DDT From Superfund Site to Be Shipped to Texas

The Environmental Protection Agency will begin moving 1,500 cubic yards of DDT from a Superfund hazardous waste site to Texas next week, an official said.

The pesticide will be transferred from the 1000 block of 204th Street by truck to an East Los Angeles transfer station, where it will be loaded onto rail cars and sent to a Port Arthur incinerator, said EPA spokeswoman Deirdre Nurre.

“We’re able to do that safely, it’s going to be a slow and deliberate effort,” said Nurre, adding that it will take two to three weeks to remove the carcinogen.

But the news angered some community activists, who contend that shipping DDT somewhere else will simply transfer the health threat from one neighborhood to another. They believe that the EPA should use alternative methods for dealing with the contaminated site, such as sealing it with concrete.

“Burning DDT is just plain nuts near poor minority neighborhoods or anyone downwind who might breathe the new toxins, when we know that safer, cleaner technologies are available,” said Neil Carmen, a Sierra Club official.