Pensacola Bay Lab Test Reveal Oil Found Last Month In Bay Is “EXTREMELY TOXIC”
October 28, 2010
BY SCOTT PAGE
Gulf Breeze News HERE...
Test results are in for oil material found in Pensacola Bay late last month, and the numbers are frightening.
A lab experienced in testing petroleum products determined that the oil’s toxicity levels are sky-high.
“In its natural state, the numbers are off the chart,” said Heather Reed, the environmental expert for the City of Gulf Breeze who made the discovery. “It’s extremely toxic to human health.”
Lab workers had to dilute the sample 20 times just to get a reading. Reed said samples are usually diluted only once.
“The oil is very well preserved,” Reed added. “It smells very strong when pulled out of the water. It made me nauseated.” Reed in late September discovered a significant amount of oil buried in submerged sediment near Fort McRae in Escambia County while conducting independent research.
“The oil was in about 3 feet of water and was buried pretty deep in the sediment,” Reed recalled. “The mats were between 6 inches and a foot in diameter, but some were more than 2 feet in diameter. I kept digging and finding more and more."
“Finding this submerged oil is very alarming to me because it’s in such large mats,” Reed explained. “I believe it came into (the bay) in June with the initial impacts.”
Reed on Sept. 30 revisited the site and another near Barrancas Beach with BP and Coast Guard officials to inform responders of her discovery. She also discovered oil present at Johnson Beach, Fort Pickens and Orange Beach through research she conducted in September.
The topography near Fort McRae helped preserve the submerged oil. Because the area is a secluded cove, very little water flows through it – resulting in low oxygen levels.
“(The oil) is in an anaerobic environment, so there is not a lot of bacteria to break it down,” Reed explained.
Reed said that similar samples that might possibly remain submerged in the Gulf of Mexico could be extremely damaging to the marine ecosystem.
“I am concerned about upwelling events,” Reed said. “Strong currents draw up nutrient rich water and sediment from the sea floor that nourishes plankton and other organisms that are the foundation of the marine food chain."
“If an upwelling event brings up any oil material with these toxicity levels, it could be harmful to any animals near the upwelling plume.”
Reed is unsure of the effects of the oil on the water quality near Fort McRae.
“The surface area is very large, and it gets pretty deep, so there could be a lot of dilution,” she said. “Because it sank and is submerged, it will stay there.
“I would not recommend going into the water.”
She explained that the effects near the beach would be different because of more aeration.
Though no oil has been reported on Gulf Breeze shores or in local bayous, those areas could be at risk.
“We don’t have any barriers, the Coastwatchers aren’t patrolling anymore, and there has been no communication to the city of this oil entering the bay,” Reed said.
If oil entered any of the Gulf Breeze bayous, Reed explained that it would sink and become submerged just as it had near Fort McRae.
“It would definitely sink and be preserved,” Reed said. “And it would be very difficult to find.”
Showing posts with label Chemical Dispersants. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Chemical Dispersants. Show all posts
Monday, November 29, 2010
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
BP's Environmental Disaster: Fishermen Report Louisiana Bays Filled With Oil
by Dahr Jamail and Erika Blumenfeld
Global Research
October 27, 2010
t r u t h o u t
On Saturday, October 23, Truthout spotted what appeared to be massive areas of weathered oil floating near Louisiana's fragile marshlands in both East and West Bays along the Mississippi River Delta. In addition, at least two more oil leaks were spotted near oil and gas platforms along Louisiana's embattled coastline.
Four days prior, federal on-scene cleanup coordinator for the BP oil disaster, Coast Guard Rear Adm. Paul Zukunft, declared there was little recoverable surface oil in the Gulf of Mexico.
Both Bays cover an area of roughly 70 square miles of open water that surround Southwest Pass, the main shipping channel of the Mississippi River. While East Bay remains closed for fishing, West Bay was currently open for fishing when Truthout spotted the substance on October 23, despite the fact that the day before a BP oil cleanup crew had reported oil in West Bay to a local newspaper.
"They are literally shrimping in oil," Jonathan Henderson, the coastal resiliency organizer of the environmental group the Gulf Restoration Network, who was with Truthout on the flight, exclaimed while our plane flew near the fishermen.
"Our tests continue to reveal seafood from the reopened areas is safe to eat," Jane Lubchenco, US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) administrator, told reporters while NOAA recently opened more federal waters in the Gulf.
The day before Truthout's oil sighting, NOAA had reopened more of the previously closed fishing areas, bringing to 96 percent the federal waters now deemed safe for fishing.
The waters in East and West Bay are under the jurisdiction of Louisiana's Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF), while waters further from the coast are under federal jurisdiction. LDWF does receive input, however, from NOAA.
Earlier in the same day, Truthout spotted the substance. A spotter pilot for LDWF had flown over the same area and told Southern Seaplanes there was no oil.
"He is the spotter for LDWF and saw that bay, and it is still open," Henderson told Truthout. "He should have closed the Bay for fishing. So now you can see how sophisticated they are in tracking this. Either this guy is completely incompetent, or has an agenda to keep as much of Louisiana's waters open for fishing as he can, whether there is oil or not. I don't see how he could have flown down there today and not seen it. It's criminal."
When Truthout called the LDWF requesting to talk with the LDWF oil spotter, Truthout was told, "that person is not available to comment."
The LDWF web site has a number to call in order to report oil sightings. When Truthout called that number, the call was answered by a BP response call center.
The only federal waters of the Gulf that have yet to be reopened are a 9,444-square-mile area directly around the BP wellhead where the Deepwater Horizon exploded, burned and sank to the bottom of the Gulf.
On October 23, the Coast Guard claimed that the substance floating in the miles-wide areas of West Bay appeared to be "an algal bloom."
Lt. Cmdr. Chris O'Neil said a pollution investigator for the Coast Guard collected samples from the area, and while they had yet to be tested, said, "based on his observation and what he sees in the sample jars, he believes that to be an algal bloom."
Fishermen who have traveled through and fished in the area over the weekend, however, refute these Coast Guard claims.
"I scooped some up, and it feels like oil, looks like oil, is brownish red like all the dispersed oil we've been seeing since this whole thing started," fisherman David Arenesen, from Venice, Louisiana, told Truthout. "It doesn't look like algae to me. Algae doesn't stick on your fingers, and algae isn't oily. The area of this stuff spans an area of 30 miles, from Southwest Pass almost all the way over to Grand Isle, and runs very far off-shore too. We rode through it for over 20 miles while we were going out to fish, I dipped some up, and it's oil."
Arenesen saw the substance on Friday, the same day it was reported by the Times Picayune newspaper in New Orleans.
"It was at least an inch thick, and it went on for miles," Arenesen added. "It would be easy to clean since it's all floating on the surface."
Truthout spoke with Gary Robinson, a hook-and-line, mackerel, commercial fisherman working out of Venice, who was also in the substance in question recently.
"I was out in West Bay on October 22nd, and I was in this thick brown foam, about five inches thick, with red swirls of oil throughout it, and there was a lot of it, at least a 10 mile patch of it," Robinson said while speaking to Truthout on his boat. "I've never seen anything like that foam before; the red stuff in it was weathered oil, and there was sheen coming off my boat when I came back into harbor. I'm concerned about the safety of the fish I'm catching."
The boat captains working in the BP oil spill response team who first reported the sightings as oil told the Times Picayune on Saturday that they were not convinced either by the Coast Guard's initial assessment.
"I've never seen algae that looked orange, that was sticky, smelled like oil and that stuck to the boat and had to be cleaned off with solvent," said one captain.
Last Friday, the boat captains said they were frustrated by a lack of response from the Coast Guard, after they had been reporting the sightings for a week.
Dean Blanchard, of Dean Blanchard Seafood Inc. in Grand Isle, Louisiana, spoke with Truthout about the Coast Guard claim that the substance was likely algae.
"Hell, we got oil coming in here everyday, it's all around us; we know what oil is," Blanchard said. "The Coast Guard should change the color of their uniforms, since they are working for BP. We've known they are working for BP from the beginning of this thing. None of us believe anything they say about this oil disaster anymore." (Editor's bold emphasis throughout)
Despite a consistent trend by state and federal governments to promote the Gulf of Mexico as being largely free of BP oil and dispersants, many residents remain concerned.
"Anytime you can fly 100 miles in one direction and not see a break in the oil," Capt. Dicky Tupes of Southern Seaplanes told Truthout. "Then fly 100 miles in the other direction and not see a break in the oil: that's a lot of oil, and it had to go somewhere."
Tupes was discussing his experience flying over large areas of the Gulf that had been oiled while BP's well continued to gush, yet he remains alarmed at what he sees in the water.
"Everyone, including the feds, are talking about the fact that less of the oil actually reached the surface than was below." Tupes added. "And now we're seeing some of that submerged oil surface here. How long will this go on?" MORE...
Global Research
October 27, 2010
t r u t h o u t
On Saturday, October 23, Truthout spotted what appeared to be massive areas of weathered oil floating near Louisiana's fragile marshlands in both East and West Bays along the Mississippi River Delta. In addition, at least two more oil leaks were spotted near oil and gas platforms along Louisiana's embattled coastline.
Four days prior, federal on-scene cleanup coordinator for the BP oil disaster, Coast Guard Rear Adm. Paul Zukunft, declared there was little recoverable surface oil in the Gulf of Mexico.
Both Bays cover an area of roughly 70 square miles of open water that surround Southwest Pass, the main shipping channel of the Mississippi River. While East Bay remains closed for fishing, West Bay was currently open for fishing when Truthout spotted the substance on October 23, despite the fact that the day before a BP oil cleanup crew had reported oil in West Bay to a local newspaper.
"They are literally shrimping in oil," Jonathan Henderson, the coastal resiliency organizer of the environmental group the Gulf Restoration Network, who was with Truthout on the flight, exclaimed while our plane flew near the fishermen.
"Our tests continue to reveal seafood from the reopened areas is safe to eat," Jane Lubchenco, US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) administrator, told reporters while NOAA recently opened more federal waters in the Gulf.
The day before Truthout's oil sighting, NOAA had reopened more of the previously closed fishing areas, bringing to 96 percent the federal waters now deemed safe for fishing.
The waters in East and West Bay are under the jurisdiction of Louisiana's Department of Wildlife and Fisheries (LDWF), while waters further from the coast are under federal jurisdiction. LDWF does receive input, however, from NOAA.
Earlier in the same day, Truthout spotted the substance. A spotter pilot for LDWF had flown over the same area and told Southern Seaplanes there was no oil.
"He is the spotter for LDWF and saw that bay, and it is still open," Henderson told Truthout. "He should have closed the Bay for fishing. So now you can see how sophisticated they are in tracking this. Either this guy is completely incompetent, or has an agenda to keep as much of Louisiana's waters open for fishing as he can, whether there is oil or not. I don't see how he could have flown down there today and not seen it. It's criminal."
When Truthout called the LDWF requesting to talk with the LDWF oil spotter, Truthout was told, "that person is not available to comment."
The LDWF web site has a number to call in order to report oil sightings. When Truthout called that number, the call was answered by a BP response call center.
The only federal waters of the Gulf that have yet to be reopened are a 9,444-square-mile area directly around the BP wellhead where the Deepwater Horizon exploded, burned and sank to the bottom of the Gulf.
On October 23, the Coast Guard claimed that the substance floating in the miles-wide areas of West Bay appeared to be "an algal bloom."
Lt. Cmdr. Chris O'Neil said a pollution investigator for the Coast Guard collected samples from the area, and while they had yet to be tested, said, "based on his observation and what he sees in the sample jars, he believes that to be an algal bloom."
Fishermen who have traveled through and fished in the area over the weekend, however, refute these Coast Guard claims.
"I scooped some up, and it feels like oil, looks like oil, is brownish red like all the dispersed oil we've been seeing since this whole thing started," fisherman David Arenesen, from Venice, Louisiana, told Truthout. "It doesn't look like algae to me. Algae doesn't stick on your fingers, and algae isn't oily. The area of this stuff spans an area of 30 miles, from Southwest Pass almost all the way over to Grand Isle, and runs very far off-shore too. We rode through it for over 20 miles while we were going out to fish, I dipped some up, and it's oil."
