Even the Los Angeles Times indicated that pollution in the Pacific Ocean off the California coast could be even more dangerous than originally thought.

Using a deep-sea robot, UC Santa Barbara scientists discovered an eerie graveyard of leaking barrels in 2020, spread out on the seafloor near Santa Catalina Island. DDT, a powerful pesticide that was banned 50 years ago, was found in high concentrations near the barrels, leading scientists to suspect they were full of it. (Scientists later discovered that companies didn't even bother putting DDT in barrels — they dumped it directly into the sea.) –Los Angeles Times

DDT or Dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane, is a colorless, tasteless, and almost odorless crystalline chemical compound, an organochloride. It was originally developed as an insecticide, but it's now known as a toxic substance to humans and animals. Disturbingly enough, that is not the only thing California is dumping into the Pacific Ocean.

Records show that from the 1940s through the 1960s, it was not uncommon for local hospitals, labs, and other industrial operations to dispose of barrels of tritium, carbon-14, and other low-level radioactive waste at sea.

The company tasked with pouring the DDT waste off the Los Angeles coast had also dumped low-level radioactive waste. The radioactive waste sitting down there is unequivocally terrible, but the "concerning concentrations" of DDT in the deep ocean are worse said UC Santa Barbara's David Valentine. His research team published their findings in Environmental Science & Technology.