DDT Chemicals Making Their Way Into Deep-Sea Food Web, Alarming Researchers

LOS ANGELES—Marine life off the Los Angeles coast may still be impacted by the effects of a long-disused DDT dumping site, a report by UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography and San Diego State University researchers found May 6. In the 1940s and 1950s, the ocean off the coast of L.A. was a dumping ground for the nation’s largest manufacturer of the pesticide DDT—a chemical now known to harm humans and wildlife, according to researchers. While legal at the time, details of the pollution some 15 miles offshore from Catalina Island have deeply concerned scientists and the public since they gained wider recognition in 2020, the authors write....