Arenesen saw the substance on Friday, the same day it was reported by the Times Picayune newspaper in New Orleans.
"It was at least an inch thick, and it went on for miles," Arenesen added. "It would be easy to clean since it's all floating on the surface."
Truthout spoke with Gary Robinson, a hook-and-line, mackerel, commercial fisherman working out of Venice, who was also in the substance in question recently.
"I was out in West Bay on October 22nd, and I was in this thick brown foam, about five inches thick, with red swirls of oil throughout it, and there was a lot of it, at least a 10 mile patch of it," Robinson said while speaking to Truthout on his boat. "I've never seen anything like that foam before; the red stuff in it was weathered oil, and there was sheen coming off my boat when I came back into harbor. I'm concerned about the safety of the fish I'm catching."
The boat captains working in the BP oil spill response team who first reported the sightings as oil told the Times Picayune on Saturday that they were not convinced either by the Coast Guard's initial assessment.
"I've never seen algae that looked orange, that was sticky, smelled like oil and that stuck to the boat and had to be cleaned off with solvent," said one captain.
Last Friday, the boat captains said they were frustrated by a lack of response from the Coast Guard, after they had been reporting the sightings for a week.
Dean Blanchard, of Dean Blanchard Seafood Inc. in Grand Isle, Louisiana, spoke with Truthout about the Coast Guard claim that the substance was likely algae.
"Hell, we got oil coming in here everyday, it's all around us; we know what oil is," Blanchard said. "The Coast Guard should change the color of their uniforms, since they are working for BP. We've known they are working for BP from the beginning of this thing. None of us believe anything they say about this oil disaster anymore." (Editor's bold emphasis throughout)
Despite a consistent trend by state and federal governments to promote the Gulf of Mexico as being largely free of BP oil and dispersants, many residents remain concerned.
"Anytime you can fly 100 miles in one direction and not see a break in the oil," Capt. Dicky Tupes of Southern Seaplanes told Truthout. "Then fly 100 miles in the other direction and not see a break in the oil: that's a lot of oil, and it had to go somewhere."
Tupes was discussing his experience flying over large areas of the Gulf that had been oiled while BP's well continued to gush, yet he remains alarmed at what he sees in the water.
"Everyone, including the feds, are talking about the fact that less of the oil actually reached the surface than was below." Tupes added. "And now we're seeing some of that submerged oil surface here. How long will this go on?" MORE...
Tuesday, October 5, 2010
Gulf Water and Beach Report
I have been in the Orange Beach/Perdido Key area for the past week. So far, I have been out on a boat to as far off-shore as 12 miles. There is no gross evidence of oil sheen or Corexit dispersant in the gulf water in that area or in Cotton Bayou. So far I have not developed any symptoms i.e. sore throat, cough, ear aches, headaches etc. of dispersant exposure. I also spoke with several people from this area who worked in the VOO (Vessel of Opportunity Program) in June, July and August who report that they developed respiratory symptoms including persistent cough. These of course are only anecdotal reports and do not represent a scientific sample.
Yesterday I spoke personally with a diver who was roughly 20 miles off-shore of the Orange Beach area over the weekend and who dove to about 120 feet while spear-fishing for Red Snapper. I specifically questioned him about any evidence for unusual findings on the seabed such as oil, sludge or abnormal marine life. He said the area that he dove in looked completely normal but of course, he did not do any testing. Apparently his group of divers were able to obtain their limit of Red Snapper without difficulty and the fish appeared normal upon filleting during the process of cleaning.
Last week the local media reported the presence of tar balls on Orange Beach. They also reported that core samples of the beach sand have demonstrated oil in multiple layers in the sand down several vertical feet. Apparently some new machines are being brought in which will be able to clean the sand down to that level.
Over the past several days, I have personally trolled successfully for King and Spanish Mackeral out to 12 miles off shore and did some bottom fishing for Red Snapper in roughly 80 feet of water. All the fish I caught appeared normal grossly and upon filleting. There was no peculiar odor. A friend asked if he could have the fish which I gave him. To date, he has eaten the Red Snapper 2 times with no untoward effects.
Some friends of mine have been eating the local seafood at restaurants and have been in the Gulf water for short dips swimming. They have to date not developed any untoward side effects. None of my family have eaten any sea-food from restaurants here even though most visitors and locals appear to be eating it. We did eat Amberbjack on one occassion which we personally caught and cleaned. It appeard grossly normal. There are some anecdotal reports of certain fish species being caught that have gross changes in their livers. I will be checking those that I catch for these findings although so far have not encountered it.
To sum up, if I did not know about the recent oil spill, it would not have been apparent based on anything I could detect without scientific instruments. It appears that from this point on, it will require very sophisticated testing in order to further document the extent of potential damage.
Dr. John Hubert
Yesterday I spoke personally with a diver who was roughly 20 miles off-shore of the Orange Beach area over the weekend and who dove to about 120 feet while spear-fishing for Red Snapper. I specifically questioned him about any evidence for unusual findings on the seabed such as oil, sludge or abnormal marine life. He said the area that he dove in looked completely normal but of course, he did not do any testing. Apparently his group of divers were able to obtain their limit of Red Snapper without difficulty and the fish appeared normal upon filleting during the process of cleaning.
Last week the local media reported the presence of tar balls on Orange Beach. They also reported that core samples of the beach sand have demonstrated oil in multiple layers in the sand down several vertical feet. Apparently some new machines are being brought in which will be able to clean the sand down to that level.
Over the past several days, I have personally trolled successfully for King and Spanish Mackeral out to 12 miles off shore and did some bottom fishing for Red Snapper in roughly 80 feet of water. All the fish I caught appeared normal grossly and upon filleting. There was no peculiar odor. A friend asked if he could have the fish which I gave him. To date, he has eaten the Red Snapper 2 times with no untoward effects.
Some friends of mine have been eating the local seafood at restaurants and have been in the Gulf water for short dips swimming. They have to date not developed any untoward side effects. None of my family have eaten any sea-food from restaurants here even though most visitors and locals appear to be eating it. We did eat Amberbjack on one occassion which we personally caught and cleaned. It appeard grossly normal. There are some anecdotal reports of certain fish species being caught that have gross changes in their livers. I will be checking those that I catch for these findings although so far have not encountered it.
To sum up, if I did not know about the recent oil spill, it would not have been apparent based on anything I could detect without scientific instruments. It appears that from this point on, it will require very sophisticated testing in order to further document the extent of potential damage.
Dr. John Hubert
Friday, September 24, 2010
Gulf Oil Update: Day 158
Is Using Dispersants on the BP Gulf Oil Spill Fighting Pollution with Pollution?
It remains unclear what impact chemical dispersants will have on sea life--and only the massive, uncontrolled experiment being run in the Gulf of Mexico will tell
By David Biello
Scientific American
June 18, 2010
Roughly five million liters of dispersants have now been used to break up the oil spilling into the Gulf of Mexico, making this the largest use of such chemicals in U.S. history. If it continues for 10 months, as long as Mexico's Ixtoc 1 blowout in 1979 in the same region, the Macondo well disaster has a good chance of achieving the largest global use of these chemicals, surpassing 10 million liters.
And there is no doubt that dispersants are toxic: Both types of the dispersal compound COREXIT used in the Gulf so far are capable of killing or depressing the growth of a wide range of aquatic species, ranging from phytoplankton to fish. "It's a trade-off decision to lessen the overall environmental impact," explained marine biologist Jane Lubchenco, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), at a press conference on May 12. "When an oil spill occurs, there are no good outcomes."
The trade-off in this case is the addition of toxic chemicals in a bid to protect the marshes of Louisiana and the beaches of Florida. But the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), for one, has become concerned about the toxicity of the most-used dispersant at the Gulf of Mexico spill—COREXIT 9500—and ordered BP to look at alternatives. (COREXIT 9527 was used earlier during the spill, but it was discontinued because it was considered too toxic.)
The problem? The EPA's industry-generated data is unclear as to the relative toxicity of various dispersants. "If you think the data on COREXIT is bad, try to find any decent toxicology data on the alternatives," says toxicologist Carys Mitchelmore of the University of Maryland's Chesapeake Biological Laboratory, who helped write a 2005 National Research Council (NRC) report on dispersants. "I couldn't compare and contrast which one was more toxic than the other based on that."
Dispersed oil
Both COREXIT 9500 and 9527 are produced by Naperville, Ill.–based Nalco, a company better known for its water purification work with the oil industry. "For every barrel of oil produced, 3.5 barrels of water are produced," explains chemist Mani Ramesh, chief technology officer for Nalco. "That needs to be treated before it can be released. That water treatment has been a core area for us."
But at the same time Nalco keeps busy cleaning the oil industry's water, it also provides COREXIT, a product to minimize the impact of any oil that spills into the water. Developed in a joint venture with ExxonMobil, the compound is largely made at facilities in Sugarland, Tex., and Garyville, La. The company expects to sell some $40-million worth of COREXIT as a result of the latest spill. "What the dispersant process enables is to prevent the oil from reaching the shore and converts that oil to easy food for naturally occurring microbes," Ramesh says. "If the oil reaches the shore the decomposition rate of oil is so low it would remain on the shore for probably 100 years."'
By last week, the EPA and Nalco had both released the ingredient list for COREXIT 9500 in response to widespread public concern. Its constituents include butanedioic acid (a wetting agent in cosmetics), sorbitan (found in everything from baby bath to food), and petroleum distillates in varying proportions—and it decomposes almost entirely in 28 days. "All six [ingredients] are used in day-to-day life—in mouthwash, toothpaste, ice cream, pickles," Ramesh argues. "We believe COREXIT 9500 is very safe."
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention agrees, noting in a document for health professionals that "the dispersants contain proven, biodegradable and low-toxicity surfactants," which are "detergentlike" and "in low toxicity solvents."
However, those solvents—petroleum distillates—are also known animal carcinogens, according to toxicology data, and make up 10 to 30 percent of a given volume of COREXIT. And those same everyday products can be deadly to wildlife. "It's the same products in Dawn dishwasher soap," Mitchelmore notes, which is being used widely to clean up oiled birds and other animals. "I wouldn't want to put a fish in Dawn dishwashing soap either. That would kill it."
As a result, the EPA ordered BP to stop spraying dispersants on the oil slick on May 26. The EPA also ordered BP to look for less toxic alternatives on May 20, and the company responded in a letter dated that same day that "BP continues to believe that COREXIT EC9500A is the best alternative." The dispersant continues to be sprayed onto the ongoing oil spill.
No alternative
One reason BP can make such claims is due to a lack of clear data on any of the alternative dispersants. As part of the National Contingency Plan required for offshore drilling, one of 18 EPA-approved dispersants must be on hand to handle spilled oil. Each of those dispersants has been preapproved for use, and each of those dispersants has been tested—by the companies that make them—for toxicity using representative species of estuarine shrimp (Mysidopsis bahia) and fish (Menidia beryllina). Specifically, these animals are exposed to a mix of one liter of dispersant for every 10 liters of heavy fuel oil in water.
Yet, the results of those tests vary wildly, from toxic impacts occurring at levels of just 2.6 parts per million for COREXIT to 100 ppm for another dispersant, NOKOMIS 3-F4. That suggests to experts that the tests which showed lower toxicity may have employed heavy fuel oil that had lost its potency. After all, volatile organic compounds in oil evaporate quickly when exposed to air and can even wash off in water. "These are order of magnitude differences," Mitchelmore notes. "A lot of that can relate to how those tests were set up."
Adds Nalco toxicologist Sergio Alex Villalobos, "If the oil is aged, then the oil loses its toxicity. Using an oil that is not very toxic, if you disperse that oil you are going to get very favorable numbers. Do those numbers really exist?"
