The Santa Barbara Scientist
Who Discovered Poison
within the Pacific
David Valentine Discusses Discovering
DDT Dumping Floor in Waters off Catalina Island
and Charting New Course at UCSB
by Callie Fausey | August 31, 2023
Pure DDT — the poisonous insecticide banned within the U.S. in 1972 (however nonetheless in use in different components of the world) — is poisoning the marine atmosphere off the Los Angeles shoreline close to Catalina Island. The dangerous chemical has blanketed the seafloor since a whole lot of tons of DDT had been dumped into the water greater than 50 years in the past.
UC Santa Barbara scientist David Valentine is the one who found the startlingly excessive concentrations of DDT 3,000 ft under the water’s floor, surrounding an underwater graveyard of leaking barrels stuffed with unknown chemical substances.
He says that it’s “goo-ifying the junk” of male sea lions (in addition to destroying their spines, riddling them with tumors, and killing their kidneys) due to the nightmarish mixture of herpes and poisonous chemical substances resembling DDT (dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane) and PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls).
In truth, the kind of urogenital most cancers solely brought on by that horrific duo is accountable for practically 25 p.c of grownup sea lion deaths.
“It’s the gnarliest most cancers,” Valentine instructed me as we sat on the deck of a espresso store in Goleta.
The solar was beating down, and Valentine was dressed casually, as somebody would possibly anticipate for a Santa Barbara–primarily based oceanographer — baseball cap, cargo shorts, polo, backpack. However even together with his laid-back look, it was by no means misplaced on me that he takes his work critically.
“Simply assume if 25 p.c of all human deaths had been from one most cancers,” he continued. “It’s an insane quantity — DDT is certainly a part of that story.”
That’s simply one of many issues related to the cussed, unforgiving compound polluting our ocean. Current discoveries by Valentine and his fellow researchers present that it hasn’t damaged down, remaining in its most potent kind in excessive concentrations throughout miles of seafloor.
Efforts by Valentine and different researchers are actually underway to map out the seafloor between the Los Angeles Coast and Catalina Island to find out how dangerous the issue actually is. Thus far, the outcomes have researchers feeling lower than optimistic.
They’ve discovered that DDT was probably dumped in two areas off the coast — Dumpsite 1, simply northwest of Catalina Island within the Santa Monica Basin area, and Dumpsite 2, east of Catalina and 10 miles offshore of L.A. within the San Pedro Basin. Not solely that, Dumpsite 2 appears to haven’t any clear outer boundaries to the huge swath of ocean ground coated in particles and contaminated with poisonous chemical substances.
This chemical curse was bestowed upon the ocean primarily by the nation’s largest DDT producer, Montrose Chemical Corp., which operated a plant close to Torrance from 1947 to 1982 and produced an estimated 800,000 tons of DDT over these 35 years. They poured the stuff straight into the water not removed from the Channel Islands, which is a nursery for sea lions in California.
“They had been manufacturing tons upon tons of these items,” Valentine stated. “And so they had fairly atrocious waste administration practices.”
A Persistent Poison
Who knew {that a} colorless, odorless, tasteless compound as soon as thought-about a Nobel Prize–worthy prevention methodology in opposition to disease-causing bugs would grasp round like a nasty scent for many years?
Definitely not the Nineteen Fifties housewives who sprayed it round their homes (together with in nurseries), purchased DDT-infused wallpaper, and had been bought a retro, pastel promise that it was vital for a cheerful and wholesome dwelling free from pests. Positively not the youngsters who would play within the clouds of DDT sprayed down their streets to kill close by mosquitos. Nor the navy, which considered it as the last word safety for troopers in opposition to typhus and malaria.
Valentine stated it’s nonetheless inflicting points in people, together with breast most cancers, diabetes, start defects, and weight problems, and it has been just lately proven to be handed down by generations. It was discovered that if a pregnant lady was uncovered to DDT within the ’50s and ’60s, they might have handed it on to their granddaughter within the womb because the eggs of females develop very early within the embryogenesis course of.
“They’re additionally beginning to see that human breast milk typically has some quantity of DDT in it, although it’s been banned for agricultural use since 1972,” Valentine stated. “It’s nonetheless round, nonetheless entering into folks.”
