A waste barrel dumped off the Los Angeles coast. Image: DAVID VALENTINE, UC SANTA BARBARA / AUV SENTRY 2021-04-30 14:47:09 UTC A sprawling dumpsite off the Los Angeles coast, littered with barrels of waste, had been mostly hidden from the public eye for over half a century. Now, marine scientists revealed the field of submerged waste, some of it likely toxic. They detected around 27,000 barrels. Over two weeks in March, scientists with NOAA and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography dropped two autonomous underwater vehicles (they look like small submarines) into the ocean, approximately 12 miles off the coast. The researchers knew barrels holding waste laden with toxic chemicals like DDT were down there: Limited, though telltale footage and past records hinted at the magnitude of last century's massive dumping campaign. But the robots, using sonar technology to scour 36,000 acres of the seafloor, proved it.