EPA, for its part, did not show the best understanding of toxicological data in making its recommendations, urging BP to use dispersants with less than a certain cutoff of toxicity (pdf). Of course, in toxicology the lower the concentration the more toxic a given substance is. "They completely got that wrong," Mitchelmore says. EPA is now undertaking its own toxicology testing of COREXIT and Louisiana crude oil, but results are pending.
Nevertheless, just 20 ppm of COREXIT 9500—or one drop in 2.5 liters of water—inhibits growth of Skeletonema costatum, a Gulf of Mexico diatom, according to toxicology test data presented in the 2005 NRC report. It appears to inhibit the phytoplankton's ability to perform photosynthesis, specifically blocking part of the biochemistry that enables the photosystem II complex, Villalobos says. "Skeletonema seems to fall among the most sensitive ones," he says. "Like many aquatic plants, these are organisms that are resilient, that tend to come back even though you wipe them out in some cases chemically."
COREXIT is also not approved for use in U.K. waters because it fails the so-called "limpet test". That test involves spraying the dispersant and oil on rocks and seeing if limpets (a type of small mollusk) can still cling to them, a test which COREXIT and many other dispersants with slippery surfactants fail. "This is not a product for rocky shores," Villalobos says. "These are only for open sea waters."
Novel use
Of course, in the case of the oil spewing from BP's Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico, COREXIT is being used in another unapproved way. A wand from one of the remote-operated robots has sprayed more than 1.5 million liters of dispersants directly onto the escaping oil and natural gas roughly 1,500 meters beneath the ocean's surface. "I don't think anybody knows what would happen by applying the dispersants at depth," Ramesh says. "We do not have any knowledge that would allow us to predict what would happen."
In addition to creating subsurface plumes (and providing a rich feast for oil-eating microbes), it remains unclear what kind of dosage of dispersed oil sea life throughout the water column is facing. NOAA measurements show that levels reach 100 ppm of dispersed oil in the first half-meter of water, dropping to 12.5 ppm at 10 meters and unknown levels even deeper. "There isn't any information on what is the environmentally relevant level of dispersant," Mitchelmore notes. "Dispersed oils are going to be toxic, particularly in the top 10 meters that contains all the sensitive life stages. Anything that has sensitive membranes can be affected by dispersants and dispersed oil."
Sunlight falling on the dispersed oil may make the problem worse through a phenomenon known as phototoxicity. Compounds in the oil act as a catalyst to transfer some of the sun's energy into oxygen, converting the latter to a more reactive state that can literally burn up cells. And as fish and other sea life ingest the dispersed oil, it can be broken down into more toxic by-products. "What do these things break down into?" Mitchelmore says. "In toxicology it's quite often not the original compound that's the toxic entity."
Ultimately, the problem is that too little is known about the dispersants and the dispersed oil. "Given that this is a billion-dollar industry, why were those data gaps not filled?" Mitchelmore asks. "The whole issue regarding limited toxicity data—that's not just common to dispersants, that's common to tens of thousands of chemicals we're putting out into the environment daily."
After all, it was only after decades of using bisphenol A, polybrominated flame retardants and other chemicals that significant concerns began to manifest. In effect, usage replaced safety testing—and that's exactly what is happening with dispersants and the massive spill in the Gulf. Different regulation of chemicals and the chemical industry might forestall toxicological mysteries like those surrounding dispersants—and their thousands of chemical cousins—in the future.
"We're using an awful lot of dispersants," said EPA administrator Lisa Jackson during the same May 12 press briefing on the chemical's use at which NOAA's Lubchenco spoke. "This is going on longer than one might have known on day three or four. We're still dealing with a constant release of fresh oil and we need to continue to disperse."
It remains unclear what impact chemical dispersants will have on sea life--and only the massive, uncontrolled experiment being run in the Gulf of Mexico will tell
By David Biello
Scientific American
June 18, 2010
Roughly five million liters of dispersants have now been used to break up the oil spilling into the Gulf of Mexico, making this the largest use of such chemicals in U.S. history. If it continues for 10 months, as long as Mexico's Ixtoc 1 blowout in 1979 in the same region, the Macondo well disaster has a good chance of achieving the largest global use of these chemicals, surpassing 10 million liters.
And there is no doubt that dispersants are toxic: Both types of the dispersal compound COREXIT used in the Gulf so far are capable of killing or depressing the growth of a wide range of aquatic species, ranging from phytoplankton to fish. "It's a trade-off decision to lessen the overall environmental impact," explained marine biologist Jane Lubchenco, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), at a press conference on May 12. "When an oil spill occurs, there are no good outcomes."
The trade-off in this case is the addition of toxic chemicals in a bid to protect the marshes of Louisiana and the beaches of Florida. But the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), for one, has become concerned about the toxicity of the most-used dispersant at the Gulf of Mexico spill—COREXIT 9500—and ordered BP to look at alternatives. (COREXIT 9527 was used earlier during the spill, but it was discontinued because it was considered too toxic.)
The problem? The EPA's industry-generated data is unclear as to the relative toxicity of various dispersants. "If you think the data on COREXIT is bad, try to find any decent toxicology data on the alternatives," says toxicologist Carys Mitchelmore of the University of Maryland's Chesapeake Biological Laboratory, who helped write a 2005 National Research Council (NRC) report on dispersants. "I couldn't compare and contrast which one was more toxic than the other based on that."
Dispersed oil
Both COREXIT 9500 and 9527 are produced by Naperville, Ill.–based Nalco, a company better known for its water purification work with the oil industry. "For every barrel of oil produced, 3.5 barrels of water are produced," explains chemist Mani Ramesh, chief technology officer for Nalco. "That needs to be treated before it can be released. That water treatment has been a core area for us."
But at the same time Nalco keeps busy cleaning the oil industry's water, it also provides COREXIT, a product to minimize the impact of any oil that spills into the water. Developed in a joint venture with ExxonMobil, the compound is largely made at facilities in Sugarland, Tex., and Garyville, La. The company expects to sell some $40-million worth of COREXIT as a result of the latest spill. "What the dispersant process enables is to prevent the oil from reaching the shore and converts that oil to easy food for naturally occurring microbes," Ramesh says. "If the oil reaches the shore the decomposition rate of oil is so low it would remain on the shore for probably 100 years."'
By last week, the EPA and Nalco had both released the ingredient list for COREXIT 9500 in response to widespread public concern. Its constituents include butanedioic acid (a wetting agent in cosmetics), sorbitan (found in everything from baby bath to food), and petroleum distillates in varying proportions—and it decomposes almost entirely in 28 days. "All six [ingredients] are used in day-to-day life—in mouthwash, toothpaste, ice cream, pickles," Ramesh argues. "We believe COREXIT 9500 is very safe."
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention agrees, noting in a document for health professionals that "the dispersants contain proven, biodegradable and low-toxicity surfactants," which are "detergentlike" and "in low toxicity solvents."
However, those solvents—petroleum distillates—are also known animal carcinogens, according to toxicology data, and make up 10 to 30 percent of a given volume of COREXIT. And those same everyday products can be deadly to wildlife. "It's the same products in Dawn dishwasher soap," Mitchelmore notes, which is being used widely to clean up oiled birds and other animals. "I wouldn't want to put a fish in Dawn dishwashing soap either. That would kill it."
As a result, the EPA ordered BP to stop spraying dispersants on the oil slick on May 26. The EPA also ordered BP to look for less toxic alternatives on May 20, and the company responded in a letter dated that same day that "BP continues to believe that COREXIT EC9500A is the best alternative." The dispersant continues to be sprayed onto the ongoing oil spill.
No alternative
One reason BP can make such claims is due to a lack of clear data on any of the alternative dispersants. As part of the National Contingency Plan required for offshore drilling, one of 18 EPA-approved dispersants must be on hand to handle spilled oil. Each of those dispersants has been preapproved for use, and each of those dispersants has been tested—by the companies that make them—for toxicity using representative species of estuarine shrimp (Mysidopsis bahia) and fish (Menidia beryllina). Specifically, these animals are exposed to a mix of one liter of dispersant for every 10 liters of heavy fuel oil in water.
Yet, the results of those tests vary wildly, from toxic impacts occurring at levels of just 2.6 parts per million for COREXIT to 100 ppm for another dispersant, NOKOMIS 3-F4. That suggests to experts that the tests which showed lower toxicity may have employed heavy fuel oil that had lost its potency. After all, volatile organic compounds in oil evaporate quickly when exposed to air and can even wash off in water. "These are order of magnitude differences," Mitchelmore notes. "A lot of that can relate to how those tests were set up."
Adds Nalco toxicologist Sergio Alex Villalobos, "If the oil is aged, then the oil loses its toxicity. Using an oil that is not very toxic, if you disperse that oil you are going to get very favorable numbers. Do those numbers really exist?"
EPA, for its part, did not show the best understanding of toxicological data in making its recommendations, urging BP to use dispersants with less than a certain cutoff of toxicity (pdf). Of course, in toxicology the lower the concentration the more toxic a given substance is. "They completely got that wrong," Mitchelmore says. EPA is now undertaking its own toxicology testing of COREXIT and Louisiana crude oil, but results are pending.
Nevertheless, just 20 ppm of COREXIT 9500—or one drop in 2.5 liters of water—inhibits growth of Skeletonema costatum, a Gulf of Mexico diatom, according to toxicology test data presented in the 2005 NRC report. It appears to inhibit the phytoplankton's ability to perform photosynthesis, specifically blocking part of the biochemistry that enables the photosystem II complex, Villalobos says. "Skeletonema seems to fall among the most sensitive ones," he says. "Like many aquatic plants, these are organisms that are resilient, that tend to come back even though you wipe them out in some cases chemically."
COREXIT is also not approved for use in U.K. waters because it fails the so-called "limpet test". That test involves spraying the dispersant and oil on rocks and seeing if limpets (a type of small mollusk) can still cling to them, a test which COREXIT and many other dispersants with slippery surfactants fail. "This is not a product for rocky shores," Villalobos says. "These are only for open sea waters."
Novel use
Of course, in the case of the oil spewing from BP's Macondo well in the Gulf of Mexico, COREXIT is being used in another unapproved way. A wand from one of the remote-operated robots has sprayed more than 1.5 million liters of dispersants directly onto the escaping oil and natural gas roughly 1,500 meters beneath the ocean's surface. "I don't think anybody knows what would happen by applying the dispersants at depth," Ramesh says. "We do not have any knowledge that would allow us to predict what would happen."
In addition to creating subsurface plumes (and providing a rich feast for oil-eating microbes), it remains unclear what kind of dosage of dispersed oil sea life throughout the water column is facing. NOAA measurements show that levels reach 100 ppm of dispersed oil in the first half-meter of water, dropping to 12.5 ppm at 10 meters and unknown levels even deeper. "There isn't any information on what is the environmentally relevant level of dispersant," Mitchelmore notes. "Dispersed oils are going to be toxic, particularly in the top 10 meters that contains all the sensitive life stages. Anything that has sensitive membranes can be affected by dispersants and dispersed oil."
Sunlight falling on the dispersed oil may make the problem worse through a phenomenon known as phototoxicity. Compounds in the oil act as a catalyst to transfer some of the sun's energy into oxygen, converting the latter to a more reactive state that can literally burn up cells. And as fish and other sea life ingest the dispersed oil, it can be broken down into more toxic by-products. "What do these things break down into?" Mitchelmore says. "In toxicology it's quite often not the original compound that's the toxic entity."
Ultimately, the problem is that too little is known about the dispersants and the dispersed oil. "Given that this is a billion-dollar industry, why were those data gaps not filled?" Mitchelmore asks. "The whole issue regarding limited toxicity data—that's not just common to dispersants, that's common to tens of thousands of chemicals we're putting out into the environment daily."
After all, it was only after decades of using bisphenol A, polybrominated flame retardants and other chemicals that significant concerns began to manifest. In effect, usage replaced safety testing—and that's exactly what is happening with dispersants and the massive spill in the Gulf. Different regulation of chemicals and the chemical industry might forestall toxicological mysteries like those surrounding dispersants—and their thousands of chemical cousins—in the future.
