Home Care In Palos Verdes Peninsula, CA

The seafloor off the Palos Verdes Peninsula may contain low levels of radioactive materials, according to new research, which also confirmed previous reports that the harmful insecticide DDT is spread across the ocean there at high concentrations.

There is only circumstantial evidence for the cause of the radioactive materials, though nuclear testing and waste disposal are among the potential culprits, researchers said this week. Yet, the now-banned DDT is potentially the bigger ecological threat, researchers said — perhaps even being the reason bald eagles disappeared from Catalina Island for a time.

Those findings were published on Wednesday, Feb. 21, in the journal Environmental Science & Technology. The research that culminated in the journal article represents another step in the evolution of marine scientists’ understanding of the contaminants that litter the seafloor off the Peninsula — a process that began more than a decade ago.

Researchers now have “indirect circumstantial evidence” that low-level radioacting waste was dumped in the Pacific Ocean by the same now-defunct company that disposed of DDT in the Peninsula waters, said David Valentine, one of the article’s authors.

But even with this new evidence, the expanse of DDT “worries me quite a bit more ecologically” than the radioactive materials, Valentine said. Valentine is a professor of microbiology and geochemistry at UC Santa Barbara — and the scientist whose discovery of barrels off the Peninsula, initially thought to contain DDT, launched years of study into ocean contaminants there.

“I think that we have to recognize that, well, it’s disturbing and it’s not good to dump low-level radioactive materials into the ocean,” Valentine said in a phone interview this week. “(But) it’s probably substantially worse to dump large amounts of DDT waste from an ecological effects perspective.”

The greatest harm from DDT, Valentine said, is that it “biomagnifies.”

Biomagnification, according to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, is when toxic chemicals such as DDT get dumped into the ocean and cause health issues in wildlife, from disease to birth defects.

That happens through a simple, yet destructive, process. Toxins that settle on the seafloor end up in the food chain and works their way up. Eventually, according to the NOAA, “higher-level predators — fish, birds and marine mammals — build up greater and more dangerous amounts of toxic materials than animals lower on the food chain.”

“(Biomagnification) can impact a whole host of animals,” Valentine said. “We’re seeing (that) now with California sea lions, with California condors. There’s so much DDT that has been dumped off California, that we’re seeing effects in those animals.”

Valentine and a team of scientists initially discovered more than 60 barrels on the ocean floor in 2011 and 2013 while exploring the Peninsula seafloor with a remotely operated vehicle.

Since that initial discovery, the research has grown and scientific understanding has become more complex.

In 2021, for example, survey researchers from UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography discovered approximately 27,000 barrels on the ocean floor. They, like Valetine, initially thought the barrels potentially contained DDT. The insecticide, which has been banned for years, had been legally dumped by a local company, the now-defunct Montrose Chemical Corporation, for decades.

But in January, Scripps discovered that those barrels were mostly discarded World War II-era military munitions. A whale graveyard was also found.

The Scripps survey mapped 135 square miles of the San Pedro Basin, about halfway between the Palos Verdes Peninsula and Catalina Island. The technology that allows ocean-floor mapping has advanced so much in just a few year that scientists could now distinguish between barrels and munitions.

But just because those barrels did not contain DDT does not mean the insecticide wasn’t present off the Peninsula. Rather, scientists discovered in 2022 that until regulations curtailed the practice, DDT had been directly into the ocean for years.

“Substantial amounts of DDT remain in these sediments, which are largely unaltered after more than 70 years,” according to the Wednesday journal article, titled “Disentangling the History of Deep Ocean Disposal for DDT and other Industrial Waste off Southern California.”

Valentine is a corresponding author of the article. Other scientists from UC Santa Barbara, Oleolytics, LLC, USC’s Earth science department and elsewhere also contributed to the article.

The Environmental Protection Agency, according to the article, discovered 15 offshore dump sites for disposing “radioactive wastes, refinery and oil drilling wastes, chemical wastes, military munitions, filter cakes, and refuse.”

Montrose had legally dumped DDT from 1948 to around 1961, according to the article.

Montrose contracted with California Salvage Company to dispose of the “strong acid waste offshore and discharge it into the ocean” by barge, the article said.

“Located immediately offshore from the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach,” the article said, “the San Pedro Basin received substantial input of these wastes leading to high DDT concentrations recorded in select sediment samples.”

Montrose, based near Torrance, built an acid recycling plant, which began the decline of Cal Salvage waste dumping for the chemical company.

