Out of Plain Sight: Documentary on UCSB Professor and Oceanographer Dave Valentine’s Discovery of DDT Dumping on Southern California Coast

World Premiere on November 16, 2024 at DOC NYC

University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) Professor and oceanographer David Valentine in 2011 discovered massive dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane (DDT) dump sites off Catalina Island on the coast of Southern California while investigating the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Professor Valentine’s continued research found that further DDT and other chemical dumping (DDT+) have occurred, expanding the scope of the contamination in the ocean. Professor Valentine and his research group at UCSB continue to assess the contamination along with the risks to human health and environmental wellbeing.  

Out of Plain Sight, a 94-minute documentary by the LA Times Studios and Sypher Studios, focuses on Professor Valentine’s DDT dump discovery. Out of Plain Sight has its world premiere at DOC NYC on November 16, 2024 and then will move into the regular circuit. 

DDT is a man-made chemical developed as the first of the modern synthetic insecticides in the 1940s. In 1972, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a cancellation order for DDT based on its adverse environmental effects to wildlife and its potential human health risks. Today, DDT is classified as a probable human carcinogen by U.S. and international authorities. 

Professor Valentine has been at UCSB since 2001. He holds the Norris Presidential Endowed Chair in Earth Science, is a Professor of Geochemistry and Microbiology, is the founding director of the Marine Science undergraduate program in the College of Creative Studies (CCS), and is past chair of the Interdepartmental Graduate Program in Marine Science (IGPMS). Professor Valentine is fascinated by the interactions of microbes and chemical compounds as they occur in the environment, especially in the ocean. Professor Valentine has published over 150 papers as well as three books and a patent. He is further engaged in issues of environmental policy; he has served on study panels of national academies, has testified to congress, given hundreds of interviews to major media outlets, and his research has formed the basis of proposed legislation.
 

Watch Out of Plain Sight in person and online

Learn more about:

Out of Plain Sight and watch the trailer

The Valentine Lab at UCSB

 The CCS Marine Science program and student research with Professor Valentine

The Interdepartmental Graduate Program in Marine Science (IGPMS)