Apparently the answer from the article was that the halos are actually calcium carbonate [CaCO₃] settling around the barrels. Little murky (kind of intended) about how it's turning into calcium carbonate though.

The article says that the area's so alkaline it's pH 12, almost bleach. That then killed off or warded away all the organisms nearby.

Then Brucite [Mg(OH)₂] formed with magnesium in the ocean water. Then somehow (?) that dissolves -> [CaCO₃]

Lots of DDT everywhere apparently, is just uniformly distributed over the area, and does not seem to have any relation to distance from barrels. No real numbers though other than the ph measurement.

Also a little weird that "scientists were not able to identify the specific alkaline waste substances contained within the barrels".

Presentation from the EPA has a pretty decent overview of the subject: [1]

[1] https://www.epa.gov/system/files/documents/2021-12/smbrc-epa...

There's also the investigation website: [2]

[2] https://www.epa.gov/marine-protection-permitting/southern-ca...

Kind of a, "whoa", they dumped radioactive waste and military explosives off the coast of San Diego? At least that stuff is pretty far away though. Sites 10 and 14 for radioactive. Santa Cruz island (nature preserve) or San Nicolas island (Navy weapons testing) are maybe the closest.

6, 11, and 12 for the military explosives. Those a bit closer. 6 is near San Diego. 11 and 12 are near San Clemente and Santa Catalina.

Site #2 in the San Pedro Basin Channel off the coast of Long Beach is the one they're primarily investigating. 148 square kilometers, 25,000 barrel-like targets, and 100,000+ debris objects

Belgium just used to dump all their nuclear waste in barrels into the North Sea. They are still there.

Nowadays they just stockpile the leaking barrels onsite.

25,000 barrels… just wow. That humans do this, us just depressing