No regional linkages to results on human well being have been found but, or at the least publicized. However Valentine says he thinks folks will begin trying now to see if there’s extra of a magnified impact in Southern California as a result of new implications of how a lot DDT has proliferated off the area’s coast.
A Harrowing Discovery
Valentine started his analysis journey by immersing himself within the research of gasoline, notably methane gasoline seeping from the seafloor.
Nevertheless, his fascination rapidly shifted to the oil that seeps out alongside it, which occurs proper offshore of Santa Barbara County within the oil seeps. Throughout his tenure at UCSB, he’s additionally been concerned in efforts to determine and seal leaky oil wells close to Summerland Seashore.
“Environments, microorganisms, chemical substances — I’ve all the time loved these mixtures of issues,” he defined.
In 2010, Valentine was fortunately plugging away as a professor at UCSB when the catastrophic BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill occurred within the Gulf of Mexico — widely known as the most important marine oil spill in historical past. The incident was a turning level for the resident oceanographer.
“I imply, the rig went down, after which environmental disaster unfolded afterward,” he recounted. “I began learning that instantly.”
He went out whereas the oil was nonetheless flowing and secured federal help to evaluate the spill’s impacts on the deep ocean and seafloor. “There aren’t very many individuals on the earth that take into consideration these questions academically,” Valentine defined.
Using his UCSB lab group, Valentine labored on determining the place all that oil was going and what was occurring to it, ultimately unveiling maps of an oil fallout zone the dimensions of Rhode Island. Valentine described discovering a “big bull’s-eye across the rig, going 25 miles in any path.”
The investigation gave him entry to large sources for learning how a lot stuff sank down from the ocean floor into the formidable depths, introducing him to a newfound side of his life’s mission: learning the influence of air pollution occasions on the ocean.
Lengthy story brief, Valentine was inducted into the “spill world,” the often-mysterious subject of deep-sea contamination, the place his exploration led to the invention of a large DDT dump web site in 2011.
Valentine was within the midst of piecing collectively the Deepwater Horizon oil fallout when his consideration was first drawn to the Montrose controversy. He got interested within the deliberate dumping of hazardous supplies, notably DDT, off the California coast.
Coincidentally, he had a while to tackle a “aspect challenge” in 2011, whereas doing work on analysis vessels offshore of L.A. Utilizing an autonomous deep-sea robotic, Valentine’s group sought to discover the dumpsite close to Catalina.
It was across the Santa Monica and San Pedro basins, which housed a few of the 14 authorized dump websites (Thirties–’70s) of home, industrial, and navy waste at deep-water places off the coast of Southern California, in keeping with the Environmental Safety Company (EPA).
Alongside chemical wastes, different wastes disposed of within the water included oil drilling wastes, refuse and rubbish, navy explosives, and radioactive wastes. Little or no is understood concerning the historical past of this deep-ocean disposal, the character of the wastes, or waste sources, the EPA says.
Valentine’s acoustic measurements produced a high-resolution depiction of the seafloor’s topography, revealing a constellation of little dots, a sample of a “complete bunch of somethings down there,” Valentine stated.
“They seemed like bizarre little hills. We didn’t actually know.”
They returned a few days later to take photos, creating an enormous photomosaic strip, which is once they found the barrels — what seemed like 55-gallon waste drums, weighed down with a layer of concrete and wrapped in hen wire. As they seemed on the pictures, it grew to become more and more apparent the barrels had been dumped there.
“This wasn’t simply, like, someone’s 55-gallon drum that fell overboard; this was systematic,” Valentine defined.
Returning with a remotely operated car outfitted with robotic arms, they carried out sediment sampling. “We despatched it down into this space that’s, like, increase — there’s a barrel,” he stated. One barrel after one other, they collected the samples.
The investigation revealed alarming ranges of DDT and hint quantities of a probably much more hazardous compound than DDT (however nonetheless very understudied), in addition to what Valentine described as another “residual crud.”
“One of many samples we checked out had exceptionally excessive quantities of DDT, but it surely additionally had a bunch of petroleum merchandise,” he stated. “So we predict that Montrose was not the one firm that was dumping.
