Washington, DC–(ENEWSPF)–June 15, 2015. A community in central Michigan is still dealing with the fallout of a pesticide company that produced DDT nearly half a century ago. St. Louis, MI, a city about one hour north of the state capital Lansing, has long dealt with contamination left behind by the Velsicol Chemical Corporation, which manufactured pesticides in the town until 1963, when it left and abandoned loads of DDT in its wake. DDT, known for accumulating in food webs and persisting for decades in soil and river sediment, was banned in the U.S. in 1972, but problems associated with its prevalent use until that time still plague the community to this day. This situation has led to a multi-million dollar clean-up effort at taxpayers’ expense by Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ).
