Winograd to Harman: Divest of Company Named As District Polluter

March 2, 2010, Los Angeles, CA

Caution Sign at the Montrose Superfund Site

Published by Winograd4Congress.com

Congressional Candidate Cites Opponent’s Investment in Superfund Site Polluter

(Marina del Rey) Congressional Candidate Marcy Winograd (CA-36) calls on her opponent Jane Harman to divest from Dow Chemical, which has been identified as a potentially responsible party for toxic pollution at two Environmental Protection Agency Superfund chemical sites in the Harbor-Gateway area.

Harman's latest (2009) House of Representatives Financial Disclosure statement reveals a substantial (minimum $50,000) investment in Dow Chemical, identified by the EPA as a responsible party for clean up at the the Del Amo and Montrose Superfund sites, both located near Torrance in the heart of the candidates’ congressional district.

Says Winograd, “I ask my opponent to respect the health and well-being of our residents by divesting from a corporation which is a potential source of pollution at the district’s two Superfund sites. You can’t be a true environmentalist and invest in a company the Environmental Protection Agency suspects poisoned the ground water.”

The Del Amo site, a six-acre area located near Torrance at West Del Amo Blvd. and South Vermont Ave., contains wastes from the manufacture of synthetic rubber and ethylene during the 1940s to 1973. The Montrose Super Fund site, a 13-acre facility only 600 feet west of Del Amo, located at 20201 S. Normandie Ave., Torrance, produced the pesticide DDT from 1947 through the 1970s.

According to the EPA, clean up is underway at the two Superfund sites, both identified as serious threats to the environment with co-mingled toxic soil and ground-water contamination. At the Del Amo site, the EPA has detected a dozen contaminants, including arsenic and benzene in the ground-water, with benzene and petroleum detected as floating chemicals on top of the water table.

At Montrose, the waste disposal system channeled the plant’s processed waste into the county sewer system and then into the ocean. Despite scientific health concerns as far back as the 1960s, Montrose, in conjunction with Dow Chemical, continued making DDT. Before the site was shut down, it had discharged an estimated 1,700 tons of DDT, contaminating the ocean floor of the Palos Verdes Shelf.

Recently the Environmental Protection Agency held a hearing to receive citizen input on a clean-up plan involving the installation of a $43-million dollar treatment plant to pump out the contaminated water, treat it, and then re-inject it into the ground. The EPA estimates it will take more than 50 years to clean the groundwater near the site.

Dow manufactured and distributed chemicals such as DDT, Agent Orange, and Napalm.

Site Design by Virgo Graphics
Web Development by Turtle Island Web Design
Contact the PDA webmaster at .
Copyright © 2004-2010 Progressive Democrats of America • All text available for public use with appropriate attribution.

Site Search

Find Chapters

Social Community

Action Alerts

Congress Schedule

In This Section:

Winograd to Harman: Divest of Company Named As District Polluter

March 2, 2010, Los Angeles, CA