“We’re making an attempt to develop the essential instruments and approaches to start to really research these different contaminants of concern in these DDT mixtures,” Valentine continued. “We’re making an attempt to know the environmental aspect of this class of molecules.”
Years of devoted work culminated in a analysis paper printed within the journal Environmental Science & Expertise in January 2019, with one among Valentine’s PhD college students, Veronika Kivenson, because the lead writer.
“It didn’t get observed in any respect. No person picked it up,” Valentine stated. “We didn’t put out a press launch, as a result of I wished to ensure we bought the fitting protection.”
As an alternative, they went to journalist Rosanna Xia, who gave the story its well-deserved deep dive and printed it shortly earlier than the 2020 presidential election. Xia’s story, which appeared on the quilt of the Los Angeles Instances, triggered a media frenzy.
Lastly, folks began paying consideration. Earlier than the story, Valentine struggled to persuade state and federal companies, together with the Environmental Safety Company, to essentially care.
“She put out her story, after which it exploded into a variety of public curiosity, to the purpose the place I’ve gotten to temporary senators and spend time in Washington, D.C., telling policymakers about it,” Valentine added.
However even because the saga evolves, it nonetheless isn’t clear precisely how a lot of these chemical substances are down there.
A Chemical Historical past
Initially, Montrose launched a considerable portion of its chemical waste on its premises, destroying the drains and damaging California’s wetlands, Valentine defined.
“Then, later, they bought in a little bit of hassle for that,” he stated. “In order that they began placing it within the sanitary sewer. Mainly, flushing it down the bathroom.”
Following its passage by sewage remedy amenities, the acid waste discovered its manner into the Palos Verdes Shelf, the shallow waters hugging the shoreline. The results had been grave — widespread contamination of the shelf space — marking a brand new chapter within the notorious DDT narrative.
Authorized motion was taken in opposition to Montrose and different liable entities by the state and federal governments in 1990, leading to a multimillion-dollar settlement within the early 2000s devoted to DDT cleanup and ocean restoration. This settlement, one of many nation’s largest payouts for a pure useful resource case, in keeping with the L.A. Instances, addressed a long time of Montrose’s discharge.
From 1947 to 1971, the company discharged 800 to just about 2,000 tons of DDT and poisonous PCBs into Los Angeles County sewers and 500,000 barrels (on this case, a unit of quantity, equal to roughly 42-55 gallons) extra into the ocean close to White Level. Not less than 100 tons of DDT stay unfold throughout the Palos Verdes Shelf.
Montrose made an almost-comical try at believable deniability — attributing the presence of DDT in native birds and fish to outdated farm runoff — and argued that the DDT was naturally degrading, posing little hurt to marine life and other people. In 1996, the EPA designated the affected area as a Superfund web site, reserved for websites contaminated by hazardous substances.
Concentrations of DDT and PCBs remained at alarming ranges in fish bought in Los Angeles markets, with species such because the white croaker having been discovered with tumors presumably linked to chemical publicity.
Mitigation efforts included public campaigns and funding for outreach initiatives to forestall the catch and consumption of contaminated fish. Whereas tens of millions from the settlement contributed to DDT-related tasks and ecological restoration, not a lot has been completed to really “clear up” the toxins, regardless of previous EPA proposals to “cap” the affected space with sand (it’s debatable how and if that might even be completed efficiently).
Although fish stay tainted, the EPA’s 2019 evaluation advised a attainable discount in shelf concentrations, and native hen populations have tentatively rebounded. In September 2022, the Southern California Coastal Water Analysis Challenge initiated a 13-month research to measure DDT leaching from sediment alongside the Palos Verdes Shelf. The challenge includes passive samplers to gauge DDT and PCB ranges leaching into the water column above.
“The chemical substances can proceed to exert poisonous results for many years,” the challenge’s press launch states.
Officers, now, are leaning towards simply letting nature take its course, crossing their fingers that the chemical substances will degrade over time.
Nevertheless, some settlement funds went to the Nationwide Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to rehabilitate the marine ecosystem, together with restoring 32 acres of reef habitat impacted by the toxins. Nonetheless, the toxins stay on the shelf, even after years of research and conferences across the problem.
