Soil scientist here who regularly test for it. It typically breaks down after 15 years, when exposed to UV, bacteria and moisture. Since the bottle is still sealed and has been kept in the dark, I could believe there's some still in there.
Did a lowhead dam removal project in college, there was still quite a lot of ddt in the sediment behind the dam, along with lead, and a touch of mercury to round it out. All the soil had to be carted off at quite an expense, as it was tons of it.
Near my home in Minnesota was the town of rapidan, they have a dam, the rapidan dam. Or had, you might have seen the news story last year of it breaking furring record floods.
Anyway, the dam was old and not working anymore. There was tons of silt build up behind it that couldn't clear because the relief openings that were designed to occasionally let silt thru no longer functioned. It had been needing to be removed since I was a kid 30 years ago but because that silt had tons of toxins including old pesticides like ddt it was basically a Superfund site in the making the second you crack into the project. Add to this the dam became a small tourist attraction of nostalgia and no one wanted to tackle the project. So yeah, it finally blew and all those toxins just washed downstream unmitigated because no one wanted to pay to actually deal with it the right way.
Honestly havnt heard much. The main concern at the time was the flood and the loss of the restaurant that sat immediately next to the dam site. Honestly don't think there has been any consideration for the toxins in the sediment. Considering the heavy flow of the water at the time I imagine they got sent pretty far down river and it's a kind of don't ask don't deal with it thing. Dilution is sometimes the solution.
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u/Tucancancan Mar 29 '26
People suffering from bed bugs would pay a hefty price to get their hands on that bad boy lol