Toxicology and Societies: Allan Chartrand
Start Date
End Date
Event Location
Event Description
Title: Ocean Dumped DDT Waste into Deepwater Basins of Southern California Bight; Continuing Effects to the Marine Ecosystem
From 1947 to 1982, the nation’s largest manufacturer of the insecticide DDT, Montrose Chemical, based near Los Angeles, California, manufactured thousands of tons of DDT. Much of the DDT “caustic” waste from the DDT plant was transported to the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts wastewater treatment plant and ocean outfalls near the Palos Verdes Shelf. This waste was legally discharged under Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board permit until 1971 to shallow offshore receiving waters along the Shelf. As followup to these discharges, NOAA launched a Natural Resource Damage Assessment action and worked with USDOJ to conduct a “DDT trial” which took place in 2000 and resulted in a consent decree and settlement of approximately $140M earmarked for restoration of Santa Monica Bay and environs.
It is important to note that neither the NRDA action, DDT trial, nor the Superfund designation were specifically related to the practice of deepwater ocean dumping of DDT wastes from the Montrose Chemical plant, which occurred until the 1960s. This presentation focuses on distinguishing the ocean-dumped DDT resides from the wastewater discharges to the Shelf, updates what is known about the ocean-dumped residues, and emphasizes the importance of understanding continuing potential effects to the marine ecosystem of the Southern California Bight.
About the Speaker: Allan Chartrand, Chartrand Environmental, LLC
Mr. Chartrand has 35 years of professional experience in environmental science, was Board-certified in toxicology by the American Board of Toxicology, and is a former water quality scientist for California's Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board (LARWQCB). He was the senior author on the original "Ocean Dumping of DDT" report issued by the agency in 1985, which led to extensive public attention and investigation of the nature of DDT in these deepwater basins. He was the principal investigator for the follow-up DDT ocean dumping investigation, completed in 1987.
He earned his BS in biology at UC Berkeley, and MS at UCLA in toxicology. In a consulting role, Mr. Chartrand worked with NOAA, lead natural resource trustee, and provided courtroom testimony on behalf of USDOJ and the Trustees in the subsequent Montrose DDT trial, which resulted in a $140 million settlement to help restore the damaged Santa Monica Bay estuary. He also worked as a consulting toxicologist with EPA Region 9, the lead agency on the Palos Verdes Shelf DDT Superfund site, on contaminated sediments on and near the Palos Verdes Shelf.
Listen to the recording of Allan Chartrand's presentation.