DC Sues Chemical Manufacturer Over Pesticide Pollution

A complaint filed by D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine alleges that Velsicol produced a pesticide that contained chlordane and marketed it to low-income homeowners in the city from 1945 to 1988.

File photo of D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine
Getty Images

The District of Columbia filed a lawsuit in D.C. Superior Court Thursday against chemical manufacturer Velsicol Chemical, LLC, claiming it violated city environmental laws by polluting a major waterway, the Anacostia River and the surrounding area for decades.

A complaint filed by D.C. Attorney General Karl Racine alleges that Velsicol produced a pesticide that contained chlordane and marketed it to low-income homeowners in the city from 1945 to 1988. That was the year the chemical was banned for sale in the U.S. by the Environmental Protection Agency over health effects in humans, including tremors, convulsions and cancer.

But Racine claimed at a press conference that Velsicol knew long before that that chlordane could cause cancer, as far back as 1959, yet still sold products that contained it.

Rachel Carson raised alarm bells about chlordane in the seminal environmental book, “Silent Spring,” published in 1962.

Velsicol did not immediately return calls for comment.

As recently as the 1960s, D.C. residents used the Anacostia River for recreation and food, but years of pollution from a variety of sources — sewage, chemical runoff and litter — made the river unusable.

The lawsuit developed out of a decades-long effort to clean up the river, Racine said. Local environmentalists, like Matt Gravatt, chair of the D.C. chapter of the Sierra Club, said the river is almost back to being safe for public use, but not yet.

Local

Washington, D.C., Maryland and Virginia local news, events and information

2 dead, 1 seriously hurt in Southeast DC fire

Pro-Palestinian crowds call for ceasefire in Gaza ahead of Oct. 7 anniversary

City departments and environmental researchers have known about the potential harm of chlordane in the Anacostia for decades. The year after the EPA ban, the district put out an advisory warning residents against eating fish caught from the river, in part because levels of chlordane in aquatic life exceeded limits suggested by the Food and Drug Administration.

In the lawsuit, the attorney general's office said it anticipates the city will spend $35 million remediating sediment contaminated with chlordane and other toxic chemicals. The hope is the award will help pay for the river cleanup.

___

Follow Drew Costley on Twitter: @drewcostley.

___

The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Copyright The Associated Press
Contact Us