U.S. Funds Contaminated-Fish Warning

The Environmental Protection Agency has allocated $7.8 million for an education campaign to inform Southern California residents about the dangers of eating fish caught from the waters off Palos Verdes, where there are large pesticide deposits, authorities announced Tuesday.

The 10-year program will be targeted to educate commercial and sport fishermen, as well as restaurants and consumers, about the risks of eating fish contaminated with the pesticides DDT and PCB.

Part of the campaign will be directed at monitoring white croaker and other locally caught species to determine whether contaminated fish are still entering the marketplace. If so, officials said, the California Department of Fish and Game will increase enforcement of the commercial and sportfishing ban on white croaker caught in Los Angeles and Long Beach waters.

White croaker and other bottom-feeding fish from the area continue to test positively with high levels of pesticide contamination.

DDT and some other banned chemicals are suspected of causing cancer in humans who consume contaminated fish, and disrupting the hormones of marine animals.

The EPA’s education program is an interim step as the agency evaluates a pilot program that is capping DDT contaminated sediments that layer the ocean bottom off Palos Verdes.

From 1947 to 1971, the Montrose Chemical Corp., which manufactured DDT in Los Angeles, discharged about 1,800 tons of the chemical into county sewers. The sewers empty into the ocean off White’s Point. DDT was banned in the United States in 1972.

Today, about 100 tons of DDT remain spread across 17 square miles of the Palos Verdes shelf in Santa Monica Bay and San Pedro Bay.