Joseph
by Elias Marat
More than 27,000 barrels of the toxic pesticide DDT have so far been found on the sea floor about 12 miles off the coast of Los Angeles, in what could be one of the greatest examples of industrial pollution discovered in recent memory.
The barrels are leaking, and researchers fear there may be as many as a few hundred thousand barrels of DDT in total. More than 100,000 total organisms have been found in the area by researchers at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography at the University of California San Diego.
The barrels cover an area roughly twice the size of Manhattan and lie off the coast of Santa Catalina Island, which is home to dozens of endemic species found nowhere else in the world.
DDT waste has been linked to cancer and disease in humans as well as mass death events in the natural world. It is possible that the large amount of illegally dumped DDT is related to this Cancer has spread Facing sea lions along the west coast.
“Unfortunately, the Los Angeles Marine Basin has been a landfill for industrial waste for several decades, starting in the 1930s. We found an extensive debris field in a large area survey,” Eric Terrell, chief scientist for the expedition and director of the Marine Physics Laboratory at the Scripps Institute of Oceanography, said in … statement.
Los Angeles Times Reports indicate that shipment records from a disposal company implicate Montrose Chemical Corp of California, a company that produces DDT, likely dumping about 2,000 barrels of sludge containing DDT every month of the year. 1947 to 1961 at a designated landfill.
Additionally, records from other entities show that many other industrial concerns in Southern California used the basin as dumping ground until 1972, when the Marine Conservation, Research, and Reserves Act was enacted.
Source: Unleash your mind