"We're using an awful lot of dispersants," said EPA administrator Lisa Jackson during the same May 12 press briefing on the chemical's use at which NOAA's Lubchenco spoke. "This is going on longer than one might have known on day three or four. We're still dealing with a constant release of fresh oil and we need to continue to disperse."
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Gulf Oil Update: Day 124
Giant Underwater Plume Confirmed—Gulf Oil Not Degrading
Bacteria aren't gobbling up Deepwater Horizon oil, study says.
By: Christine Dell'Amore
National Geographic News
Published August 19, 2010
A giant plume from BP's Gulf of Mexico oil spill has been confirmed deep in the ocean—and there are signs that it may stick around, a new study says.
Many scientists had predicted that oil-eating bacteria—already common in the Gulf due to natural oil seeps—would process much of the crude leaked from BP's Deepwater Horizon wellhead, which was capped July 15.
But new evidence shows that a 22-mile-long (35-kilometer-long), 650-foot-high (200-meter-high) pocket of oil has persisted for months at depths of 3,600 feet (1,100 meters), according to a team from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in Massachusetts.
(Related: "Much Gulf Oil Remains, Deeply Hidden and Under Beaches.")
The oil plume's stability is "a little unexpected," study leader Richard Camilli, of WHOI's Applied Ocean Physics and Engineering Department, said at a Thursday press briefing in Washington, D.C.
"We don't have any clear indication as to why it set up at that depth."
It's unclear why the Gulf's microbes aren't eating the oil plume, but the organisms are infamous for being unpredictable, said study co-author Christopher Reddy, a marine chemist at WHOI.
Counting on microbes to quickly clean up an oil spill is "like asking a teenager to do a chore. You tell them to do it on a Friday, to do it when it's most advantageous, and they do it on a Saturday," Reddy told National Geographic News earlier this month.
Further studies are needed to figure out why the plume isn't degrading, Reddy said during the press briefing: "We don't live in the world of the TV show CSI. ... Patience is a virtue."
Hard Evidence for Gulf Oil Plume
During a ten-day research cruise in June, the WHOI team used autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), free-swimming probes that are the "next generation" of remotely operated vehicles, Camilli said during the briefing.
The team's AUVs were equipped with mass spectrometers—devices that measure the masses of molecules. The spectrometers collected thousands of samples in various regions near the spill site.
Most of these samples detected hydrocarbons—ingredients of oil—at concentrations of 50 micrograms a liter.
Using this data, the scientists were able to piece together the shapes and sizes of two oil plumes: the large, deep plume and a more diffuse plume spread out between depths of 160 and 1,600 feet (50 and 500 meters).
University of South Florida (USF) chemical oceanographer David Hollander said the discovery of stubborn oil in the deep sea "falls right into line" with his recent findings.
"These hydrocarbons are plentiful, and will be around for a long time," Hollander said by email.
Hollander and a USF team announced this week that oil may have been found deep on the Gulf seafloor, and that it appears to be toxic to phytoplankton, small plants that live in the deep ocean and make up the base of the marine food chain.
It's too early to say whether the plume is harmful to marine life in the area studied by WHOI, expedition member Reddy said.
But the research does show that the oil plume hasn't yet spurred oxygen depletion in the Gulf, which can create a dead zone—a swath of ocean largely devoid of life-forms—according to Ruoying He, a physical oceanographer at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, who was not involved in the new research.
(Related: "Gulf Oil Spill a 'Dead Zone in the Making'?")
He added that the new study—published today in the journal Science—is "extremely important," in part because it offers hard evidence of the suspected oil plume in the Gulf.
"I'm happy to see some in situ observations published so quickly," he said.
How Far Will Gulf Oil Plume Go?
The study raises another fundamental question that North Carolina's He is currently modeling: How far will the Gulf oil spill travel?
The plume has already fanned out a considerable distance from the BP wellhead, He noted. At the time of the survey, the plume was migrating about 4 miles (6.5 kilometers) a day southwest from the spill site, according to the study.
And with oil-eating bacteria taking their time, it's possible that the oil could be transported even farther from the well before the crude gets degraded, WHOI's Camilli said.
(See "Gulf Oil Spill Could Reach East Coast Beaches.")
It's also possible the oil plume is already gone: "We don't know what the fate of this plume now is—this was a forensic snapshot in late June, and we have not been back there since," Camilli cautioned.
Deep-Ocean Focus Needed for Oil Cleanups
Since the toxic effects of oil and chemical dispersants are not fully known, "there is great room for debate and contrasting interpretation as to what the impacts will be," Robert Carney, a biological oceanographer at Louisiana State University (LSU) in Baton Rouge, said by email.
At this point, though, a "far more valuable undertaking" would be to start figuring out how to prevent doing further harm to the deep ocean, he said.
"Through this all we have witnessed an aged and untested bit of dogma dominate response decisions: Protect the beach," Carney said. (See: "Oil Found in Gulf Beach Sand, Even After Cleanups.")
"Quite obviously, it is the whole ocean that we must protect and effectively manage," he said. "We are badly in need of new ideas."
____________
Dispersant controversy, oil plumes persist in the Gulf
Rocky Kistner’s Blog
Switchboard, NRDC
Posted August 20, 2010
Down a winding road that hugs the water of Bayou La Batre in southern Alabama, out-of-work shrimp boats float quietly along the piers. Near the end of the road, the Alabama state dock houses a dozen twin-engine, steel-hulled boats that BP has under contract to do oil cleanup work. Police cars guard the entrance.
Across the harbor at the end of the public pier, four large white plastic containers sit on pallets labeled: "Nalco Corexit EC9005A. Oil Spill dispersant. Caution: may cause irritation with prolonged contact…do not get in eyes, on skin, on clothing...." Some of the containers have black hand-written letters on the back that says "oil waste water" or "clean water." Another container sits further away on a pallet by itself, with the same warning label but clean.
Earlier last week, eye witnesses say similar containers were next to the BP contracted boats that make their trips into the Gulf. Some fishermen in this area believe these boats continue to spray chemical dispersants on the oil that continues to pollute the water and shores here. Workers who worked for BP have said when they return to the docks in the afternoon, BP boats with dispersants leave to finish off the job later in the day or at night.
Yet no one seems to have proof of this. The government and BP deny they have been spraying dispersants since mid-July. But some fishermen say it’s still happening. They say those who may have proof are too afraid to come forward for fear of losing their jobs.
Dion Sutton is a former BP worker who wonders if they are still spraying. His cousin saw a plane spraying close to the nearby shore about a month ago, something BP said it has never done. Like many fishermen around here, Sutton believes it’s all about sinking the crude to the bottom, out of sight out of mind.
Common stories about spraying persist across the Gulf states, just like the oil that still moves ashore in patches, tar balls and underwater plumes. Walk to beaches of Alabama’s Dauphin Island and you can’t help but run into it, fresh blobs of weathered oil that stain once world famous white sand beaches. Take a shovel and dig and you find layers of black oily material. Thick, black clay-like oil is pushed up in man-made sand dunes, almost sticking to the vacation houses that line the beach.
Some people in Alabama are sick of being told the water's fine and are taking matters into their own hands. Commercial fisherman “Catfish” Miller has designed his own homemade testing device to hunt for plumes in the water. Yesterday, Catfish designed a unique device consisting of a large conical wire tomato plant holder he had in his backyard. He carefully bent it and wrapped white absorbent pads around the outside to create a funnel.
Yesterday with more than 10 passengers on board, including a marine biologist, he dropped the cone-shaped device into 12 feet of water near Pass Christian, AL. He left it in the water for less than a minute, then pulled it in to see how much oil it had captured in the absorbant pads. Ten times he dropped it into the water near the inland harbor. Ten times he struck oil.
“It blew their minds,” he says. “Every time we dropped it into the water it captured oil. Why can’t the experts find this? I’m going to keep at this until people really understand what’s going on here. It’s nothing more than a cover-up.”
Many people who attended a gathering of fishermen and experts last night in Irvington, AL, agree. While government reports claim up to 75% of the oil is gone, captured or dispersed, the vast majority of people attending this meeting said the oil is not only still out there, but it’s just begun to impact communities.
Prof. Steve Picou of the University of South Alabama knows that well, since he’s studied the devastating impacts of the Exxon Valdez oil disaster on the town of Cordova, AK. He says oil catastrophes such as these pit community members against each other. Some get to work on cleanup, others don’t. It’s a situation that creates conflict as people try to figure out how to reorganize their lives and make ends meet.
Rates of suicides, divorce and reports of battered women skyrocketed in Alaska years later. “This is a marathon," Picou says. “It’s not a 100-meter dash. And the gun just went off.”
Dr. George Crozier, a marine scientist with the Dauphin Island Sea lab, says what bothers him most is what we don’t know. No doubt dispersants have kept some of the oil out of the marshes and coastlines. But they also have pushed the oil down into the water column where the crude may not degrade for a long time. How will this impact the bioaccumulation of oil and the health of the ecosystem? No one knows anything for sure except that it’s out there in unquantifiable amounts. “There’s no doubt we have created a monster in the Gulf of Mexico," Crozier told the audience. “We’ve learned a lot so far. But the oil is not gone.”
Gulf Shores commercial fisherman Raymond Vates told the audience he recently decided to take his scuba gear and go down to the shallow bottom of the seabed off the beach and look around for himself. What he saw appalled him. He says he saw giant pools of oily tar balls on the muddy bottom in just 20 feet of water, some as big as watermelons.
“I called BP about this but they didn’t want to hear it,” Vates said. “How could you act that way when you saw what I saw? There were kids swimming in the water around there. We can’t allow this to go on. I’m going to keep looking for it as long as I can find it.”
That may keep him busy for a long time. Fishermen from Florida to Louisiana are worried about their seafood and their safety. They don’t believe what they’re being told by the experts, especially by those working with BP. They’ve learned to believe only what they see with their own eyes. And so far they don’t like what they've seen.
Bacteria aren't gobbling up Deepwater Horizon oil, study says.
By: Christine Dell'Amore
National Geographic News
Published August 19, 2010
A giant plume from BP's Gulf of Mexico oil spill has been confirmed deep in the ocean—and there are signs that it may stick around, a new study says.
Many scientists had predicted that oil-eating bacteria—already common in the Gulf due to natural oil seeps—would process much of the crude leaked from BP's Deepwater Horizon wellhead, which was capped July 15.
But new evidence shows that a 22-mile-long (35-kilometer-long), 650-foot-high (200-meter-high) pocket of oil has persisted for months at depths of 3,600 feet (1,100 meters), according to a team from Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) in Massachusetts.
(Related: "Much Gulf Oil Remains, Deeply Hidden and Under Beaches.")
The oil plume's stability is "a little unexpected," study leader Richard Camilli, of WHOI's Applied Ocean Physics and Engineering Department, said at a Thursday press briefing in Washington, D.C.
"We don't have any clear indication as to why it set up at that depth."
It's unclear why the Gulf's microbes aren't eating the oil plume, but the organisms are infamous for being unpredictable, said study co-author Christopher Reddy, a marine chemist at WHOI.
Counting on microbes to quickly clean up an oil spill is "like asking a teenager to do a chore. You tell them to do it on a Friday, to do it when it's most advantageous, and they do it on a Saturday," Reddy told National Geographic News earlier this month.
Further studies are needed to figure out why the plume isn't degrading, Reddy said during the press briefing: "We don't live in the world of the TV show CSI. ... Patience is a virtue."
Hard Evidence for Gulf Oil Plume
During a ten-day research cruise in June, the WHOI team used autonomous underwater vehicles (AUVs), free-swimming probes that are the "next generation" of remotely operated vehicles, Camilli said during the briefing.
The team's AUVs were equipped with mass spectrometers—devices that measure the masses of molecules. The spectrometers collected thousands of samples in various regions near the spill site.
Most of these samples detected hydrocarbons—ingredients of oil—at concentrations of 50 micrograms a liter.
Using this data, the scientists were able to piece together the shapes and sizes of two oil plumes: the large, deep plume and a more diffuse plume spread out between depths of 160 and 1,600 feet (50 and 500 meters).
