Agencies to Pay $300,000 in Resolving DDT Lawsuit : Environment: The county and 10 cities and sanitation districts will participate in the settlement. It comes years after toxic chemicals in runoff polluted the ocean.

For decades, the now-banned pesticide DDT and toxic industrial chemicals called PCBs flowed through the storm drains of Ventura County, down streams and rivers and out to sea.

Now, 20 years after DDT was banned from agricultural fields and 13 years after PCBs were outlawed for electric power transformers and elsewhere, Ventura County and 10 county cities and sanitation agencies must pay a combined $300,000 to help settle a Superfund lawsuit for their unwitting offenses.

The lawsuit was originally filed in 1990 by federal and state governments against the private chemical companies and their subsidiaries that manufactured DDT and PCBs and allegedly dumped them into Southern California coastal waters from the 1950s through the 1970s.

But, in a move that local officials say is a misuse of the judicial process, the chemical companies brought the Ventura County agencies and 140 others up and down the coast into the suit through a series of what officials have called bizarre third-party complaints.

Although the local agency representatives say their jurisdictions did nothing illegal, they agreed to pay into a proposed Superfund lawsuit settlement with the federal government to avoid years of expensive litigation and to gain immunity from any future lawsuits on the subject, officials said.

“It’s litigation blackmail,” said Robert Orellana, assistant counsel for Ventura County, one of the agencies named in the third-party suits.

According to the proposed agreement, the parties sharing the cost include the county; the cities of Ventura, Oxnard, Port Hueneme and Thousand Oaks, and Ventura Regional Sanitation District, Triunfo County Sanitation District, the Camarillo Sanitation District, Saticoy Sanitary District, the Ojai Valley Sanitary District and the Channel Islands Beach Community Services District, also a sanitation district.

Because the total $42.2-million settlement, lodged in U. S. District Court in Los Angeles last week, has not yet been approved by the court, the details of how much of the $300,000 that each entity will pay were not disclosed.

The total will be borne by cities and agencies in Ventura, Los Angeles, San Bernardino and Orange counties, with Los Angeles County agencies paying the largest share.

All of the agencies that are part of the proposed Superfund settlement have or at one time had storm water drainage systems or sewage treatment plants discharging into area waterways and eventually into the Pacific Ocean.

Mark Gold, staff scientist with Heal the Bay, an environmental activist organization that has worked to clean up the Santa Monica Bay and other polluted waterways, said the dumping and discharges from sanitation plants and storm drains were legal at the time they were done.

“That’s the way these Superfund lawsuits go,” he said. “They have caused historical resources damages and are being held responsible.”

Money paid into the settlement is targeted for treatment of contaminated underwater sediments. If that proves unfeasible, the money could be used for wildlife restoration.

The settlement stems from a lawsuit by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the Department of the Interior and three state agencies against Montrose Chemical Corp., eight other chemical companies and the Los Angeles County Sanitation District.

The suit alleges dumping of DDT and PCBs from the 1950s through the 1970s in the Los Angeles and Long Beach harbors, the Palos Verdes Shelf, the San Pedro Channel and the waters around Catalina Island and the Channel Islands, including those in the Channel Islands National Park.

No specifics were available on how much of the chemicals had been released into the waters around the Channel Islands or which islands were affected.

The damaged areas support commercial fisheries and provide habitat for fish, mammals, migratory birds and other wildlife. DDT is believed to have contributed to the decline of such endangered species as the brown pelican, the bald eagle and the peregrine falcon by thinning the eggshells of the unhatched young.

Litigation is continuing against the corporate defendants, including the now-closed Montrose, ICI American Holdings Inc. and its subsidiaries, Rhone-Poulenc Basic Chemicals Inc., Chris-Craft Industries and Westinghouse Electric.

Officials said Montrose and the other companies used the third-party complaints as part of their defense, contending that all the entities up and down the coast had contributed to the pollution in the Los Angeles Harbor and nearby by allowing the chemicals to pass through their sewage or waste water systems.

“You have a responsibility to provide public services and then we are being sued for providing them,” the county’s Orellana said.

Orellana and other attorneys involved in the settlement said the Ventura County agencies entered the settlement to avoid larger expenses later.

“The cities’ evaluation is that Superfund litigation is enormously expensive and the cities want to put their money into the environment rather than into litigation,” said Rufus Young, an attorney with Los Angeles-based Burke, Williams & Sorensen who was part of the settlement negotiating team. Young estimated that it could have taken two to five years to settle the suit in court.

By settling with the government, the agencies gain immunity from future prosecution and liability on the issue, said Gerald George, senior counsel for the U. S. Department of Justice in San Francisco. George said the proposed settlement is expected to be heard by the court in December or January.

Although DDT remains in the rivers and streams of Ventura County and off its coast, it is unlikely that the contaminants would have traveled down the coast to the Los Angeles Harbor, which was the main focus of the original lawsuit, said Gary Davis, marine biologist with the Channel Islands National Park.

“In general, contaminants would not go south along the coast; they would go north and west and out into the islands and be circulated among the islands in the Santa Barbara Channel,” he said.

DDT, he said, is found in all of the tissues of fish and mammals that have been monitored in the Channel Islands over the past decade, he said.

“That’s true in mussels, kelp bass and even in the dolphins,” he said.

In addition, reports by the state Water Resources Control Board in 1990 revealed high levels of DDT, PCBs and other contaminants at Mugu Lagoon, the Revolon Slough and Calleguas Creek. Revolon and Calleguas collect runoff from agriculture fields before they drain into the lagoon.

The county’s two major rivers, the Ventura and the Santa Clara, were found in the report to have lower levels of the toxic chemicals. The rivers were also found to have contaminants from street and gutter runoff, which drains into the rivers before being dumped at sea.

Paths to the Sea

The Pacific Ocean is the final recipient of runoff from city streets and rural farms. The runoff is collected by storm drains and barrancas and empties into rivers and streams and ultimately, into the sea.