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GELFAND’S WORLD - There are thousands of barrels of toxic waste, right offshore in the Catalina Channel, and it turns out that this is the less important problem. The other, worse problem, as revealed by a series of studies carried out by numerous agencies and research labs, is that the insecticide DDT is present in enormous quantities right on the sea bottom, both close to shore and further out. This has serious consequences both for ourselves and for other life forms, because DDT is not just an insecticide. It moves up the food chain. Yes, it kills insects right off, but it has other, slower effects on other life forms including ourselves. You will understand this and more, not the least being the thinking that goes into doing science, as you will see in the new documentary Out of Plain Sight, which will run November 19 – 25 at the Laemmle theater in North Hollywood. The location and viewing times can be found here.
The story is told through the eyes of a Los Angeles Times journalist, Rosanna Xia, who herself was educated about the discovery of the toxic waste barrels by David Valentine, a UCSB researcher. As Xia learned more about the barrels and about our current understanding of DDT contamination, she wrote up her findings in a story that was published in the L.A. Times.
You can find that story here.
The knowledge that DDT was dumped offshore is nothing new. It was public knowledge going back to 1947. It is the extent and local concentration of the DDT that even now remains a mystery. Why this should be so is explained in the film. How and why the chemical industry was allowed to contaminate our local waters to such an extent is a bigger issue, as it involves public policy questions which obviously remain to be answered properly.
The most important question, as implied rather pointedly at the end of the film, is why new chemicals are allowed to be released into commerce and into the environment without thorough testing. Instead (and opposite to the policy for releasing a new drug into the market), chemicals are allowed to be sold unless and until they are shown to have bad effects. Thus DDT, useful in combatting malaria and many other insect-carried diseases, was not adequately tested for effects on development or cancer.
The L.A. Times article stirred up local interest.
Ultimately, Xia met with filmmakers Austin and Daniel Straub, and together they wrote and produced the documentary Out of Plain Sight. A group of us viewed the film at the Cabrillo Marine Aquarium in San Pedro, essentially ground zero for the DDT contamination problem. You see, the barges which dumped DDT and other toxins left from the Port of Los Angeles, and sewage outflow containing hundreds of tons of DDT exited into the nearby ocean waters from the same area.
And by the way, the source of all this material was the Montrose Chemical plant which was located at Normandy and Del Amo, just a few miles inland.
The film shows researchers collecting samples of the ocean bottom in the Catalina Channel and then demonstrates how core samples are separated inch by inch for testing (actually centimeter by centimeter, but I’m trying not to be too sciency here).
But the existence of a couple thousand tons of DDT is not, by itself, the whole story. What’s important is that the DDT molecules don’t just float away into the middle of the ocean. They don’t go far, but they are picked up by small organisms (as small as a single cell, and then plankton, and then larger animals) and in this way the DDT moves up the food chain into fish, and then into birds and marine mammals.
The damage to bald eagles, pelicans, and falcons due to DDT – their egg shells become thin and the young birds don’t survive – became known. The film shows in somewhat graphical detail the damage to some of our sea lions and dolphins, including in some cases mortality.
So now let me give the pitch. The filmmakers have been showing this documentary at film festivals, hoping to find a distributor. Now, as mentioned above, the Laemmle theater in North Hollywood (5240 Lankersheim Blvd, No. Hollywood) will be showing the film November 19 – 25. There will be a question-and-answer session by the filmmakers after each 7 PM showing. I should point out that the Q/A at the San Pedro showing was serious and enlightening.
This film is worth seeing both for those interested in environmental pollution issues and for those who are interested in the art and technology of documentary films. This one is particularly well done both for its sound acquisition and for its film editing, two arts which are, too often, left on the cutting room floor.
One little reveal that appears late in the film: What is in those thousands of barrels deep in the Catalina channel is probably now known. Records from the era show that hospitals and research labs collected what we now call low level radioactive waste from the medical procedures and research activities they were engaged in. It’s things like latex gloves that people wore while filling a pipet or syringe, or the paper or gauze that was involved in some experiment. For the most part, such material is of little risk, even when it is brand new, and after a few half-lives becomes less and less active until, generally after 10 half lives or so it is considered to be inert. Thus a small amount of radioactive hydrogen, with a half life of 12 years, is one of the longer-lived waste products and is well on its way to inert status by now. Isotopes of iodine are gone within the year, and carbon-14, although much more stable, is also a naturally occurring substance which is around us in any case. Notice that high level waste from power plants and nuclear testing is not included in this category and would not be allowed in such waste releases, for which we should be grateful.
Addendum: A Partisan Aside
The Trump administration through its servile Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, has successfully stalled the release of the Epstein files until now. Not the least of Johnson’s manipulation was keeping the House out of session for nearly 2 months, thus keeping a newly elected Democrat from being sworn in. The result is that a discharge petition to get a motion taken up by the full House has been lacking that one critical signature. Johnson is, in effect, obstructing justice here. But more than that, the delay has given the Republicans a chance to delete and destroy any material which incriminates Donald Trump. That’s what this is all about.
(Bob Gelfand writes on science, culture, and politics for CityWatch. He can be reached at [email protected])