University of South Florida (USF) chemical oceanographer David Hollander said the discovery of stubborn oil in the deep sea "falls right into line" with his recent findings.
"These hydrocarbons are plentiful, and will be around for a long time," Hollander said by email.
Hollander and a USF team announced this week that oil may have been found deep on the Gulf seafloor, and that it appears to be toxic to phytoplankton, small plants that live in the deep ocean and make up the base of the marine food chain.
It's too early to say whether the plume is harmful to marine life in the area studied by WHOI, expedition member Reddy said.
But the research does show that the oil plume hasn't yet spurred oxygen depletion in the Gulf, which can create a dead zone—a swath of ocean largely devoid of life-forms—according to Ruoying He, a physical oceanographer at North Carolina State University in Raleigh, who was not involved in the new research.
(Related: "Gulf Oil Spill a 'Dead Zone in the Making'?")
He added that the new study—published today in the journal Science—is "extremely important," in part because it offers hard evidence of the suspected oil plume in the Gulf.
"I'm happy to see some in situ observations published so quickly," he said.
How Far Will Gulf Oil Plume Go?
The study raises another fundamental question that North Carolina's He is currently modeling: How far will the Gulf oil spill travel?
The plume has already fanned out a considerable distance from the BP wellhead, He noted. At the time of the survey, the plume was migrating about 4 miles (6.5 kilometers) a day southwest from the spill site, according to the study.
And with oil-eating bacteria taking their time, it's possible that the oil could be transported even farther from the well before the crude gets degraded, WHOI's Camilli said.
(See "Gulf Oil Spill Could Reach East Coast Beaches.")
It's also possible the oil plume is already gone: "We don't know what the fate of this plume now is—this was a forensic snapshot in late June, and we have not been back there since," Camilli cautioned.
Deep-Ocean Focus Needed for Oil Cleanups
Since the toxic effects of oil and chemical dispersants are not fully known, "there is great room for debate and contrasting interpretation as to what the impacts will be," Robert Carney, a biological oceanographer at Louisiana State University (LSU) in Baton Rouge, said by email.
At this point, though, a "far more valuable undertaking" would be to start figuring out how to prevent doing further harm to the deep ocean, he said.
"Through this all we have witnessed an aged and untested bit of dogma dominate response decisions: Protect the beach," Carney said. (See: "Oil Found in Gulf Beach Sand, Even After Cleanups.")
"Quite obviously, it is the whole ocean that we must protect and effectively manage," he said. "We are badly in need of new ideas."
____________
Dispersant controversy, oil plumes persist in the Gulf
Rocky Kistner’s Blog
Switchboard, NRDC
Posted August 20, 2010
Down a winding road that hugs the water of Bayou La Batre in southern Alabama, out-of-work shrimp boats float quietly along the piers. Near the end of the road, the Alabama state dock houses a dozen twin-engine, steel-hulled boats that BP has under contract to do oil cleanup work. Police cars guard the entrance.
Across the harbor at the end of the public pier, four large white plastic containers sit on pallets labeled: "Nalco Corexit EC9005A. Oil Spill dispersant. Caution: may cause irritation with prolonged contact…do not get in eyes, on skin, on clothing...." Some of the containers have black hand-written letters on the back that says "oil waste water" or "clean water." Another container sits further away on a pallet by itself, with the same warning label but clean.
Earlier last week, eye witnesses say similar containers were next to the BP contracted boats that make their trips into the Gulf. Some fishermen in this area believe these boats continue to spray chemical dispersants on the oil that continues to pollute the water and shores here. Workers who worked for BP have said when they return to the docks in the afternoon, BP boats with dispersants leave to finish off the job later in the day or at night.
Yet no one seems to have proof of this. The government and BP deny they have been spraying dispersants since mid-July. But some fishermen say it’s still happening. They say those who may have proof are too afraid to come forward for fear of losing their jobs.
Dion Sutton is a former BP worker who wonders if they are still spraying. His cousin saw a plane spraying close to the nearby shore about a month ago, something BP said it has never done. Like many fishermen around here, Sutton believes it’s all about sinking the crude to the bottom, out of sight out of mind.
Common stories about spraying persist across the Gulf states, just like the oil that still moves ashore in patches, tar balls and underwater plumes. Walk to beaches of Alabama’s Dauphin Island and you can’t help but run into it, fresh blobs of weathered oil that stain once world famous white sand beaches. Take a shovel and dig and you find layers of black oily material. Thick, black clay-like oil is pushed up in man-made sand dunes, almost sticking to the vacation houses that line the beach.
Some people in Alabama are sick of being told the water's fine and are taking matters into their own hands. Commercial fisherman “Catfish” Miller has designed his own homemade testing device to hunt for plumes in the water. Yesterday, Catfish designed a unique device consisting of a large conical wire tomato plant holder he had in his backyard. He carefully bent it and wrapped white absorbent pads around the outside to create a funnel.
Yesterday with more than 10 passengers on board, including a marine biologist, he dropped the cone-shaped device into 12 feet of water near Pass Christian, AL. He left it in the water for less than a minute, then pulled it in to see how much oil it had captured in the absorbant pads. Ten times he dropped it into the water near the inland harbor. Ten times he struck oil.
“It blew their minds,” he says. “Every time we dropped it into the water it captured oil. Why can’t the experts find this? I’m going to keep at this until people really understand what’s going on here. It’s nothing more than a cover-up.”
Many people who attended a gathering of fishermen and experts last night in Irvington, AL, agree. While government reports claim up to 75% of the oil is gone, captured or dispersed, the vast majority of people attending this meeting said the oil is not only still out there, but it’s just begun to impact communities.
Prof. Steve Picou of the University of South Alabama knows that well, since he’s studied the devastating impacts of the Exxon Valdez oil disaster on the town of Cordova, AK. He says oil catastrophes such as these pit community members against each other. Some get to work on cleanup, others don’t. It’s a situation that creates conflict as people try to figure out how to reorganize their lives and make ends meet.
Rates of suicides, divorce and reports of battered women skyrocketed in Alaska years later. “This is a marathon," Picou says. “It’s not a 100-meter dash. And the gun just went off.”
Dr. George Crozier, a marine scientist with the Dauphin Island Sea lab, says what bothers him most is what we don’t know. No doubt dispersants have kept some of the oil out of the marshes and coastlines. But they also have pushed the oil down into the water column where the crude may not degrade for a long time. How will this impact the bioaccumulation of oil and the health of the ecosystem? No one knows anything for sure except that it’s out there in unquantifiable amounts. “There’s no doubt we have created a monster in the Gulf of Mexico," Crozier told the audience. “We’ve learned a lot so far. But the oil is not gone.”
Gulf Shores commercial fisherman Raymond Vates told the audience he recently decided to take his scuba gear and go down to the shallow bottom of the seabed off the beach and look around for himself. What he saw appalled him. He says he saw giant pools of oily tar balls on the muddy bottom in just 20 feet of water, some as big as watermelons.
“I called BP about this but they didn’t want to hear it,” Vates said. “How could you act that way when you saw what I saw? There were kids swimming in the water around there. We can’t allow this to go on. I’m going to keep looking for it as long as I can find it.”
That may keep him busy for a long time. Fishermen from Florida to Louisiana are worried about their seafood and their safety. They don’t believe what they’re being told by the experts, especially by those working with BP. They’ve learned to believe only what they see with their own eyes. And so far they don’t like what they've seen.
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Gulf Oil Update: Day 100
Of Course Clean Up Workers Can't Find the Oil ... BP Used Dispersants to Temporarily Hide It, So Now It Will Plague the Gulf For Years
Washington's Blog, HERE...
July 27, 2010
News headlines state that cleanup workers are having a hard time finding oil.
Sounds good, right?
Actually, if BP had let things run their course:
--Oil-skimming vessels could have sucked up most of the oil
--Booms would have stopped most of the oil from hitting the shore
--And oil-eating bacteria would have broken down most of the remaining oil
Instead, BP has used millions of gallons of dispersants to hide the oil by breaking it up, so it sinks beneath the surface.
That means that oil-skimming vessels can't find it or suck it up. As the Times-Picayune pointed out on July 16th:
The massive "A Whale" oil skimmer has effectively been beached after it proved inefficient in sucking up oil from the Gulf of Mexico spill.
The oil is too dispersed to take advantage of the converted Taiwanese supertanker's enormous capacity, said Bob Grantham, a spokesman for shipowner TMT.
He said BP's use of chemical dispersants prevented A Whale, billed as the world's largest skimmer, from collecting a "significant amount" of oil during a week of testing that ended Friday.
"When dispersants are used in high volume virtually from the point that oil leaves the well, it presents real challenges for high-volume skimming," Grantham said in a written statement that did not include oil-collection figures from the test.
Similarly, the use of dispersants means that Booms can't stop it from hitting the shore. As marine biologist and oil spill expert Paul Horsman explains, using dispersants and oil booms are competing strategies. Specifically, breaking something down into tiny bits and dispersing it throughout a mile-plus deep and hundreds-miles wide region (the reason massive amounts of dispersants are being applied at the 5,000foot-deep spill site as well as at the surface) makes it more difficult to cordon off and contain oil on the surface (the reason booms are being used).
And Corexit might be killing the oil-eating bacteria which would otherwise break down the oil. University of Georgia scientist Samantha Joye notes that scientists have no idea how the large quanties of dispersant will effect the Gulf's microbial communities (for more information, watch part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4 and part 5 of Dr. Joye's July 13th press conference).
Moreover, as MSNBC notes, oil-eating bacteria are less active in deepwater, where much of the oil sinks after treatment with dispersants:
Some note that little is known about the deepwater ecosystem — or how the oil and dispersants will react under extremely high water pressure, very low temperatures, limited oxygen and virtually no light.
***
The conditions at the bottom of the Gulf also could affect the bacteria that help break down the oil near the surface, as they are less active in cold temperatures than in the warm surface waters, and they may be less abundant in the deep.
“We know that the surface material has been degrading,” says Ralph J. Portier, professor of environmental studies at LSU. “But what about the microbial population at depth?”
As Scientific American points out:
The last (and only) defense against the ongoing Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is tiny—billions of hydrocarbon-chewing microbes, such as Alcanivorax borkumensis. In fact, the primary motive for using the more than 830,000 gallons of chemical dispersants on the oil slick both above and below the surface of the sea is to break the oil into smaller droplets that bacteria can more easily consume.
"If the oil is in very small droplets, microbial degradation is much quicker," says microbial ecologist Kenneth Lee, director of the Center for Offshore Oil, Gas and Energy Research with Fisheries and Oceans Canada, who has been measuring the oil droplets in the Gulf of Mexico to determine the effectiveness of the dispersant use. "The dispersants can also stimulate microbial growth. Bacteria will chew on the dispersants as well as the oil."
***
[But] colder, deeper waters inhibit microbial growth. "Metabolism slows by about a factor of two or three for every 10 degree[s] Celsius you drop in temperature," notes biogeochemist David Valentine of the University of California, Santa Barbara, who just received funding from the National Science Foundation to characterize the microbial response to the ongoing oil spill. "The deeper stuff, that's going to happen very slowly because the temperature is so low."
***
At the same time, the addition of ... dispersants deep beneath the surface is having uncertain effects; it may even end up killing the microbes it is meant to help thanks to the fact that Corexit 9527A contains the solvent 2-butoxyethanol, which is a known human carcinogen and toxic to animals and other life.
Mother Jones provides additional details:
David Valentine ... warns the stuff may be riskier than just its toxicity. Corexit may undermine the microbes that naturally eat oil.
Some of the most potent oil-eaters—Alcanivorax borkumensis —are relatively rare organisms that have evolved to eat hydrocarbons from naturally occurring oil seeps. Valentine tells Eli Kintisch at Science Insider that after spills, Alcanivorax tend to be the dominant microbes found near the oil and that they secrete their own surfactant molecules to break up the oil before consuming the hydrocarbons. Other microbes don't make surfactants but devour oil already broken into small enough globs—including those broken down by Alcanivorax.
