# Presentation: 093353

## Lesson 5

**The Story of**
** ****Santa Catalina Island**

## Opening Question

***What are some possible ******explanations for high DDE concentrations in  sediments around Santa Catalina Island ******in 1989-2000?***

**Notes:**
 Students will answer this question on the given worksheet in their workbooks.

## Santa Catalina Island

**Location**: Southern California Bight – Part of the Channel Islands
**Size**: 22 miles long, 8 miles wide
**Bald Eagle Population**: Before DDT exposure there was a minimum of 24 breeding pairs on the island. By 1960, there were no bald eagles on the island.

**Notes:**
 Students will be asked about the location of Santa Catalina Island.

## Santa Catalina Island Bald Eagle Time Line – Part I

**1960**  Bald eagles disappear from the Channel Islands
**1972** 	The Environmental Protection Agency bans DDT in the United States
**1980-1986** Reintroduction of bald eagles on Santa Catalina Island
**1985**	A report is published detailing the discharge of DDT between 1940-1970 in the ocean surrounding 	Santa Catalina Island
**Late 1980s** The reintroduced bald eagles were unable to successfully reproduce, scientists took blood samples from the eagles, and found high levels of DDE.

**Notes:**
 Students will be asked how many pairs of bald eagles lived on Santa Catalina Island in 1960.

## Santa Catalina Island Bald Eagle Time Line – Part II

**1990**	The United States Government and the State of California filed a lawsuit against Montrose Chemical Corporation and others for dumping DDT into the environment.
**1992-3  **United States Geological Survey (USGS) found more than 100 metric tons of DDTs remained on the ocean bottom of the Palos Verdes Shelf (near Santa Catalina Island).
**2000**	The federal and state governments settled the final remaining claims against the companies responsible for dumping DDT into the Pacific Ocean near Santa Catalina Island.

## DDT Dumping Surrounding Santa Catalina Island  

**What birds were particularly harmed by DDT on Santa Catalina Island?**
**Bald eagles****	****	**
**Peregrine falcons**
**Gulls**
**How were they harmed?**
**Bald eagles and other birds suffered neurological damage through direct consumption of DDE contaminated prey.**
**Eggshell thinning, death before hatching**
**How was the dumping discovered?**
**Scientists noticed that bald eagles reintroduced to Santa Catalina Island did not successfully reproduce and had high concentrations of DDE in the their blood.**
**What is being done now?**

**  ****Brown pelicans**
**  ****Cormorants**

**Notes:**
 Students will be asked what company was responsible for the dumping of hundreds of tons of DDT into sewage systems that drained into the Pacific Ocean.

## An Actual Bald Eagle Example

**A poisoned 12-year-old female eagle living on Santa Catalina Island since 1981 was found in 1993 with the following symptoms:**
**Body tremors**
**Eye twitching**
**Lack of coordination**
**Concentration of DDE in the brain of the 12-year-old female was 212 ****μg/g**** **
**Concentration of DDE in the brain of a bald eagle that died in a DDT feeding trial – 58 – 86 ****μg/g****.**
**Concentration of DDE in the liver of the 12-year-old female was 838 ****μg/g**** **
**Concentration of DDE in the liver of a bald eagle that died in a DDT feeding trial – 280-715 ****μg/g**** .**

**Notes:**
From this specific story you can transition into the general feeding habits of bald eagles and how this puts them at particular risk from DDE biomagnification.  This is a review of the concepts of food webs, bioaccumulation, and biomagnification in Lesson 2, so students will likely be able to answer questions about how bald eagles are at particular risk from DDE poisoning. 

A feeding trial is an experiment where animals are fed given quantities of a substance to determine the effects of that substance on the health of the animal.  In feeding trials animals are usually fed different doses of the substance so to record the effect of a substance at different doses. 

 Students will be asked about three symptoms of DDE toxicity in adult bald eagles.

## Why bald eagles are harmed by DDT 

- Bald eagles are high in the food web.
- In addition to eating fresh fish, bald eagles are scavengers and eat the carcasses of birds and mammals.
- When bald eagles feed on seabirds and seal carcasses, they consume fish-eating animals and thus bioaccumulate DDT.

## Major DDT Transfer Pathways

**Major DDT Transfer Pathways**

**Bald Eagles**

**Sea Lions**

**Invertebrates**

**Fish**

**Peregrine Falcons**

**Gulls and other Water Birds**

**DDT Enters the System**

**Volatilization**

**Dissolved DDT**

**Diffusion**

**DDT in Sediment**

**Notes:**
Referring to this slide teachers can review bioaccumulation, biomagnification, and food webs.  This slide will also be useful for teaching students about the ways in which fish are exposed to DDT: through their gills in the DDT dissolved in water and through eating benthic invertebrates that feed on DDT laden sediment. 

 Students will be asked about the three pathways in which DDT moves through an ecosystem.

## Santa Catalina Island Bald Eagle Diet

**Notes:**
At this point you may want to compare Bald Eagle diets with Osprey diets.  Osprey eat 99+% fish and this is another reason that scientists should not compare osprey to bald eagles when looking at the level of DDE concentration that causes reproductive damage.  

