LA TIMES - EPA NEEDS TO ACT FAST - DDT BARRELS OFF CATALINA - SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA By the LA Times Editorial Board from March 22, 2021
EXCERPTS: On a clear day, looking south from Rancho Palos Verdes' Point Vicente Lighthouse across the San Pedro Channel to Catalina Island offers a stunning postcard-worthy vista of coastline, sparkling blue water and the busy comings-and-goings from the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.
What you can't see is what lies below the water: as many as 500,000 corroding barrels of DDT, and extremely effective insecticide the U.S. government banned in 1972 because it caused long-term damage to the environment and wildlife - and because it was a probably human carcinogen.
... If you look out from Point Vicente for the next few weeks, you may see the research vessel Sally Ride mixed among the ships and boats plying the channel. Those aboard include 31 scientists and crew members who are mapping 50,000 acres if seafloor to try to catalogue the scope of the DDT barrel graveyard, a critical early step in trying to figure out the best way to deal with the barrels and chemical seepage.
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