SAN DIEGO—The pesticide dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane (DDT), banned in the 1970s due to its harmful effects on humans and the environment, is still causing lingering effects today because of industrial waste dumped in the ocean a half century ago, say researchers.
A recent study by the University of California—San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography found that DDT was still detected in 93 percent of 1,074 fish samples, and 75 percent of 1,275 ocean floor sediment samples collected from the Southern California coast between 1998 and 2021.
The DDT came from the now defunct Montrose Chemical Corporation based in Torrance, California. Once North America’s largest DDT producer, according to the study, the company routinely and legally dumped its manufacturing waste containing residual DDT into the Southern California ocean before the chemical’s harmful effects were recognized and the bans took effect….