New research from UC San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography reveals that barrels of caustic waste, thought to be related to the pesticide DDT, have created an extreme environment around them.
Though the study’s findings can’t identify which specific chemicals were present in the barrels, DDT manufacturing did produce alkaline as well as acidic waste.
“One of the main waste streams from DDT production was acid, and they didn’t put that into barrels,” said Johanna Gutleben, a Scripps postdoctoral scholar and the study’s first author. “It makes you wonder: What was worse than DDT acid waste to deserve being put into barrels?”…