Soaring sea lion cancer linked to ocean dumping ground of 27,000 barrels of DDT off California

Sea lions in California are dying from cancer at an unprecedented rate, potentially linked to thousands of toxic chemical barrels dumped in the Pacific Ocean decades ago.

On Monday marine scientists revealed they had discovered what appears to be those barrels, possibly containing the toxic substance dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane, known as DDT, off Southern California.

Some 27,345 “barrel-like” images were captured from a research vessel by a team from Scripps Institution of Oceanography at University of California San Diego, who mapped more than 36,000 acres of seafloor between Santa Catalina Island and the Los Angeles coast.

It has long been suspected that a massive toxic dump was lurking beneath the surface and wreaking havoc on the health of marine life.