US should 'clean up' before preaching: 25,000 barrels of toxic DDT found dumped in ocean off California

A research from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in California identified a potential dump site for the chemical dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane (DDT).

Resting deep in the ocean, the exact location and extent of the dumping were not known until now.

According to Eric Terrill, chief scientist of the expedition and director of the Marine Physical Laboratory at Scripps Institution of Oceanography, "Looking at the historical records of those had potentially occurred for decades every month. It shouldn't have been a surprise to us, but it was still just not anything I had to wrap my head around in terms of envisioning what we might find."

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Scientists used underwater “Roombas” — drones with sonar technology — to trawl more than 36,000 acres of seabed between Catalina Island and the waters off the coast of Los Angeles, a region previously known to contain high levels of DDT in the ecosystem.

"I think we surveyed 36,000 acres or 148 square kilometres, and this is all in a water depth of 3,000 feet. We had greater than 25,000 targets that were ascertained based on some of the data analytic tools that dr. Merrifield talked about, that we have a high degree of confidence that these are indeed barrels," he said.

High levels of DDT have been detected in the area’s marine mammals, and the chemical has been linked to cancer in sea lions.

With 25% of adult sea lions found to be suffering from cancer, DDT contamination has been the leading cause of this tragedy and it continues to enter the aquatic food chain to this day.

One clear lesson from this discovery is that when humans callously pollute the environment, the consequences last for generations to come.

The second lesson is those who have polluted the world more than anyone else historically should first pay up before they preach climate action.