“There was no record of ocean disposal of Montrose sulfuric acid wastes after 1961,” the article said, “the same year Cal Salvage’s operation became regulated by a regional water quality board and a formal dumpsite was assigned to them.”

But Cal Salvage, the article said, continued dumping industrial waste for other clients. Montrose reportedly disposed of 1.5 million gallons of other industrial wastes from 1965 to 1972.

Cal Salvage, meanwhile, continued ocean disposal until the mid 1970s when permitting was not allowed, Valentine said.

No samples of the barrels on the seafloor provide evidence of radioactive waste disposal, the article said, but there is circumstantial evidence that such dumped may have occurred — and doing so may not have run afoul of the law.

“The historical record,” the article said, “points to a scenario in which Cal Salvage was potentially able to openly operate as an offshore radioactive waste disposal company without triggering oversight.”

The trail, though, is cold, Valentine said.

“I don’t actually know when, as a corporation, it dissolved,” Valentine said of Cal Salvage, “or how they were even set up.”

But there is evidence in the sediments that the peak of offshore disposal was the mid 1950s. The evidence, though, also includes fallout from nuclear weapons testing.

There was a “low level fallout of certain radioisotopes all over the planet” from when nuclear testing was conducted above ground by the United States and the Soviet Union.

Researchers, Valentine said, compared the peak concentration of DDT and the amount of radioisotopes to determine when the bulk of DDT was dumped. Carbon-14 dating was also a component used in the dating.

“It was a lot of detonations that released these nuclear products directly into the atmosphere,” Valentine said. “And they then spread on winds as small particles until they settled out. And they settled out all over the planet.”

Radioactive waste, though, does not have the same impact on the environment, Valentine said, since there is “no concentrating effect” like with DDT and the isotopes of the radioactive waste “would have decayed away.”

“There was this offshore disposal of the DDT and that remains largely as DDT today,” Valentine said, “and it’s buried down to two inches two and a half inches beneath the seafloor.”

There are also derivatives of DDT that have broken down and can still be found closer to the surface of the seafloor, Valentine said.

DDT has had a significant impact on wildlife, Valentine said — including on the bald eagle.

The bald eagle effectively disappeared from Catalina Island in the 1950s, Valentine said, in large part because of DDT, even though “we don’t have direct evidence for it.”

There was abundant DDT that was “dumped into the surface water, into the ecosystem,” where the bald eagle got its food, he said.

DDT, he said, is “well known for its properties of eggshell thinning.”

The bald eagle has since been reintroduced to the island.

Studies still need to be done on the World War II munitions that were recently found, Valentine said.

“I’m not aware of of anything in them that would have the kind of effects that DDT would,” he said, “but I think it’s still worth looking into.”

That’s why U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla and Rep. Salud Carbajal, along with 20 other California lawmakers, said in a press release this week that they are urging the Office of Management and Budget to include “robust, long-term funding” to research DDT and other harmful chemicals dumped into the ocean, as well as the impact on the Southern California environment, and human and wildlife health.

The late Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Padilla helped secure nearly $12 million over two fiscal years, 2022 and 2023, to help survey Southern California DDT dumpsites, according to the press release.

“While DDT was banned more than 50 years ago, we still have only a murky picture of its potential impacts to human health, national security and ocean ecosystems,” the lawmakers said in the press release. “We encourage the administration to think about the next 50 years, creating a long-term national plan within EPA and NOAA to address this toxic legacy off the coast of our communities.”

Landslides have shaped the Palos Verdes Peninsula for the last several generations, but recent damage to homes across the affluent area of the South Bay shows the earth is moving dramatically faster than in recent years.

Residents are watching cracks develop in and around their homes, desperately worried that they will end up like the dozen houses that collapsed over the summer in Rolling Hills Estates, one of four cities on the peninsula.

Officials in the region are bracing for more movement, trying to slow down or stop the shifting ground beneath their feet with updates to existing water and sewer lines and other infrastructure, along with ongoing monitoring.

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Most recently, two homes in the Seaview neighborhood of Rancho Palos Verdes were red-tagged due to visible cracks and structural damage. One home was deemed unsafe and red-tagged June 30 by city officials. A second home was red-tagged on Aug. 31, said Megan Barnes, a senior administrative analyst with the city.

Seaview is in the southeast corner of Rancho Palos Verdes, not far from a landslide complex that covers about 240 acres of the peninsula and has been a slow-moving hazard for years but that has now, alarmingly, picked up pace.

Rancho Palos Verdes Councilmember Eric Alegria asked city staff whether it would be possible to declare a state of emergency due to the ground shifting more markedly and an increase in water line breaks over the last several months.

