DDT

In 2020 she broke the story that barrels of DDT’s toxic waste, last sent to the ocean floor decades ago by its biggest manufacturer, Montrose, were closer to Southern California’s shores than previously thought.

Peregrine falcons, which were once nearly wiped out in Australia due to the use of pesticides in agriculture, have staged a recovery since the 1980s when DDT and other chemicals were banned.

There, American health inspectors typically forced aspiring braceros to strip naked before subjecting them to blood tests, X-rays, rectal exams and a final dusting of their bodies and clothes with DDT.

A series of Times reports in recent years have unraveled a haunting history of how the nation’s largest manufacturer of DDT had once dumped its waste at sea, just off the coast of Los Angeles.

The iconic American bird was almost wiped out in the 1960s due to the pesticide DDT, which poisoned the eagles and made their eggs weak and flimsy.