A Cancerous Cocktail
Most Californians know of the Proposition 65 “WARNING” indicators which can be in every single place — Disneyland, parking garages, accommodations, fast-food locations — and say, “This [noun] has chemical substances recognized to the state of California to trigger most cancers and start defects or different reproductive hurt.” Properly, DDT is on that lengthy record of chemical substances that may, in a technique or one other, critically screw us up.
And it’s not simply us. Keep in mind the ocean lion junk? Along with that, vital quantities of DDT-related compounds have gathered in endangered California condors and native dolphin populations. It strikes up the meals chain, the place we, and different predators, sit on the prime.
DDT can construct up in fats, and it doesn’t dissolve effectively in water. Valentine defined that biomagnification — when the chemical accumulates in growing concentrations because it strikes up the meals chain — spells intensified results in animals that eat marine life.
Coastal hen populations have lengthy been threatened by DDT. Excessive ranges of DDT in California condors correlate with eggshell thinning, jeopardizing hatchlings’ survival. Prior to now, DDT air pollution led to the near-disappearance of eagles, falcons, and pelicans on the Channel Islands.
The phenomenon impressed “silent spring,” a time period coined in 1962 by marine biologist Rachel Carson for instance the disquieting silence ensuing from declining hen populations.
A latest research printed within the journal Ornithological Functions discovered that hatch success for coastal feminine California condors was decrease than inland populations, presumably because of publicity to DDT-related chemical substances (DDE) from feeding on marine animals.
Via monitoring condor nests, Dr. Estelle Sandhaus, Santa Barbara Zoo’s director of conservation and analysis, was capable of examine eggshells between marine-mammal-fed condors from the Central Coast and Southern California condors that depend on terrestrial prey. Condors consuming marine mammals alongside the coast had observably greater charges of eggshell thinning.
“We had been capable of doc the lack of the crystalline layer, the outer porcelain layer within the eggshell,” Sandhaus stated. “It was lacking in these marine-feeding birds. Positively problematic.”
Likewise, Southern California’s bottlenose dolphins have greater DDT ranges than some other dolphin inhabitants, reaching as excessive as 2,000 components per million (ppm). Many dolphins bearing elevated DDT-related compounds of their blubber have been found lifeless on seashores.
“We don’t actually know what it’s doing to their mortality at this level, but it surely’s a serious concern,” Valentine stated.
“A dolphin can’t fill out a questionnaire,” he continued. “And the large concern with DDT is especially developmental. Compounds like DDT can mimic different pure compounds, however they’ll’t actually be destroyed very simply, and to allow them to actually mess with developmental processes that may lead all types of dangerous instructions.”
A Grim Actuality
What Valentine’s early work confirmed was that Montrose, and presumably different corporations, had one other dumping mode: loading up tanks stuffed with waste and pouring it straight into the water.
When DDT is manufactured, it creates sulfuric acid waste, which is so potent it will possibly’t simply be dumped within the sewer or storm drain. As an alternative, Montrose would load the waste into huge tanks. They employed an organization known as California Salvage, which might dock on the Port of Los Angeles, to switch the waste onto a barge, then haul it out to sea and pump it overboard round 10 miles away from Catalina Island.
“We don’t actually know the way a lot DDT was combined within the acid waste — perhaps half a p.c, or one p.c, and even 2 p.c,” Valentine stated. “And a few type of sludgy, particle-y stuff. And so they had been making round 10,000 gallons a day and taking it offshore and dumping it.”
In subsequent years after their preliminary discovery, Valentine’s group carried out in depth analysis, unearthing a focus of DDT 40 instances worse than the infamous Superfund web site in Palos Verdes.
That’s the historical past researchers have been uncovering, piece by piece.
The photographs of rusty barrels resting on the ocean ground off the coast of Los Angeles captured world consideration, with each Valentine and fellow researchers initially speculating that the barrels had been loaded with DDT. Nevertheless, later proof pointed towards the majority disposal of DDT waste from maritime vessels onto the seafloor — not contained in barrels — in keeping with Valentine’s investigative abstract by USC Sea Grant, the challenge administrator.
