Employing a large research vessel called the Sally Ride, 31 scientists and crew members, and two high-tech autonomous robots they call Roombas, the team used sophisticated sonar to map the ocean bottom and assess how many barrels there are.
Despite the fact that the toxic barrels were dumped in the 1940s, 50s and 60s, their existence just became common knowledge this past fall when the Los Angeles Times published a feature on Valentine’s work. But his discovery dates all the way back to 2011 when he first decided to see if the rumors of the barrels were true. In 2013 he made another short trip to the site. But his research was not published until March of 2019.
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One barrel of thousands that Dr. Valentine found about 10 miles off the coast of Los Angeles. Photo: Screenshot/Valentine’s ROV Jason/CBS Los Angeles
In the waters between Catalina Island and Long Beach, there lies a toxic waste dumping ground so poisonous it’s thought to be responsible for a massive spike in cancer in California’s sea lions. Hundreds of thousands of barrels of DDT are on the ocean floor, and they’ve been there for decades.
The dumping ground’s existence, however, wasn’t confirmed until relatively recently. Although rumors of the DDT dumping ground have been whispered about in the scientific community for more than three decades, not one single person has been able to confirm them until now.