Not all herbicides and pesticides concentrate in the ecosystem, but some do, and among the prime offenders is DDT, which (contrary to right-wing propaganda) is still a problem in the United States today, decades after the corporation that made it in Southern California stopped manufacturing it.
In a first-rate story from a week ago in the Ventura County Star, Zeke Barlow explains:
Although the company that made DDT stopped dumping it into the Pacific Ocean off the Palos Verdes peninsula more than 38 years ago, the chemical is still damaging the ecosystem today and will continue to do so for decades.
The DDT dumping grounds is more than 70 miles south of Ventura County, but the long hand of the chemical is still felt in birds swimming off our shores. DDT exposure causes egg shells to become so thin that they crack during incubation.
The Environmental Protection Agency is proposing a series of remediations off the Palos Verdes peninsula that could help reduce the amount of DDT in the ecosystem by dumping thousands of tons of sand on top of the contaminated area. It could reduce the amount of DDT that creeps into the food chain.
But even if the $36.6 million project is approved and deemed a success, it doesn’t mean DDT will be out of the ecosystem.
“We are hoping to see an acceleration in recovery, but we are still talking decades,” said Carmen White, project manager with the EPA. “The idea that it could take a long time is disheartening, but it’s a reality.”
Need more evidence of DDT's harm? Here's a study compiling evidence gathered by researchers around the world. The bottom line?
Yikes.
