SPECIAL DIATOMS

by Wallace Tharp

In the late 1950’s a man by the name of Louis Delisle was manufacturing synthetic Turquoise for the imitation Indian Jewelry Trade. He was using Diatomaceous Earth strictly as a filler and his choice of deposit was accidental and unbelievably lucky.

Bringing truckloads in from the desert deposit, he ran it through a hammer mill to reduce it to a fine powder. the process created a large white cloud in the area, which included a large dairy and a cattle feed lot. Of course there were lots of flies.

One day one of his workers said: “Have you noticed that every time we grind this material there are no flies around here for a few days”?

Realizing the truth of this, Louis was very concerned. It the dust killed flies, it must be poison and may be harming people in the Area!

He took the material to a laboratory and was overjoyed to be told that the material was absolutely non-toxic. Having an Inquiring mind, his next thought was HOW DOES IT KILL THE FLIES? He spent a lot of time with a magnifying glass and a microscope and determined that the material actually causes holes to appear in the insects body or shell and the bug died from dehydration. HE DRIED TO DEATH! Not only did it kill flies with no danger to animals, humans or the environment, it killed every bug he tried it on.

The Dairyman was in trouble. The government had discovered that cows fed hay with DDT on it, gave milk with DDT in it for children to drink. They outlawed the product for use in the milk house.

No other insecticide worked as well on flies as DDT, and the inspectors were always giving him a bad time as he couldn’t seem to keep good enough control of the flies.

Louis decided to help him out. with a small pump applicator, he went over and killed all the flies in the milk house, scaring the dairyman because it was obvious that the product was deadly and must represent a different kind of problem for the Dairyman. He took a sample t0 a different lab and was told the product was totally not toxic!

Arizona State University was asked for help in getting patents on; the products and they were then presented to the US Dept of Agriculture for registrations as Insecticides. They refused, saying that no matter that it killed bugs,, it was not poison so you could not call it an insecticide, and if you couldn’t call it an insecticide, then it could not be registered as such.

A senator Abraham Ribicoff held congressional hearings and forced the USDA register the products. There was tremendous publicity, causing thousands of dollars in sales and it looked as though the product was off and running, but PURE DISASTER WAS JUST AROUND THE CORNER! Next month we will tell you more!