What we don't know is how the surfactants in Corexit and its ilk might affect the ability of Alcanivorax and other surfactant-makers to eat oil. Could Corexit exclude Alcanivorax from binding to the oil? Could it affect the way microbes makes their own surfactants? Could Corexit render natural surfactants less effective?
The National Science Foundation has awarded Valentine a grant to study the problem.
So it's not a good thing that clean up workers can't find the oil. It means that the oil will lurk under the surface, in deeper waters where bacterial activity is slower, poisoning the sealife that lives beneath the surface, and washing back up during storms for years to come.
Even Admiral Thad Allen, the government's point man for the crisis, said that breaking up the oil has complicated the cleanup. As AP reported on June 7th:
The hopeful report was offset by a warning that the farflung slick has broken up into hundreds and even thousands of patches of oil that may inflict damage that could persist for years.
Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the government's point man for the crisis, said the breakup has complicated the cleanup."
Dealing with the oil spill on the surface is going to go on for a couple of months," he said at a briefing in Washington. But "long-term issues of restoring the environment and the habitats and stuff will be years."
And Admiral Allen admitted in his press conference yesterday that oil could re-surface far into the future:
[Question] There have been reports of very large undersea plumes of oil thousands of feet below the ocean’s surface. So when you say there’s the possibility of the shore being impacted for four to six weeks, how do you come up with that four to six week number? And are you taking into account these very large plumes of oil that are out there and very difficult to sort of gauge where they’re going?
[Admiral Allen] What we’re going to continue to watch for is the oil we can’t see.... But the ultimate impact of this spill… whether or not oil surfaces at a later date will be the subject of long-term surveillance.... Impacts are going to go on for a long, long time.
As Congressman Markey said today, BP has made the Gulf “a toxic bowl” that will “haunt this region” for years, because “all of that oil is still under the surface”:
Washington's Blog, HERE...
July 27, 2010
News headlines state that cleanup workers are having a hard time finding oil.
Sounds good, right?
Actually, if BP had let things run their course:
--Oil-skimming vessels could have sucked up most of the oil
--Booms would have stopped most of the oil from hitting the shore
--And oil-eating bacteria would have broken down most of the remaining oil
Instead, BP has used millions of gallons of dispersants to hide the oil by breaking it up, so it sinks beneath the surface.
That means that oil-skimming vessels can't find it or suck it up. As the Times-Picayune pointed out on July 16th:
The massive "A Whale" oil skimmer has effectively been beached after it proved inefficient in sucking up oil from the Gulf of Mexico spill.
The oil is too dispersed to take advantage of the converted Taiwanese supertanker's enormous capacity, said Bob Grantham, a spokesman for shipowner TMT.
He said BP's use of chemical dispersants prevented A Whale, billed as the world's largest skimmer, from collecting a "significant amount" of oil during a week of testing that ended Friday.
"When dispersants are used in high volume virtually from the point that oil leaves the well, it presents real challenges for high-volume skimming," Grantham said in a written statement that did not include oil-collection figures from the test.
Similarly, the use of dispersants means that Booms can't stop it from hitting the shore. As marine biologist and oil spill expert Paul Horsman explains, using dispersants and oil booms are competing strategies. Specifically, breaking something down into tiny bits and dispersing it throughout a mile-plus deep and hundreds-miles wide region (the reason massive amounts of dispersants are being applied at the 5,000foot-deep spill site as well as at the surface) makes it more difficult to cordon off and contain oil on the surface (the reason booms are being used).
And Corexit might be killing the oil-eating bacteria which would otherwise break down the oil. University of Georgia scientist Samantha Joye notes that scientists have no idea how the large quanties of dispersant will effect the Gulf's microbial communities (for more information, watch part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4 and part 5 of Dr. Joye's July 13th press conference).
Moreover, as MSNBC notes, oil-eating bacteria are less active in deepwater, where much of the oil sinks after treatment with dispersants:
Some note that little is known about the deepwater ecosystem — or how the oil and dispersants will react under extremely high water pressure, very low temperatures, limited oxygen and virtually no light.
***
The conditions at the bottom of the Gulf also could affect the bacteria that help break down the oil near the surface, as they are less active in cold temperatures than in the warm surface waters, and they may be less abundant in the deep.
“We know that the surface material has been degrading,” says Ralph J. Portier, professor of environmental studies at LSU. “But what about the microbial population at depth?”
As Scientific American points out:
The last (and only) defense against the ongoing Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is tiny—billions of hydrocarbon-chewing microbes, such as Alcanivorax borkumensis. In fact, the primary motive for using the more than 830,000 gallons of chemical dispersants on the oil slick both above and below the surface of the sea is to break the oil into smaller droplets that bacteria can more easily consume.
"If the oil is in very small droplets, microbial degradation is much quicker," says microbial ecologist Kenneth Lee, director of the Center for Offshore Oil, Gas and Energy Research with Fisheries and Oceans Canada, who has been measuring the oil droplets in the Gulf of Mexico to determine the effectiveness of the dispersant use. "The dispersants can also stimulate microbial growth. Bacteria will chew on the dispersants as well as the oil."
***
[But] colder, deeper waters inhibit microbial growth. "Metabolism slows by about a factor of two or three for every 10 degree[s] Celsius you drop in temperature," notes biogeochemist David Valentine of the University of California, Santa Barbara, who just received funding from the National Science Foundation to characterize the microbial response to the ongoing oil spill. "The deeper stuff, that's going to happen very slowly because the temperature is so low."
***
At the same time, the addition of ... dispersants deep beneath the surface is having uncertain effects; it may even end up killing the microbes it is meant to help thanks to the fact that Corexit 9527A contains the solvent 2-butoxyethanol, which is a known human carcinogen and toxic to animals and other life.
Mother Jones provides additional details:
David Valentine ... warns the stuff may be riskier than just its toxicity. Corexit may undermine the microbes that naturally eat oil.
Some of the most potent oil-eaters—Alcanivorax borkumensis —are relatively rare organisms that have evolved to eat hydrocarbons from naturally occurring oil seeps. Valentine tells Eli Kintisch at Science Insider that after spills, Alcanivorax tend to be the dominant microbes found near the oil and that they secrete their own surfactant molecules to break up the oil before consuming the hydrocarbons. Other microbes don't make surfactants but devour oil already broken into small enough globs—including those broken down by Alcanivorax.
What we don't know is how the surfactants in Corexit and its ilk might affect the ability of Alcanivorax and other surfactant-makers to eat oil. Could Corexit exclude Alcanivorax from binding to the oil? Could it affect the way microbes makes their own surfactants? Could Corexit render natural surfactants less effective?
The National Science Foundation has awarded Valentine a grant to study the problem.
So it's not a good thing that clean up workers can't find the oil. It means that the oil will lurk under the surface, in deeper waters where bacterial activity is slower, poisoning the sealife that lives beneath the surface, and washing back up during storms for years to come.
Even Admiral Thad Allen, the government's point man for the crisis, said that breaking up the oil has complicated the cleanup. As AP reported on June 7th:
The hopeful report was offset by a warning that the farflung slick has broken up into hundreds and even thousands of patches of oil that may inflict damage that could persist for years.
Coast Guard Adm. Thad Allen, the government's point man for the crisis, said the breakup has complicated the cleanup."
Dealing with the oil spill on the surface is going to go on for a couple of months," he said at a briefing in Washington. But "long-term issues of restoring the environment and the habitats and stuff will be years."
And Admiral Allen admitted in his press conference yesterday that oil could re-surface far into the future:
[Question] There have been reports of very large undersea plumes of oil thousands of feet below the ocean’s surface. So when you say there’s the possibility of the shore being impacted for four to six weeks, how do you come up with that four to six week number? And are you taking into account these very large plumes of oil that are out there and very difficult to sort of gauge where they’re going?
[Admiral Allen] What we’re going to continue to watch for is the oil we can’t see.... But the ultimate impact of this spill… whether or not oil surfaces at a later date will be the subject of long-term surveillance.... Impacts are going to go on for a long, long time.
As Congressman Markey said today, BP has made the Gulf “a toxic bowl” that will “haunt this region” for years, because “all of that oil is still under the surface”:
Friday, July 9, 2010
Gulf Oil Update: Day 81
Congressman Ed Markey Predicted Danger of Hurricane (Alex)
ds
Markey:
"We have no idea about the condition of the well casing under the Gulf."
"We should assume the worst case scenario now, prepare for it and hope that we don't have to use it."
____________
New Data from BP’s Coverup Firm Shows Dispersants in 20% of Offshore Workers
By: Michael Whitney
Firedoglake.com
Friday July 9, 2010 12:59 pm
Christine Millner, Environmental Scientist with CTEH (Center for Toxicology and Environmental Health) collects water and air samples from the Gulf of Mexico waters off Shell Beach, LA.
CTEH is the company contracted by BP to monitor air levels as they related to recovery worker safety in the Gulf of Mexico. The firm, which has a sordid history of covering up corporate environmental disasters, just released new data with BP yesterday that shows disturbing levels of toxic dispersants in 20% of offshore recovery workers and 15% of near-shore workers. But these just aren’t any toxic dispersants. It’s the same chemical blamed for chronic health problems in Exxon Valdez recovery workers that is now poisoning at least one-fifth of BP’s offshore recovery workers. Elana Schor reports for Greenwire:
"In an under-the-radar release of new test results for its Gulf of Mexico oil spill workers, BP PLC is reporting potentially hazardous exposures to a now-discontinued dispersant chemical — a substance blamed for contributing to chronic health problems after the Exxon Valdez cleanup — among more than 20 percent of offshore responders. [...]
The new BP summary, including results up to June 29, show a broad majority of workers testing below exposure limits set by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). But the Valdez-linked chemical 2-butoxyethanol was detected at levels up to 10 parts per million (ppm) in more than 20 percent of offshore responders and 15 percent of those near shore. The NIOSH standard for 2-butoxyethanol, which lacks the force of law but is considered more health-protective than the higher OSHA limit, is 5 ppm."
Data from Louisiana Office of Public Health compiled by Firedoglake shows that almost half of workers reporting illnesses were working offshore. Their symptoms include headaches, nausea, vomiting, sore throat, coughing, shortness of breath, and irritation of the nose and eyes - symptoms consistent with of exposure to 2-butoxyethanol.
Of course, while CTEH and BP included the health limits for every other chemical they measured, they conveniently forgot to include that helpful information for its measurements for 2-butoxyethanol.
OSHA’s standard for exposure to this toxic chemical is 50 parts per million for a 40-hour work week, while NIOSH, part of the CDC, suggests a toxicity limit of just 5 parts per million. CTEH and BP’s data showed 20% of offshore workers and 15% of near-shore workers had levels of this toxic chemical at 10 parts per million. (Twice the toxic level of 5 ppm--Editor)
When I spoke with Assistant Secretary of Labor for OSHA, Jordan Barab, earlier this week, Barab told me that OSHA hasn’t ”found anything approaching the minimum levels” of toxic components of dispersants for the “most of up to date limits.” I asked the Department of Labor to clarify this morning if this included 2-butoxyethanol, but have not yet received a response.
The danger with OSHA’s level is that it is based on a work week – however, many recovery workers, particularly those working offshore, are around the toxic chemicals almost 24/7. Workers on boats, rigs drilling relief wells, and others miles off shore have constant exposure. Many others who aren’t deep offshore still live and work near or on the water, and have near constant exposure to toxic chemicals in the air for more than 40 hours per week.
But OSHA isn’t responsible for offshore workers. The agency’s jurisdiction ends 3 miles offshore, far away from the offshore workers most affected by exposure to dispersants. OSHA tells me that NIOSH is observing and monitoring offshore, with the Coast Guard in charge of enforcement. But CTEH apparently has primary responsibility for worker safety monitoring data offshore.
