Recommendation to request City Attorney to draft a resolution calling on the United States Congress and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to take all measures necessary to prevent further harm to natural resources, wildlife and citizens from the DDT waste dumped in the waters between Long Beach and Santa Catalina Island, and support Assembly Joint Resolution 2 by Assemblymember Patrick O’Donnell.
Thank you very much. We are going to go ahead and here I am. 34 police have been requested here at home, 34 person. Item 34 Communication from Councilman Alston, Councilwoman Allen, Councilwoman Price and Council Member Rangle. Recommendation to request city attorney to draft a resolution calling on Congress and the EPA to take all measures necessary to prevent further harm from the DDT waste dumped in the waters between Long Beach and Santa Catalina Island and Support Assembly Joint Resolution two by Assembly Member Patrick O'Donnell. Catherine and. Thank you, Mr. Mayor. And first, I'd like to thank, obviously, my colleagues, council member Alan, because we have a prize in Your Honor for signing on to this. I think it's a very important item. For half a century, we've known about the harmful, harmful effects of dichloromethane or trichloroethylene, that is, DDT for short. It's a pesticide was banned in the United States in 1972. It caused significant environmental damage and harmed numerous wildlife and marine species, including our sea lions, brown pelicans, California condors, dolphins and other birds and fish. The nation's largest manufacturer of DDT was located in Los Angeles, and they disposed toxic waste throughout the sewage pipes that poured into the ocean, creating a Superfund site of contamination of the house Verde Peninsula coast. What wasn't known until recently was that the company, the dump, also dumped as many as half a million barrels of toxic waste from DDT into the waters between Long Beach and Catalina Island, creating a much greater environmental health hazard than previously was known. Our Assembly member, Patrick O'Donnell, has authored the Assembly Joint Resolution Number two, which is currently going through the legislature, calling on Congress and the EPA to take all measures necessary to protect our coastal resources. And since a Assemblymember O'Donnell has introduced that legislation. The L.A. County Board of Supervisors has also passed a motion by Supervisor Hahn calling on federal calling on the federal government to address this environmental hazard. As important as our coastal resources are, it is also important to lobby, adds its voice in support of Assemblymember O'Donnell's legislation, as well as the county's action, with our resolution calling on Congress and the EPA to take appropriate measures. Assembly Member O'Donnell, I understand, is signed up to speak on this item. So with the consent and okay from my colleagues and the mayor, I would like to see if we can go directly to public comment before we go behind the rail. Thank you. And I would obviously appreciate your support on this. I'm. Thank you. I do. Let me just go ahead. There's a motion and there's a second by Councilwoman Price to be here the second, and then we'll go to the assembly member. Is there anything you want to compliment, Price? Thank you, Mr. Mayor. I'm happy to sign on to this item. And I think Councilman Councilmen Austin and Assemblyman O'Donnell for bringing this to our attention, I read only recently became aware of these dumplings. And I guess just real quickly, I just wanted to ask staff, were they is this something that the city staff was already aware of and are we already working with our state, county, federal partners on this? Counselor, this is Tom. It's not something I'm immediately aware of. We also are getting educated. We'll be asking if anyone else in the organization's been a part of this and its potential that the port has been as well. They do a lot of work on this related to contaminated fish tissue and and soil samples. Okay. Thank you. Thank you. And then with that, Madam Clerk, can we go to open a public comment? I believe that we have as a member. O'DONNELL We can make some remarks. Assembly member Patrick O'Donnell. Please begin. Mr. Mayor, you can hear me correct? Yeah. We can hear you. Great. Great. Good evening, Mayor and council members. And thank you for the opportunity to participate in tonight's discussion regarding the dumping of DDT off our coast. And tonight is really a chance to further educate people I've even heard tonight not even know about this. Well, I didn't know about this either. I read about it in the paper. And so tonight, the good thing is that more people don't know that the bad thing is that it's out there. But as the representative for Long Beach, Signal Hill, San Pedro and Catalina Island, someone who cares greatly about our environment. I have authored Assembly Joint Resolution two, which calls upon the federal government, the Federal Department, the Federal Environmental Protection Agency and the US Congress to take all measures necessary to prevent further harm to our citizens, wildlife