Tributyl Tin Naval Anti-Fouling Paint Program

David Taylor TBT paint program (1970s–80s); parts-per-billion mollusk kill; congressional ban after fisherman complaints.

If you could afford to, you'd have copper-lined boats. They've had some boats down in the tropics where the barnacles and other things grow very rapidly, and you can almost justify it, because within one year you can basically be dead in the water from the weight of the barnacles and the drag. Now, none of you are old enough to know what the Navy used to use. Anybody ever heard of tributyl tin? As recently as the early '90s — David Taylor had in the '70s or '80s come up with tributyl tin added to the paint, and this would kill any mollusk in the entire harbor. It was parts per billion or parts per trillion, and it would just wipe out all the mollusks.