“I think declaring a state of emergency will give us an opportunity to summon all the resources we’re going to need to coordinate,” Alegria said, and streamline “processes with the agencies that we want to bring in to support us in this effort.”

The council did not declare an emergency at its regular meeting Tuesday, but the city did approve a contract agreement for engineering and construction work to reduce existing water saturation of soil and improve runoff outside of areas already affected by land movement.

The city also asked for utility companies that serve the area to come back with a report on short- and long-term solutions to address the ground shifts and how the existing infrastructure could be updated to accommodate more movement.

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The Daily Breeze first reported on Tuesday’s City Council meeting, which brought out about 20 residents who spoke about their concerns on the ground shifts and their worry for the upcoming rainy season.

California

July 23, 2023

Many residents are worried that what happened in Rolling Hills Estates earlier this summer could happen elsewhere on the peninsula.

The ground gave way in early July beneath homes bordering a canyon, collapsing roofs, cracking driveways and splitting open walls. The official cause of the damage has not been determined, but Los Angeles County officials speculate that the ground was saturated due to record winter rainfall.

The homes descended toward the bottom of a canyon as the ground actively shifted for several days. Now, residents in the Seaview area are worried that the problem they’re watching unfold in their own neighborhood will only get worse.

“I think we’re past just measuring” land movement, resident Joe Cruz said during Tuesday’s council meeting. “We need action now.”

The water lines to his neighborhood have had multiple breaks due to the ground shifting, Cruz said, and residents are worried that leaks will lead to more water saturating the soil.

Nikki Noushkam said cracks had developed in and around her home over the last several weeks. She lives across the street from a home that was recently red-tagged.

“We are dealing with a situation that requires urgent action,” Noushkam told the City Council.

Mark Koch said he’d seen more land movement outside his home in the last two years than he’d seen in the 35 years since he moved to the city.

“I’m literally at the end of the line where everything drains out into the ocean,” he said. “The amount of water that’s coming through our system is unprecedented.”

City officials agree that the ground is moving at a faster rate than in previous years. Between 2007 and 2018, the rate of movement in the area of the peninsula known as the landslide complex remained consistent, but starting in 2018 that ground movement increased by 3 to 5 times, Rancho Palos Verdes officials said in a recent report.

Although only two homes were red-tagged in the Seaview neighborhood, several other homes are damaged but have not been red-tagged by city inspectors, according to Barnes. The Los Angeles County Fire Department also inspected other homes in the neighborhood.

The city report echoed residents’ observations, noting that in the last several months more ground movement had resulted in broken water lines and sewer pipes.

The landslide complex includes Abalone Cove, the Klondike Canyon Landslide Abatement District and the Portuguese Bend landslide.

City staff are in contact with homeowners and have instructed them how to report any observations and concerns, or request an inspection.

“Since the accelerated land movement was observed in late June, Public Works has been working with a geotechnical engineer to monitor the movement,” Barnes said. “This is in addition to regular monitoring throughout the year in the City’s overall landslide complex.”

This is an archived article and the information in the article may be outdated. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated.

Residents who live on the Palos Verdes Peninsula are on edge, worried about the unstable ground beneath their homes some 10 weeks after landslides destroyed nearly a dozen homes in Rolling Hills Estates.

Two homes on the peninsula have already been red tagged, meaning the residences are currently uninhabitable and the future is uncertain for a number of other homeowners.

“We’re all worried, we’re all calling for help,” resident Eva Albuja told KTLA’s Rick Chambers.

For many others in the Sea View neighborhood of Palos Verdes, that feeling is understandable. The ground under some of the homes has moved, with huge cracks appearing on some properties and the streets and sidewalks shifting.

“It’s rapid and we’re worried,” Albujua, who lives just down the block from the two red-tagged homes, said. “We’re worried about our homes. Everyone is very upset. We’re all talking about it every night and we don’t want to leave our homes. We’ve been here over 20 years.”

One theory for the shifting Palos Verdes landscape is that rain-saturated soil is sliding, forcing old water pipes to burst exacerbating the problem.

Some residents fear that a Rolling Hills-type disaster is a possibility in Sea View.

“That was 24 hours from a little tiny crack to falling over a ravine,” L.A. County Board Supervisor Janice Hahn said of the devastation in Rolling Hills.

Hahn was in Sea View this Wednesday night to look at the damage and is aware that time is critical and that homeowners are worried.

“It’s devastating to think your home, which is all people have, is now crumbling and collapsing. It’s devastating,” she told KTLA.

