Frankly I was shocked! I've long read that DNAPLS effects routinely can take decades to centuries to dissolve, dissipate and or be removed. Milleniums seemed like overkill if not fantasy. Not so according to state authorities and others for the former DDT manufacturing facility in Montrose, California. There estimates for various remediation schemes suggest three to five thousand years to get rid of the subsurface DNAPL and negative effects on local groundwater.
Now this contaminated site appears to be awful in its' environmental impacts. The plant is located in Los Angeles and another plant is mentioned as being in Torrance, California. This second plant was discharging into the ocean and involves the Palos Verde Shelf and sediments contaminated with DDT and PCBs. What also shocked me was the following information however.
"Montrose/Del Amo Dual-Site Dense Non-Aqueous Phase Liquid (DNAPL) - consists of the study and cleanup of a highly contaminated mass of chlorobenzene in the form of dense non-aqueous phase liquid (DNAPL) located under the former Montrose plant property. Chlorobenzene is one of the main ingredients used to make DDT. Excess chlorobenzene from the historic DDT manufacturing process has slowly moved down through the soil and is now trapped in spaces between the soil particles in the form of DNAPL . The DNAPL chlorobenzene mass is a current "source" of the chlorobenzene groundwater contamination, meaning the DNAPL continues to slowly contaminate the groundwater every day. It takes only a small amount of dissolved chlorobenzene for the groundwater to be extremely toxic and unsafe for drinking. Removing the chlorobenzene DNAPL from the ground will make the groundwater cleanup successful and more efficient."
NDMA has an even lower drinking water criteria but at least it is not a DNAPL. We the citizens of Elmira and Woolwich have been lied to and misled about the extent of the chlorobenzene contamination and long term health and environmental damages.
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