DDT Wars: Rescuing Our National Bird, Preventing Cancer, and Creating the Environmental Defense Fund

by Charles F. Wurster

William Ruckelshaus, first administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), banned DDT in 1972.

a modest group of volunteer scientists and citizens fought the “DDT wars” from Long Island living rooms through the courts to ultimate victory.

Margaret Mead said, “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that has.”

The fledgling organization EDF still needed nurturing and attention; so did my full-time, paying faculty position at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. The DDT battles paid nothing. If anything, they were a detriment to my career. Writing a book just did not fit in at that time.

The same tactics that were used back in the Sixties to denounce the DDT threat were again being used to discredit scientists and the scientific evidence of climate change.

This journey, these results, is among the greatest environmental case histories of modern times.

We will not “bring everything up to date,” but the science of the DDT issue is even truer now than it was then.

Why would DDT be controversial today? For many, DDT is a symbol of the environmental movement. From the very beginning, while a small number of volunteers were waging battles to decrease the risks of DDT, there were many defenders of DDT, some paid by industry to refute the scientific evidence.

As in the 1970s, we today are locked in a debate about a major environmental issue, climate change, that threatens our planet and life as we know it. Many people are understandably confused about the science of climate change.

They may hope that by claiming that the DDT threat was a “hoax,” the DDT ban killed millions, and the science was inconclusive, they can strengthen their case against the science connecting manmade emissions of greenhouse gases to climate change.

While in the past a small number of committed volunteers were able to make an enormous difference, today we need many more allies to prevail.

a growing list of scientists called EDF’s “Scientists Advisory Committee” who agreed in writing above their signatures to provide information or testimony in their areas of expertise without fee.

Then there was the EDF team, incredibly dedicated and talented people, starting with only 10 and growing into hundreds, then thousands, who weathered the ups and downs of building an organization, starting with nothing.

Acorn Days and those EDF newsletters were major sources for this book.

In the following weeks 151 dead birds filled my freezer, many of them exhibiting before they died the tremors that we later learned were typical of DDT poisoning.

We also soon learned that DDT was ineffective in preventing the spread of Dutch elm disease and that another procedure, sanitation without insecticides, effectively protected the elms.

Hundreds of towns were killing thousands or millions of birds while not protecting their elms.

conservationist. Now such people have been renamed “environmentalists.”

Joe Cadbury, who had a huge influence on me and permanently changed my life.

It would be another decade before anyone knew that something was the matter with these and many other species of birds.

When they inject venom into their prey they also take an imprint of its odors and chemistry, and their forked tongue tells them whether to turn right or left in following it to its demise.

decreasing the rattlesnake population merely leads to more rats.

. Insects had no prior genetic experience with this chemical, and they were highly susceptible to its toxic action.

Few voices were raised concerning potential problems for nonhuman organisms.

Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring was published in 1962 (Carson, 1962).

and new insect species were elevated to pest status where they were not before.

DDT was doing widespread environmental damage while failing to do its job.

1962 that Betty Sherrard, a local conservationist and birder, circulated a petition calling for the town not to treat its elm trees with DDT in an attempt to control Dutch elm disease.

conservationists were politically weak sisters who were largely ignored.

Doris H. Wurster, a pathologist; Walter N. Strickland, a postdoc in biology; and Hans W. Weber, a professor of German.

we discovered that all of the birds exhibiting tremors prior to death on analysis contained lethal concentrations of DDT in their brains

In 1964 they substituted the far less destructive insecticide methoxychlor, but because DDT remains in the soil long after its use, organisms living in soil contaminated by DDT still killed some birds who fed on them.

By this time we had also learned that DDT is not very effective (nor is methoxychlor) in controlling the bark beetle that spreads Dutch elm disease.

More effective in saving the trees is the practice of “sanitation,” the removal and destruction of all breeding material for the beetles—that is, getting rid of dying or recently dead elm branches and even nearby woodpiles.

Sue the Bastards on Long Island: The Power of an Idea

Attendance of 25 to 30 included scientists from Brookhaven National Laboratory and the State University of New York at Stony Brook, in addition to various conservationists and a few high school students. The group called itself by the noneuphonious name of Brookhaven Town Natural Resources Committee, which quickly became BTNRC for obvious reasons.

It was just a group of people who met occasionally to foster environmental protection policies by our local governments, and we all had other daytime jobs. We discussed various environmental issues—pollution from duck farms, dredging of wetlands, sewage pollution, DDT use on local marshes, dump sites, groundwater protection, wildlife and habitat preservation, and so forth.

Myra Gelband, one of Art Cooley’s dedicated high school students,

The only feature of this nonorganization was that we had a letterhead printed to give the impression that there was, in fact, such an organization.

An enjoyable social mix is surely a motivational factor that helps explain which groups continue and grow, and which ones stagnate.

BTNRC had no officers, but Arthur P. Cooley became the unelected chairman, since he could run a meeting with Robert’s Rules.

He had the remarkable ability to arouse people’s enthusiasm about environmental topics.

Dennis Puleston was the grand old man of BTNRC.

There wasn’t much that Dennis didn’t know or couldn’t do.

George M. Woodwell, senior ecologist at Brookhaven National Laboratory.

Robert E. Smolker was an ecologist and ornithologist at the State University of New York at Stony Brook.

Anthony S. Taormina was Regional Director for Fish and Game for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.

One BTNRC meeting in April 1966 left me with the assignment of writing a letter to local newspapers, attacking the continued use of DDT by the Commission.

If the decline in Long Island wildlife is to be checked, the use of DDT for mosquito control must be curtailed. It is alarming to think that the dissemination of such toxic materials is in the hands of a person who thinks they are harmless.

Victor J. Yannacone jr., a Patchogue, New York, attorney.