The abstract states that latest findings recommend the “short-dumping” of DDT and different chemical substances between the California mainland and authorized dumpsites within the San Pedro and Santa Monica basins, increasing the scope of contamination. The research goals to find out the quantities, places, and impacts of “DDT+” (DDT plus further chemical substances) within the deep ocean to underpin the evaluation and mitigation of dangers to environmental and human well being.
[Click to enlarge] SEAFLOOR SAMPLING:Above is a map of Valentine’s sampling stations, which he and his group visited again in March. They sampled the seafloor at every of these places to assist them perceive the extent of DDT contamination between L.A. and Catalina. Outcomes are pending. | Credit score: Courtesy David Valentine
Proper now, Valentine and different researchers are attempting to map out the place the dangerous merchandise are, going off of “sketchy data” (e.g., transport information) from the Nineteen Forties and ’50s. Over latest months, Valentine’s group has meticulously sifted by historic information to complement detailed pattern assortment.
Earlier this 12 months, they obtained practically 100 mud samples from the ocean ground, dividing them into 1,000 subsamples to think about depth and spatial variations. They created a grid sample spanning suspected bulk-dumping zones throughout the deep ocean.
Valentine defined, “The primary order of enterprise is making an attempt to create a two-dimensional map of the place these supplies truly sit at the moment. , the place’s the DDT? After which, if we’ve got sufficient funding, turning that right into a three-dimensional map, trying extra into the seafloor to essentially perceive how a lot of every of the chemical substances there’s and the way they relate to one another.
“We’re making an attempt to know what occurs to those residues on the seafloor. So, 50, 60, 70 years later, how a lot will be degraded in that point? How does that change with the nuance of the atmosphere?”
The Scripps Institute of Oceanography has undertaken comparable survey efforts, working collaboratively with Valentine and different companions. A preliminary sonar-mapping challenge by Scripps in 2021 recognized greater than 27,000 barrel-like objects, and greater than 100,000 complete particles objects, on the seafloor.
A number of federal and state companies, led by the EPA, are additionally collaborating to review the contamination current at Dumpsite 2, and are trying into whether or not, and the way, that cocktail of chemical substances is creating dangers to the atmosphere or to human well being.
Within the meantime, the EPA has assured that the disposal web site is roughly 3,200 ft under the water’s floor, so it’s unlikely that water-goers are recreating close to the positioning.
Senator Dianne Feinstein, who just lately introduced her retirement, pushed for Congress to help the work being completed by researchers and wrote letters to each the EPA and the NOAA to ask what might be completed. Congress allotted $5.6 million to advance the analysis, which was matched by Governor Gavin Newsom. USC Sea Grant and the state supplemented this with an extra $5.2 million, guaranteeing 18 extra months of analysis — what Valentine is engaged on now.
Feinstein, Valentine recounted, was not a tough promote. “She truly contacted us,” he added. “When she noticed the protection on it, she was so indignant. One in all her last priorities is that she desires to see it mounted. However, , we will work out what the issue is, however we’re a good distance away from the repair.”
When it comes to options, they’re nonetheless within the early phases. The extent of the contamination stays unsure, and routes of ecosystem publicity aren’t well-understood. Nonetheless, Valentine’s group is delving into microbiology, as sure microbes can degrade DDT.
“They’re not doing an excellent job in these pure settings proper now,” he lamented. “However we need to get to know them, perceive how they’re doing it.”
Amid recurring dangerous information, Valentine someway manages to keep up a wholesome mindset. He admitted, “I’ve been so immersed in it for thus lengthy that I don’t typically sit and ponder the existential aspect of it. I’m so busy making an attempt to know what occurred and the place it’s all going that I don’t spend as a lot time on that aspect of it. I assume that’s how I take care of it.”
A Residence Base in Santa Barbara
Valentine’s profession isn’t all DDT and sea lion most cancers. He’s been engaged on a hoard of various tasks concurrently. In case you attempt to attain him, don’t be shocked for those who get an out-of-office message in return saying he’s on an “oceanographic expedition.”
Not too long ago, he might be discovered working off the coast of Santa Barbara together with his UCSB lab group, conducting each day dives with the submersible Alvin, plus autonomous robotic operations at evening.