So what’s next? It seems to be that CTEH and BP’s exclusion of toxic limits for 2-butoxyethanol is an omission consistent with CTEH’s track record of covering up for corporate disasters. It’s clear that this toxic chemical that caused so much pain for Exxon Valdez recovery workers needs to be taken with the utmost concern by the federal government. (Editor's bold emphasis throughout) Levels of this chemical need to be considered in any health and safety protections for recovery workers, including respirators, at NIOSH’s limits. There also needs to be a government agency officially charged with protecting the safety of offshore workers that doesn’t rely on CTEH. There’s no reason to do anything less when the health and safety of recovery workers are at stake.
Finally, CTEH’s data has been long in coming; while CTEH claims to send data to the government on a daily basis, this is the first public release of data since early June. The government needs to whip BP and CTEH in line to provide real time information about toxicity in order to do everything possibly to protect recovery workers. If that means CTEH needs to go, then they need to go.
____________
GRITtv: BP Exploiting Workers in the Gulf
By: Michael Whitney
Firedoglake.com
Friday July 9, 2010 11:21 am
Yesterday I (Michael Whitney) went to GRITtv and spoke with host Laura Flanders and Louisiana author Jordan Flahrety about BP’s exploitation of working people in the Gulf Coast. We discussed just a few of the many problems facing fishermen, recovery workers, and residents of the Gulf that are all at the mercy of BP. Though OSHA issued limited standards for respirators, with health problems prevalent in the Gulf, OSHA says illnesses are heat-related. I also discussed problems with the claims process, ways fishermen can get screwed by BP, and how some are organizing to fight back. Jordan also makes some interesting points about the problem of historical exploitation of Gulf Coast communities by the oil industry, and what needs to happen for people to reclaim their lives back from Big Oil.
Check out our discussion in the video above, and much thanks to GRITtv and Laura Flanders for the great discussion.
Editor's NOTE:
Michael Whitney stressed that OSHA is currently underestimating the environmental risk to Gulf clean-up and recovery workers. For details see THIS...
--Dr. J. P. Hubert
____________
Rep. Maloney: Address Health of Gulf Cleanup Workers Now, Before They Lose It
By: Michael Whitney
Firedoglake.com
Wednesday June 9, 2010 3:59 pm
Rep. Carolyn Maloney took to the floor of the House of Representatives this morning to speak about the need to protect the health of cleanup workers responding to the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
Maloney, who represents parts of Manhattan and Queens in the House, is one of the leaders in Congress in fighting for the health of 9/11 workers and rescuers who lacked adequate safety equipment. She stands up for the 60,000 people who pitched in at Ground Zero, more than half of whom report serious respiratory and other health problems to this day.
Knowing OSHA’s poor track record at enforcing laws during times of crisis, like the 9/11 cleanup, Maloney saw the situation unfolding in the Gulf and spoke out about the need to protect the health of cleanup workers, as she put it, “before they lose it.” Maloney said on the floor of the House this morning:
"The BP oil spill has caused a great emergency along our Gulf Coast. I hope as the response to it continues, we never forget the lessons of the Ground Zero workers. In the wake of 9/11, thousands of men and women labored tirelessly. Driven by a sense of urgent purpose, safety precautions were not taken, and assurances were given that proved to be false. The health of far too many of those who worked on that toxic pile, they suffered long-term health consequences.
Now in the Gulf, men and women are once again being exposed to a toxic sea of elements. After just 40-some days, there are already reports that workers have suffered exposure to the oil, and this cleanup will go on for years. The time to address the issue of the health of the cleanup workers is now, before they lose it."
Maloney knows that in the days, weeks, and months following 9/11, people in lower Manhattan were at risk of serious health issues due to poor air quality and asbestos from the fallen buildings. Despite pleas from local authorities, members of Congress, and the workers themselves, OSHA and EPA refused to require workers use respirators and other personal protection equipment to protect their health. Dr. Kirk Murphy at the Seminal pointed us to what happened, or didn’t, after 9/11:
"With regard to the Ground Zero clean-up, the FOIA request uncovered a trail of email and other documents showing that the New York City Department of Health (NYCDOH), the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the New York City Fire Department (NYCFD) all asked for OSHA enforcement during October 2001 when the immediate crisis had passed and extensive clean-up efforts were underway. Despite requests, OSHA did not enforce its regulations. It is estimated that as many as 60,000 workers and volunteers assisted in the clean-up. Though no one knows what portion failed to use proper PPE, anecdotal reports suggest that unsafe exposure was commonplace. Already, as many as 60 percent of all Ground Zero workers have shown some signs of respiratory illness and some have died due to their exposure."
OSHA needs to conduct a monitoring program independent of the recovery effort of BP and the Coast Guard. We need to know every data point of air monitoring in the region. We need to know the safety training for workers gives them the knowledge they need to recognize risks to their health. And we need to know workers have every available piece of personal protection equipment, including respirators, that they need to work safely with the cleanup of BP’s oil. If we don’t act now, and if OSHA continues to provide cover for BP, Gulf cleanup workers will suffer for the rest of the lives, and BP will wash its hands thanks to the complicity of OSHA.
ds
Markey:
"We have no idea about the condition of the well casing under the Gulf."
"We should assume the worst case scenario now, prepare for it and hope that we don't have to use it."
____________
New Data from BP’s Coverup Firm Shows Dispersants in 20% of Offshore Workers
By: Michael Whitney
Firedoglake.com
Friday July 9, 2010 12:59 pm
Christine Millner, Environmental Scientist with CTEH (Center for Toxicology and Environmental Health) collects water and air samples from the Gulf of Mexico waters off Shell Beach, LA.
CTEH is the company contracted by BP to monitor air levels as they related to recovery worker safety in the Gulf of Mexico. The firm, which has a sordid history of covering up corporate environmental disasters, just released new data with BP yesterday that shows disturbing levels of toxic dispersants in 20% of offshore recovery workers and 15% of near-shore workers. But these just aren’t any toxic dispersants. It’s the same chemical blamed for chronic health problems in Exxon Valdez recovery workers that is now poisoning at least one-fifth of BP’s offshore recovery workers. Elana Schor reports for Greenwire:
"In an under-the-radar release of new test results for its Gulf of Mexico oil spill workers, BP PLC is reporting potentially hazardous exposures to a now-discontinued dispersant chemical — a substance blamed for contributing to chronic health problems after the Exxon Valdez cleanup — among more than 20 percent of offshore responders. [...]
The new BP summary, including results up to June 29, show a broad majority of workers testing below exposure limits set by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). But the Valdez-linked chemical 2-butoxyethanol was detected at levels up to 10 parts per million (ppm) in more than 20 percent of offshore responders and 15 percent of those near shore. The NIOSH standard for 2-butoxyethanol, which lacks the force of law but is considered more health-protective than the higher OSHA limit, is 5 ppm."
Data from Louisiana Office of Public Health compiled by Firedoglake shows that almost half of workers reporting illnesses were working offshore. Their symptoms include headaches, nausea, vomiting, sore throat, coughing, shortness of breath, and irritation of the nose and eyes - symptoms consistent with of exposure to 2-butoxyethanol.
Of course, while CTEH and BP included the health limits for every other chemical they measured, they conveniently forgot to include that helpful information for its measurements for 2-butoxyethanol.
OSHA’s standard for exposure to this toxic chemical is 50 parts per million for a 40-hour work week, while NIOSH, part of the CDC, suggests a toxicity limit of just 5 parts per million. CTEH and BP’s data showed 20% of offshore workers and 15% of near-shore workers had levels of this toxic chemical at 10 parts per million. (Twice the toxic level of 5 ppm--Editor)
When I spoke with Assistant Secretary of Labor for OSHA, Jordan Barab, earlier this week, Barab told me that OSHA hasn’t ”found anything approaching the minimum levels” of toxic components of dispersants for the “most of up to date limits.” I asked the Department of Labor to clarify this morning if this included 2-butoxyethanol, but have not yet received a response.
The danger with OSHA’s level is that it is based on a work week – however, many recovery workers, particularly those working offshore, are around the toxic chemicals almost 24/7. Workers on boats, rigs drilling relief wells, and others miles off shore have constant exposure. Many others who aren’t deep offshore still live and work near or on the water, and have near constant exposure to toxic chemicals in the air for more than 40 hours per week.
But OSHA isn’t responsible for offshore workers. The agency’s jurisdiction ends 3 miles offshore, far away from the offshore workers most affected by exposure to dispersants. OSHA tells me that NIOSH is observing and monitoring offshore, with the Coast Guard in charge of enforcement. But CTEH apparently has primary responsibility for worker safety monitoring data offshore.
So what’s next? It seems to be that CTEH and BP’s exclusion of toxic limits for 2-butoxyethanol is an omission consistent with CTEH’s track record of covering up for corporate disasters. It’s clear that this toxic chemical that caused so much pain for Exxon Valdez recovery workers needs to be taken with the utmost concern by the federal government. (Editor's bold emphasis throughout) Levels of this chemical need to be considered in any health and safety protections for recovery workers, including respirators, at NIOSH’s limits. There also needs to be a government agency officially charged with protecting the safety of offshore workers that doesn’t rely on CTEH. There’s no reason to do anything less when the health and safety of recovery workers are at stake.
Finally, CTEH’s data has been long in coming; while CTEH claims to send data to the government on a daily basis, this is the first public release of data since early June. The government needs to whip BP and CTEH in line to provide real time information about toxicity in order to do everything possibly to protect recovery workers. If that means CTEH needs to go, then they need to go.
____________
GRITtv: BP Exploiting Workers in the Gulf
By: Michael Whitney
Firedoglake.com
Friday July 9, 2010 11:21 am
Yesterday I (Michael Whitney) went to GRITtv and spoke with host Laura Flanders and Louisiana author Jordan Flahrety about BP’s exploitation of working people in the Gulf Coast. We discussed just a few of the many problems facing fishermen, recovery workers, and residents of the Gulf that are all at the mercy of BP. Though OSHA issued limited standards for respirators, with health problems prevalent in the Gulf, OSHA says illnesses are heat-related. I also discussed problems with the claims process, ways fishermen can get screwed by BP, and how some are organizing to fight back. Jordan also makes some interesting points about the problem of historical exploitation of Gulf Coast communities by the oil industry, and what needs to happen for people to reclaim their lives back from Big Oil.
Check out our discussion in the video above, and much thanks to GRITtv and Laura Flanders for the great discussion.
Editor's NOTE:
Michael Whitney stressed that OSHA is currently underestimating the environmental risk to Gulf clean-up and recovery workers. For details see THIS...
--Dr. J. P. Hubert
____________
Rep. Maloney: Address Health of Gulf Cleanup Workers Now, Before They Lose It
By: Michael Whitney
Firedoglake.com
Wednesday June 9, 2010 3:59 pm
Rep. Carolyn Maloney took to the floor of the House of Representatives this morning to speak about the need to protect the health of cleanup workers responding to the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
Maloney, who represents parts of Manhattan and Queens in the House, is one of the leaders in Congress in fighting for the health of 9/11 workers and rescuers who lacked adequate safety equipment. She stands up for the 60,000 people who pitched in at Ground Zero, more than half of whom report serious respiratory and other health problems to this day.
Knowing OSHA’s poor track record at enforcing laws during times of crisis, like the 9/11 cleanup, Maloney saw the situation unfolding in the Gulf and spoke out about the need to protect the health of cleanup workers, as she put it, “before they lose it.” Maloney said on the floor of the House this morning:
"The BP oil spill has caused a great emergency along our Gulf Coast. I hope as the response to it continues, we never forget the lessons of the Ground Zero workers. In the wake of 9/11, thousands of men and women labored tirelessly. Driven by a sense of urgent purpose, safety precautions were not taken, and assurances were given that proved to be false. The health of far too many of those who worked on that toxic pile, they suffered long-term health consequences.
Now in the Gulf, men and women are once again being exposed to a toxic sea of elements. After just 40-some days, there are already reports that workers have suffered exposure to the oil, and this cleanup will go on for years. The time to address the issue of the health of the cleanup workers is now, before they lose it."
