Waiting for the DDT tide to turn

Findings like these provide teaching opportunities for those who suggest dumping chemical compounds onto our lands. A "safe" product 50 years ago is continuing to bio-accumulate in fish populations 35 years after being banned.

-craig

Federal study shows that fish caught off L.A. County still contain the world's highest levels of the pesticide 35 years after it was banned.
By Marla Cone, Times Staff Writer

January 28, 2007
Fish consumption recommendations
(Acrobat file)

Many fish caught off Los Angeles County still contain extremely high levels of DDT, a sign that anglers and consumers remain at risk and that the ocean's ecosystem may be far from recovery 35 years after the pesticide was banned.

Newly released data from a federal survey indicate that fish caught in the area contained the world's highest-known DDT concentrations. Among 1,200 fish caught from Ventura to Dana Point, white croaker off San Pedro and the Palos Verdes Peninsula were the most highly contaminated. Fish off Orange County and areas north of the Redondo Beach Pier had low concentrations.

The data, collected primarily in 2002, offer the most comprehensive look at the scope of contamination from a 100-ton deposit of DDT that still covers several square miles of the ocean floor decades after the pesticide flowed into county sewers beginning in the late 1940s.

More recent annual sampling by Los Angeles County, far less extensive than the federal survey, suggests that the DDT levels in fish may be improving but still far exceed safe levels.

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