Residents have already voiced their concerns to city leaders and local utility companies are said to be dealing with the problem. Whether they can keep more homes from crumbling is yet to be seen.

Supervisor Hahn said that county officials are already in touch with city leaders and that assistance is being offered. The local city council will meet again in two weeks, and it’s unknown if the situation will worsen by then.

A pod of orcas that typically spend time off Mexico traveled up to Southern California Monday, Dec. 11, creating a buzz on the water.

Charter boats rushed to get a close-up look at the mysterious sea creatures that rarely show up off local waters with some passengers watching as orcas feasted on dolphins.

Orcas are one of the most unpredictable of the marine mammals – showing up sporadically, rare enough to make their appearances extra special for enthusiasts who dream of getting up close to the “killer whales” in nature.

The black-and-white orcas were first spotted by Catalina Express, then reported to other charter boats, including Harbor Breeze which operates out of Long Beach and San Pedro.

On the noon trip, the charter boat reported the pod had 11 – 12 orcas, including two calves.

Orcas were last seen in April off Palos Verdes, but this pod — the Eastern Tropical Pacific killer whales –have only been seen off Southern California a handful of times.

They made news when they showed up in 2018 and again in 2019 off Orange County to feast on dolphins for days, giving passengers a raw look at the “wolves of the sea” as they are often called.

The orcas on Monday followed suit, according to Ryan Lawler, captain of Newport Coastal Adventure.

Whale watchers on the boat Triumphant’s second trip saw the orcas hunting and feeding on dolphins right alongside the vessel. This was similar to behavior documented during the killer whales’ previous visits.

The orcas seen more frequently off local waters are known as “transients,” but these ETP tropical orcas are distinguishable by their darker saddle patches and smaller eye patches.

“They are very boat friendly and approach close to boats to investigate and play,” Newport Coastal Adventure reported on social media with images of the orcas coming close to the boats.

Killer whales are the largest member of the dolphin family.

“Where will these orcas end up next? Right now they are in the Santa Monica Bay, but be on high alert, they could pass through Newport Beach going south at some point this week,” according to Newport Coastal Adventure.

After a massive landslide destroyed a dozen homes and forced widespread evacuations in Rolling Hills Estates, a new report released Friday claims excessive rainfall was to blame for the destruction.

In July, when the ground shifted more than 40 feet on Peartree Lane on the Palos Verdes Peninsula, at least a dozen homes were destroyed or heavily damaged. Residents were forced to evacuate as homes were red-tagged and monitored for additional movement.

At the time, the cause of the massive landslide was a mystery as geologists and experts worked to determine the origin.

Since then, two separate investigations were launched — one from city and county officials and another by the homeowners association.

According to local officials, a fissure running among the homes raised suspicion that heavy rains from the historic winter storms may have been involved.

Four months later, displaced residents remain not only heartbroken over the destruction of their homes, but many have been stuck dealing with the nightmare of insurance coverage.

On Friday, the city released findings from its first preliminary analysis by GeoKinetics, an environmental and geotechnical firm in Irvine.

On the origins of the landslide, the report states in part:

“The primary factor that caused the “Peartree Lane Slope Failure” was the unusually heavy rainfall that occurred during the winter of 2022-2023.”

The reports also added that changes in hillside vegetation and prior failures along the slope may have also contributed.

Some community members, however, are questioning the findings of that report. Attorney Steven Bum represents many of the residents affected by the landslide.

In a statement, Blum told KTLA, “The city’s claim that heavy rainfall caused the landslide sounds like a self-serving act of God defense. The homeowners deserve better. They have lost their homes and nearly all of their possessions. They deserve an objective investigation.”

Blum points to other potential causes such as human factors, storm drain deficiencies and more.

For now, repairs on the destroyed and damaged homes will cost millions of dollars. Possible aid from FEMA may help with some relief efforts, but homeowners are also seeking reimbursement from local government.

Back in July, insurance expert Janet Ruiz from the Insurance Information Institute, told KTLA that typical insurance will likely not cover damages from the landslide. Standalone earthquake insurance will also likely not cover this kind of situation. The residents’ only hope may rely on a difference in conditions policy.

“The insurance that would cover landslide, earth movement would be a difference in condition policy,” explained Ruiz. “That covers earth movement, earthquake, flooding, so it’s kind of an all-in-one policy but again it’s a specialty policy and it’s not covered under your regular homeowner’s insurance.”

The geological investigation from the homeowner’s association is still underway with legal action from the HOA against the city a possibility down the road.