Regardless of his common sea adventures, the San Diego–born, Davis-raised 50-year-old has put down roots in Santa Barbara and began a household right here. He hosts Dos Pueblos Excessive Faculty debate group periods for his daughter, repeatedly attends his kids’s volleyball tournaments, and volunteers with organizations just like the Goleta Valley Historic Society.
He signed on the dotted line for a college job at UCSB in 2001 and began educating in 2002, working there longer than he’s labored wherever else.
Now, he runs a lab with about 20 college students, 1 / 4 of whom are engaged on the DDT tasks. However whilst DDT takes up an enormous piece of the pie, he’s juggling round 10 different tasks concurrently. Some are high-profile, and a few are random aspect tasks — encompassing all the things from a research funded by the Division of Power on carbon-dioxide discount approaches utilizing kelp to experimenting with totally different biofuels.
“From scholar to chancellor, UCSB is a superb place to do marine analysis,” Valentine stated. “I believe we someway appeal to folks right here as a result of they care concerning the ocean, which is a superb factor.
“It’s simple to seek out college students excited by it, and college students will discover me. Truly, my largest monetary supporters are our alumni. Whenever you’re making an attempt to do issues which can be sort of out of the field, it helps to have that help.”
However cash, Valentine defined, is just one small piece of the puzzle.
“I went into what I do as a result of I really like the invention,” he stated. “Can I do one thing that’s truly impactful and may in the end assist folks or society? But in addition, for myself, can I uncover issues that no one knew earlier than? That’s actually what stored me in science and why I didn’t go into enterprise or one thing and make much more cash.”
A Main Growth
This coming fall, 11 years of labor will come to fruition as UCSB welcomes its inaugural cohort for the brand new marine science main, a program crafted by Valentine himself. Regardless of the college’s coastal location and though it’s dwelling to a Marine Science Institute, UCSB had not provided an official marine science main till now; the closest equal was an aquatic biology main.
Earlier this 12 months, this system employed its first college members and hosted its first scholar recruitment weekend in April. “That’s the primary time I ever needed to placed on a horse-and-pony present for folks,” Valentine chuckled. “It’s sort of loopy.”
The marine science main will likely be housed inside the Faculty of Artistic Research, which makes up solely about 2 p.c of the campus inhabitants. Valentine’s goal is to have a modest enrollment of round 50 college students to permit for early engagement in lab work, even in college students’ freshman 12 months.
“I didn’t need it to be this huge, sprawling factor,” Valentine stated. “It permits it to be a bit of little bit of a distinct main, the place it may be very research-focused, and with out a variety of the agency necessities of a conventional main within the Faculty of Letters and Science.”
The journey to lastly welcoming an incoming cohort took a variety of effort.
Valentine recounted his participation within the Aldo Leopold Management Program in 2013, the place he underwent visioning workout routines to assist him look inward and pinpoint what he wished to perform. They requested him to seek out one factor to prioritize working towards over a interval of 5 years. “I’m extra on the three-things-over-15-years plan,” he stated.
A kind of issues, “organic propane,” shouldn’t be going so effectively, Valentine admitted. “It’s nonetheless occurring, simply slowly. So let’s go for 2 for 15 years.”
One other was the marine science main, which Valentine initially anticipated to take only some years. He laughed, although, saying that “11 years later, I met my first scholar.”
However the prime of his record was advancing the DDT challenge past the danger of it being buried in literature in order that they might truly begin doing one thing about it.
“I wanted to have the story. I wanted the story to be far sufficient alongside that it wasn’t identical to, ‘Oh, hey, okay, there’s DDT within the ocean.’ I wished to have sufficient to essentially know what I used to be speaking about and have ideas,” he emphasised.
He wished to watch out, too, about how the story was instructed, to be sensible and correct whereas avoiding sensationalism.
“There’s nothing worse, I believe, than dramatically overblowing a narrative. After which all of a sudden, it’s worse than world warming,” he stated. “That is dangerous, and we’ve got to know it, however we’ve got to place it within the scheme of all the things else that’s dangerous.
“However, , a part of me was simply glad that it was lastly out of my arms and for the remainder of the world to decide on.”