and natural resources by the DDT waste dumped in the waters near Catalina Island. DDT is bad stuff. And this situation needs rapid attention and has the potential to become what I call a huge, unnatural disaster, in that it is a disaster created by man and man must address it and fix it. In 2019, scientists from UC Santa Barbara discovered a long forgotten dumping ground for toxic waste produced as a byproduct of the DDT manufacturing process. A recent survey of the site discovered over 27,000 barrels of waste, with potentially thousands more buried beneath the sand on the ocean floor. The site has already gone. The site has already done untold damage to our oceans and threatens to do even more without swift action. And that's what we are calling for again this evening. Assembly joint resolution to calls upon our federal government to take all necessary steps to stop the harm the site continues to inflict on California's residents and wildlife. And I want to thank Council member Austin Councilmembers Alan Price and Turanga for supporting air to and requesting a resolution on behalf of the City of Long Beach in support of this measure, which is really intended to educate and activate educating more people every day we talk about this and ultimately taking action on this tragic situation. DDT is bad stuff. It's off our coast and we must act. And I thank you. Thank you so much, Amber, for your work on this. And I do have other members lined up to speak. Let me start with Councilmember Ringo. Thank you, Mayor. Basically, I just want to add my voice to this issue, to Xyrem. Basically, we also, as you know, I am a member of the California Coastal Commission and we discussed Assembly Member O'Donnell's bill, and the commission is in support of the bill. I think it's a very important item that we need to look at protecting our coast. And obviously we're also concerned that there may be other sites along the coast of Canada, in Ireland as well, that are not discovered at this point. So we need to basically look at not only this site, but also others as well. So I want to thank the Assembly member for presenting that bill that is very important to the California coast. Thank you. Thank you, Councilmember. Councilman Allen. Yes. I thank you, Mayor, and also want to thank Councilmember Austin for bringing this item forward and for the opportunity to co-sponsor. I support this. This is an important item. I also want to thank Assembly Member O'Donnell for the resolution at the state level. I also know that Congress Member Lowenthal is doing what you can in Congress to advocate on our behalf as well the the health of our local environment, our residents and our visitors who enjoy swimming, water, sports, fishing and other ocean activities are really important to me. We need to know how this happened, and we need the EPA and the Congress just to step up and help us clean it up. So thank you so much. This is important stuff. Thank you, Councilwoman. Councilman's in the house. Thank you, Mayor. I just wanted to also thank Councilmember Alston for bringing this to council and of course, thank Assemblymember O'Donnell for his rapid attention to this matter and the urgency that he brings with it. And I fully support cleaning up this mess that we, you know, that just came upon us. And hopefully by doing this, we can capture other ones from happening in the near future. Thank you. Thank you. I just want to add also so my member, thank you for your leadership on this. This is actually a pretty big issue, I think, like you and so many others. When we start reading these reports of obviously something that's been some major reports on this in the news. It's pretty stunning what is actually just off our coast and certainly close to our neighbors in Catalina Island. The amount of damage it's happened to our coastal assets and marine life is significant. And this is obviously a very dangerous substance. And I think there's a lot of more work and research has got to be put in place to really understand how we really mitigate what's going on, but also protect ourselves from the future, from other types of incidents like this happening. And obviously, it's a different era today and there's many more protections. But I think having this conversation, this resolution and the conversation in the legislature is really important. So thank you, Assemblymember. And with that, I'm going to go ahead and go to a roll call vote, Madam Court. Councilwoman had. Actually. I think Councilmember Ashton I think I had him cued up one more time. Actually, I wasn't cued up again, but I want to just thank everybody for their comments and thank again our assembly member O'Donnell, for his work in the legislature around this. And again, this is one of those major issues that we need to be very mindful of and look forward to our anni vote. Thank you. Thank you. With that, please, we'll cover. Compliments that they have. I'm Councilwoman Ellen. I. Councilwoman Price, I. Councilman Sabina. My I. A woman mango. I. Councilwoman Sara. I council member oranga i. Councilman austin. Hi. Vice Mayor Richardson. Yes. In case.