expect to win even more money.

“It isn’t over yet because we’ve got some corporations we are going after,” Gorman said. “This will be a major settlement.”

Although he refused to discuss the amount of the pending settlement, Gorman said the highest previous agreement in the nation for chemical contamination was $25 million to $30 million for pollution of a harbor in Massachusetts.

DDT, a pesticide banned in 1972, was dumped into the ocean in the 1950s and 1960s through sewer lines by Montrose Chemical, which closed in 1982. The Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts stopped most of the releases by 1971, but DDT deposits in sediments inside the sewer lines continued to add to the pollution.

Montrose and the other companies have said they will challenge the suit because the dumping was legal under valid sewage discharge permits.

DDT, which causes birds to lay eggs with shells so thin that they crack before hatching, was linked to the near-extinction of several species before it was banned. The pesticide also can interfere with the ability of fish to reproduce.

In addition to the pesticide, cancer-causing PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, were released into the waters from a variety of industrial sources. Used in making plastics and at one time as insulation in electrical equipment, PCBs are highly toxic and are no longer made in the United States.

The legacy of the releases includes an estimated 200 tons of DDT covering nearly 20 square miles of the sea floor in and around the Palos Verdes Peninsula.

Biologists blamed the chemicals for devastation of kelp beds, which provide food and habitat for myriad sea mammals and birds, contamination of fish and a drop in the population of brown pelicans.

Although most of the kelp beds and species have recovered since the dumping stopped, the pollutants can persist in the environment for decades. Last year, state officials warned residents to limit their consumption of certain species of fish caught in Southern California because their DDT and PCB levels raise the risk of cancer.

Mark Gold, a staff scientist for Heal the Bay, said the environmental group will not press for a cleanup if it is enormously costly or technically infeasible. A cleanup could involve removing the contaminated sediment, covering it with clean material or deploying microorganisms to break down the pollutants.

If that is not workable, he said, the settlement should go to implement a plan by the federal- and state-funded Santa Monica Bay Restoration Project, which advocates restoration of marshes and other wetlands, pollution prevention, and better controls on sewage and storm runoff to prevent contamination.