Suit Helps Scientists Haul In Heavy Catch of Marine Data : Research: Investigation of ecological damage off Palos Verdes shelf was gathered to help government try to win its case against DDT manufacturer.

The ocean floor off the Palos Verdes Peninsula has been painstakingly probed with sonar, recorded by video cameras and sampled for contamination in more than 100 spots.

Fish have been dissected, hundreds of broken bird eggs have been collected and bald eagles have been observed to determine precisely what they eat.

No coastal resource in the nation--with the exception of Alaska’s oil-slicked Prince William Sound--has been investigated for ecological damage as extensively as the Palos Verdes shelf off Los Angeles County. Since 1992, the U.S. government has spent $24 million studying the impact of the shelf’s 100-ton DDT-contaminated deposit.

The government’s mission, though, is not pursuit of knowledge, but pursuit of a winning case. A lawsuit pitting U.S. and California environmental agencies against DDT manufacturer Montrose Chemical Corp. and others has provided a windfall for scientists by bankrolling marine research that would have gone unfunded.

The suit--the largest in the nation alleging natural resource damage--was dismissed in April by U.S. District Judge A. Andrew Hauk, who ruled that the U.S. Justice Department had filed the 1990 lawsuit too late. The government has appealed, and the case is likely to drag on for years.

In addition to Montrose, which no longer operates, the suit names four co-owners of the company that have extensive earnings--Chris-Craft Industries Inc., Stauffer Management Co., ICI American Holdings Inc. and Atkemix Inc. Also sued were pesticide manufacturer Rhone-Poulenc and Westinghouse Electric Corp., which is linked to another hazardous contaminant, PCBs.

The companies contend that there is insufficient evidence to link the deposit on the ocean floor to the DDT found in eagles and other wildlife.

Seeking several hundred million dollars in damages to help restore the ocean environment, the U.S. government has hired 88 expert witnesses, from UC Santa Cruz peregrine falcon biologists to USC oceanographers. Montrose has hired about 35 experts, including scientists from Caltech and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Massachusetts.

“Which side do you work for?” is a common refrain among colleagues in the world of marine environmental science.

Findings of the government-hired researchers became public in October, when thousands of pages of data were presented to the defense. Yet scientists on both sides remain bound by contract to remain silent.

Under the federal law that governs lawsuits alleging natural resource damage, the government faces a formidable burden of proof. U.S. attorneys must not only prove that Montrose’s plant in Torrance was responsible for the 100-ton deposit, but that marine resources have been clearly injured by it.

The science of marine ecosystems has so many nuances and complexities that the same data--such as the reproductive rate of falcons--can be manipulated by both sides to support opposite stances.

“I don’t necessarily agree with the prosecution or the defense,” said one government-hired witness. “I’m a scientist and what I find may work for both sides.”

Many of the government’s experts will undergo laborious questioning by industry attorneys who have pored over the thousands of pages of reports.

“There is substantial reason to ask a lot of questions about what you see in these documents,” said San Francisco attorney Karl Lytz, who represents Montrose. “None of these reports were genuinely peer-reviewed. They were done for litigation, not genuine science.”

The most arguable evidence may come from an elaborate public opinion poll that cost the U.S. government more than $5 million. About 2,800 Californians were asked questions to determine how much they would be willing to spend to clean up the DDT off Palos Verdes.

Their answer: an average of $55.61 per household, or $575 million statewide.

The polling technique, designed to help set damage awards for resources that have no market value, is highly controversial.

“This case,” said Gerald George, former lead government attorney for the case, “may be the first to go to trial with this sort of evidence.”