## Bald Eagle Prey and DDE

**Notes:**
This slide breaks down the types of foods eaten  by bald eagles and how each food source adds DDE to the bald eagle’s diet.  Fish make up a large portion of the diet of bald eagles on Santa Catalina Island,  but fish do not necessarily contribute the highest amount of DDE to the diet.  Because many of the fish eaten by bald  eagles are lower on the food chain, DDE does not biomagnify as it does in top-predator food sources.  However, the percentage of fish that have detectable levels of DDE is high, suggesting that fish does contribute some level of DDE to the bald eagle diet.

Relative to the concentration of DDE in bird prey, the seals and sea lions eaten by bald eagles on Santa Catalina have a low DDE concentration.  One reason for this may be that over its lifetime a seal or sea lion migrates and gets its food sources from several sources.  Although some of the food of seals and sea lions may be DDE laden, much of its food may come from other locations not contaminated with DDE.  

Birds such as gulls and other shore birds that are eaten by bald eagles have the potential to contribute large amounts of DDE to the bald eagle’s diet due to biomagnification.  These birds eat fish that may already be several steps up on the food chain.  When bald eagles eat such birds they can get high doses of DDE into their system.

 Students will be asked about the mean level of DDE found in gulls and sea lions on Santa Catalina Island.

## Bald Eagles and DDE

**Bald Eagles**** and DDE**

**Birds and mammals account for a small amount of the bald eagle diet, but are the source of much of the bald eagles’ DDE exposure.**
**Osprey do not feed on tertiary consumers such as fish-eating birds and sea mammals – this results in lower DDE concentrations.**

**Notes:**
For the reference back to the osprey the students can pull out their graphs and compare the DDE levels in osprey versus bald eagles.

## Continued Reproductive Failure of Reintroduced Bald Eagles on Santa Catalina Island

- In 1980 bald eagles were reintroduced to Santa Catalina Island.
- For several years, scientists noticed that the reintroduced eagles were not successfully reproducing.
- In 1989, scientists began testing eggs from the bald eagles’ nests on Santa Catalina Island and found the highest levels of DDE concentration ever recorded for bald eagles – _scientists compared these DDE levels with other locations just as you did on days three and four._
- Naturally, the investigating scientists wondered how the levels of DDE became so high.

**Notes:**
When the high levels of DDE were discovered in the eggs from Santa Catalina Island, scientists searched for the source of the toxin.

 Students will be asked about the method scientists used to make the case against Montrose.

**Montrose Chemical Corporation & others**
**v.**
**United States Government & State of California**

## Montrose Chemical Corporation

- Pesticide manufacturer – Manufactured DDT
- Between 1940-1970 Montrose discharged 1800 tons of DDT into Los Angeles sewers that dumped into the Pacific Ocean.
- Montrose dumped hundreds of tons of DDT contaminated waste into the ocean near Santa Catalina Island.
- Montrose closed its DDT factory in 1982.

**Notes:**
A majority of the DDT originated from the Montrose Chemical Corporation’s manufacturing plant in Torrance, CA, and was discharged into Los Angeles County sewers that empty into the Pacific Ocean at White Point, on the Palos Verdes shelf.  Montrose also dumped hundreds of tons of DDT-contaminated waste into the ocean near Santa Catalina Island.  

 Students will be asked how many tons of DDT were dumped into Los Angeles sewers by Montrose.

## United States Government & State of California

- The US Government and State of California fought a 10 year court battle and the final settlement hinged on the analysis similar to the activities you did on day three and four.
- Total value of all settlements paid to the federal and state government - **$140 million** (Montrose paid about $70 million and other parties paid about $70 million)
- Most of the money was granted to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to reduce the DDTs exposure to people and wildlife and reimburse the government for the litigation costs.
- $30 million is going to natural resource restoration projects.

**Notes:**
 Students will be asked three questions about the Montrose settlement.

## The government agencies that received settlement funds

- National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
- U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
- National Park Service
- California Department of Fish and Game
- California State Lands Commission
- California Department of Parks and Recreation

**Notes:**
 Students will be asked to name two of the six government agencies that have been entrusted with the funds from the settlement.

**According to the Superfund Law -***The Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) *
** **
- Government agencies must use settlement funds for cleanup, restoration, fines and penalties, and reimbursement of government costs.

## What is Restoration?

- Restoration is the process of assisting the recovery of an ecosystem (or habitat) that has been degraded, damaged, or destroyed.
- Although it is important that restoration takes place after damage has been done, it is more important to make efforts to avoid damaging the environment in the first place.

**Notes:**
 Students will be asked to define restoration.

## Restoration Activities

- Projects to benefit bald eagles on Santa Catalina Island.
- Fish contaminant concentrations are surveyed to create a cleaner fishing environment for people and wildlife.

**Notes:**
The final activity for this unit is the evaluation of current restoration plans.  At this point teachers can ask students about how they would determine restorations goals and what restoration projects they are aware of in their own communities.  

 Students will be asked to name restoration projects that are or will be taking place on Santa Catalina Island.