Maloney knows that in the days, weeks, and months following 9/11, people in lower Manhattan were at risk of serious health issues due to poor air quality and asbestos from the fallen buildings. Despite pleas from local authorities, members of Congress, and the workers themselves, OSHA and EPA refused to require workers use respirators and other personal protection equipment to protect their health. Dr. Kirk Murphy at the Seminal pointed us to what happened, or didn’t, after 9/11:
"With regard to the Ground Zero clean-up, the FOIA request uncovered a trail of email and other documents showing that the New York City Department of Health (NYCDOH), the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the New York City Fire Department (NYCFD) all asked for OSHA enforcement during October 2001 when the immediate crisis had passed and extensive clean-up efforts were underway. Despite requests, OSHA did not enforce its regulations. It is estimated that as many as 60,000 workers and volunteers assisted in the clean-up. Though no one knows what portion failed to use proper PPE, anecdotal reports suggest that unsafe exposure was commonplace. Already, as many as 60 percent of all Ground Zero workers have shown some signs of respiratory illness and some have died due to their exposure."
OSHA needs to conduct a monitoring program independent of the recovery effort of BP and the Coast Guard. We need to know every data point of air monitoring in the region. We need to know the safety training for workers gives them the knowledge they need to recognize risks to their health. And we need to know workers have every available piece of personal protection equipment, including respirators, that they need to work safely with the cleanup of BP’s oil. If we don’t act now, and if OSHA continues to provide cover for BP, Gulf cleanup workers will suffer for the rest of the lives, and BP will wash its hands thanks to the complicity of OSHA.
Thursday, June 17, 2010
Masking the Extent of the Disaster: The Worst of the Gulf Oil Spill has not been Revealed
by Brian Merchant
Global Research, May 25, 2010
Treehugger - 2010-05-20
One of the biggest hurdles to covering the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was actually getting a good look at the oil. For somewhat murky reasons (health, safety of fragile habitats), press has been repeatedly forbidden to enter impacted areas by the Coast Guard, BP, or the Fish & Wildlife Service.
I was on the ground in the Gulf. Trying to get the story from one of the fishermen contracted to work with BP was like asking them if they'd like a root canal on the spot. Word is that cleanup workers are told if they talk to the press, they're fired. And then there are the toxic chemical dispersants, which plays the biggest role in masking the extent of the disaster's damage by breaking the oil up and spreading it out -- at who knows what cost. So, the question is, will anyone ever see the worst of the catastrophic BP Gulf oil spill? Here are the five main reasons that you might not.
1. It's Not a Photogenic Disaster ... Yet
I spent the last 10 days traversing the Gulf coast, and I hardly saw few traces of actual oil. I know that there are videos out there that show how devastating the spill is -- the one that shows the 'Gulf bleeding' is especially powerful. But I'm afraid it's not powerful in the conventional sense -- most people probably don't see the copper colored water and the oily sheen over the waves as tragic, necessarily, but bizarre.
There is no doubt that the millions of gallons of oil currently floating around in the Gulf of Mexico will be supremely hazardous to wildlife and the local economy. But it sometimes seems the whole event is registering closer to a curiosity than a tragedy to those not immediately connected to it.
2. Chemical Dispersant Cover-Up
Which brings us to what may be BP's greatest aide in furthering this aim: the chemical dispersants. BP's plan to spray the dispersants on the leak from the source -- as well as dump them from planes flying above -- will effectively prevent oil from reaching the shore in the same form that the notorious slicks did in famous spills like the Exxon Valdez.
Despite the fact that nobody is sure exactly how toxic the stuff is, or how being deployed on such a large scale will effect ecosystems, it will have at least one effect: it will delay public outrage by masking the apparent extent of the spill's damage. After all, BP must know how damaging the Valdez spill was for Exxon's image -- some people still conjure up pictures of oil-coated birds at the mention of the brand. But make no mistake -- chemical dispersants will disrupt ecosystems in a massive way, even if you never see the true effect with your own eyes.
3. BP, Feds Cutting Off Press?
But there are other concerns as well. Most recently, video surfaced of the Coast Guard turning press away, claiming it was BP's orders. An NPR team was turned away when trying to access the oil-hit Chandeleur barrier island chain. The workers hired to cleanup the spill seem to be under pressure not to talk to press -- whenever I would approach a hired fisherman or contractor, they'd most often wave me away, or refuse to talk on record.
When I contacted a BP community liaison, he essentially dared me to call his bluff: he didn't deny the contractual clause, but he did say "I've got fishermen in my office all the time -- you want to talk to one right now?" But that was hardly reassuring, and obviously not an acceptable circumstance for an unbiased interview.
I attribute some of the press exclusion from the feds to a messy bureaucratic command structure -- officials flown in from all over the nation were giving, deflecting, and misinterpreting orders, and sending them on down the line to crews. But there does seem be a pointed effort, especially from BP, to drastically restrict press access.
4. Relative Public Apathy
Satellite images, oddly colored water, a collapsed hi-tech rig -- it all might seem more like a strange spectacle than a catastrophe. Fox News' anchor Brit Hume summed up the apathy the other day when he retorted "Show me the oil."
Of course, the thousands of people who are losing their livelihoods and the conservationists who understand the impact oil will have on undersea food chains are confidant that this is nothing short of a disaster. But without pictures of devastated wildlife -- which thus far have been few and far between -- or blackened coastlines, I fear that most will continue to underestimate how damaging this spill will be. That would, of course, play directly in BP's favor -- and undercut further investigative efforts.
5. It's More Convenient to Conceal the Devastation
One oft-voiced worry among conservation groups and other press that I heard as I trekked from marina to marina, city to city around the Gulf, was that there would only be interest in ensuring that justice was brought to those impacted by the spill as long as the cameras were rolling. And without any distinctly shocking material to film, those cameras would be rolling away sooner rather than later.
Which is why it's important that the Coast Guard explain a concrete policy for press access and that BP encourage the fishermen who've been out in the field to speak up about their encounters with the oil. If they have nothing to hide, then why clamp down, right? It's a spooky thought, but if there are images of gruesomely oil-slicked beaches and blackened birds, the public has a right to see it. Even if this does sound distressingly like a call for sensationalism -- it's in part because that very sensationalism will help bolster conservation efforts and strengthen sound policy initiatives.
And of course, I believe that the use of chemical dispersants is far too dangerous a gamble, and not only because it helps prevent people from grasping the severity of the spill, but because of the unknown long-term threats they pose to marine habitats. This stuff could yet emerge as the dominant narrative of the Gulf spill in hindsight, damaging food chains for generations, or worse.
The point of all of this is: don't believe just your eyes -- listen to reports coming in from legitimate conservation scientists and investigative journalists. Much of the press down there are out on the boats every day, desperately trying to get the best sense of what's going on -- and being thwarted by weather, BP, the dispersants, and sometimes evidently the Coast Guard. For 10 days, I was trying my best, too -- and I can tell you, it's looking like we may never see the worst of this spill with our own eyes.
Global Research, May 25, 2010
Treehugger - 2010-05-20
One of the biggest hurdles to covering the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico was actually getting a good look at the oil. For somewhat murky reasons (health, safety of fragile habitats), press has been repeatedly forbidden to enter impacted areas by the Coast Guard, BP, or the Fish & Wildlife Service.
I was on the ground in the Gulf. Trying to get the story from one of the fishermen contracted to work with BP was like asking them if they'd like a root canal on the spot. Word is that cleanup workers are told if they talk to the press, they're fired. And then there are the toxic chemical dispersants, which plays the biggest role in masking the extent of the disaster's damage by breaking the oil up and spreading it out -- at who knows what cost. So, the question is, will anyone ever see the worst of the catastrophic BP Gulf oil spill? Here are the five main reasons that you might not.
1. It's Not a Photogenic Disaster ... Yet
I spent the last 10 days traversing the Gulf coast, and I hardly saw few traces of actual oil. I know that there are videos out there that show how devastating the spill is -- the one that shows the 'Gulf bleeding' is especially powerful. But I'm afraid it's not powerful in the conventional sense -- most people probably don't see the copper colored water and the oily sheen over the waves as tragic, necessarily, but bizarre.
There is no doubt that the millions of gallons of oil currently floating around in the Gulf of Mexico will be supremely hazardous to wildlife and the local economy. But it sometimes seems the whole event is registering closer to a curiosity than a tragedy to those not immediately connected to it.
2. Chemical Dispersant Cover-Up
Which brings us to what may be BP's greatest aide in furthering this aim: the chemical dispersants. BP's plan to spray the dispersants on the leak from the source -- as well as dump them from planes flying above -- will effectively prevent oil from reaching the shore in the same form that the notorious slicks did in famous spills like the Exxon Valdez.
Despite the fact that nobody is sure exactly how toxic the stuff is, or how being deployed on such a large scale will effect ecosystems, it will have at least one effect: it will delay public outrage by masking the apparent extent of the spill's damage. After all, BP must know how damaging the Valdez spill was for Exxon's image -- some people still conjure up pictures of oil-coated birds at the mention of the brand. But make no mistake -- chemical dispersants will disrupt ecosystems in a massive way, even if you never see the true effect with your own eyes.
3. BP, Feds Cutting Off Press?
But there are other concerns as well. Most recently, video surfaced of the Coast Guard turning press away, claiming it was BP's orders. An NPR team was turned away when trying to access the oil-hit Chandeleur barrier island chain. The workers hired to cleanup the spill seem to be under pressure not to talk to press -- whenever I would approach a hired fisherman or contractor, they'd most often wave me away, or refuse to talk on record.
When I contacted a BP community liaison, he essentially dared me to call his bluff: he didn't deny the contractual clause, but he did say "I've got fishermen in my office all the time -- you want to talk to one right now?" But that was hardly reassuring, and obviously not an acceptable circumstance for an unbiased interview.
I attribute some of the press exclusion from the feds to a messy bureaucratic command structure -- officials flown in from all over the nation were giving, deflecting, and misinterpreting orders, and sending them on down the line to crews. But there does seem be a pointed effort, especially from BP, to drastically restrict press access.
4. Relative Public Apathy
Satellite images, oddly colored water, a collapsed hi-tech rig -- it all might seem more like a strange spectacle than a catastrophe. Fox News' anchor Brit Hume summed up the apathy the other day when he retorted "Show me the oil."
Of course, the thousands of people who are losing their livelihoods and the conservationists who understand the impact oil will have on undersea food chains are confidant that this is nothing short of a disaster. But without pictures of devastated wildlife -- which thus far have been few and far between -- or blackened coastlines, I fear that most will continue to underestimate how damaging this spill will be. That would, of course, play directly in BP's favor -- and undercut further investigative efforts.
5. It's More Convenient to Conceal the Devastation
One oft-voiced worry among conservation groups and other press that I heard as I trekked from marina to marina, city to city around the Gulf, was that there would only be interest in ensuring that justice was brought to those impacted by the spill as long as the cameras were rolling. And without any distinctly shocking material to film, those cameras would be rolling away sooner rather than later.
Which is why it's important that the Coast Guard explain a concrete policy for press access and that BP encourage the fishermen who've been out in the field to speak up about their encounters with the oil. If they have nothing to hide, then why clamp down, right? It's a spooky thought, but if there are images of gruesomely oil-slicked beaches and blackened birds, the public has a right to see it. Even if this does sound distressingly like a call for sensationalism -- it's in part because that very sensationalism will help bolster conservation efforts and strengthen sound policy initiatives.
And of course, I believe that the use of chemical dispersants is far too dangerous a gamble, and not only because it helps prevent people from grasping the severity of the spill, but because of the unknown long-term threats they pose to marine habitats. This stuff could yet emerge as the dominant narrative of the Gulf spill in hindsight, damaging food chains for generations, or worse.
The point of all of this is: don't believe just your eyes -- listen to reports coming in from legitimate conservation scientists and investigative journalists. Much of the press down there are out on the boats every day, desperately trying to get the best sense of what's going on -- and being thwarted by weather, BP, the dispersants, and sometimes evidently the Coast Guard. For 10 days, I was trying my best, too -- and I can tell you, it's looking like we may never see the worst of this spill with our own eyes.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)