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Stunning DDT dump site off L.A. coast much bigger than scientists expected

When the research vessel Sally Ride set sail for Santa Catalina Island to map an underwater graveyard of DDT waste barrels, its crew had high hopes of documenting for the first time just how many corroded containers littered the seafloor off the coast of Los Angeles.

But as the scientists on deck began interpreting sonar images gathered by two deep-sea robots, they were quickly overwhelmed. It was like trying to count stars in the Milky Way. ...

“This mission confirms my worst fear: that possibly hundreds of thousands of barrels and DDT-laced sediment were dumped just 12 miles off our coast,” said Feinstein, who said she plans to ask the U.S. Justice Department to look into companies that may have illegally dumped waste into the ocean and whether they can be held accountable. ...

For decades, the nation’s largest DDT maker operated its plant on the border of Los Angeles and Torrance. A $140-million Superfund battle in the 1990s exposed the company’s disposal of toxic waste through sewage pipes that poured into the sea — but all the DDT manufacturing waste that was dumped into the deep ocean had drawn comparatively little attention.