Gulf Oil Spill Cleanup: Coast Guard Wants It Scaled Back

NEW ORLEANS — The cleanup of oiled beaches along the Gulf of Mexico has reached a point where crews, heavy equipment and thorough scrubbing can cause more damage to the ecosystem than good, the Coast Guard said Friday.

Birds, sea turtles, fish and other species are more likely to be harmed by an aggressive cleanup than by simply leaving remnants of oil and letting it slowly degrade, the Coast Guard said.

The report was designed to guide the cleanup of the BP PLC spill from the April 20 Deepwater Horizon rig explosion. There are 4,265 people still involved in the cleanup and response on 544 miles of coast.

Recent oil samples show weathered oil found along beaches has lost the majority of the toxic compounds in it and the oil left on shores meets federal safety thresholds for people, the Coast Guard said.

At least one researcher questioned the Coast Guard's report.

Wilma Subra, a Louisiana chemist and consultant for environmental groups, said the toxic elements could last for decades and warned the report could let BP abandon cleanup before its complete.

"The real concern is if they walk away and it's not clean enough," said Subra, who has been doing her own testing along the coast. If it's not clean enough, people and animals could still be exposed to harmful toxins, she said.

The study focused on beaches in Grand Isle, La., Petit Bois Island, Miss., Bon Secour, Ala., and Fort Pickens, Fla.

"Beach cleanup is invasive," said Lt. Cmdr. Kenneth Boda of the Coast Guard. "If we were to go in and remove the small bit of oil you'd have to wash the sand, and you'd kill everything else in there."

He said that could include removing plants, shells and other sources of food for birds, as well as damaging sea turtle eggs.

"We can sterilize the sand, but then there aren't any nutrients left," said Edward H. Owens, a cleanup technical adviser for BP. "Just cleaning and sterilizing is not necessarily in the short term of high value."

Since the spill, BP has been cleaning up oil and teams have established guidelines to determine what is clean enough. The cleanup varies from beach to beach. For example, recreational and manmade beaches are getting washed and cleaned much more thoroughly than sand abundant in wildlife and plants.

The report signaled the cleanup was nearing an end.

BP has cleanup crews on the Gulf Coast and they will stay around to clean up when oil shows up on shores, Owens said. Oil remains buried in sand and as submerged mats along the coast and still washes ashore occasionally.

"We're finding in some isolated places new oil because it was buried," Owens said. "We're getting down to a smaller length of shoreline that has to be cleaned up and smaller amounts of oil."

Comments

[Michael Valentine]

01:02 PM on 02/16/2011

Oligarchy at work.

[bleedingheart9]

12:01 AM on 02/15/2011

Hopefully no worse than Goleta shores. BTW where's all the Corexit, toxic souped?

[Hal May]

11:41 PM on 02/14/2011

Sterilizing sand wouldn't rid it of any nutrients because sand has an extremely low cation exchange capacity and therefore holds nutrients for only a brief period of time. Natural processes such as rain leach nutrients from the soil and a nutrient cycle begins again. Sterilizing the soil would only rid the sand of toxic elements and nutrients would eventually be replaced as organic matter decomposed on the soil surface. BP and other corporations don't exactly have a good track record with the environment, I completely agree with Subra, someone should be watching to make sure that BP follows through with its obligation to clean up until the task is complete. Science doesn't lie, big business does.

[shilow]

11:09 PM on 02/14/2011

Toxic dispersants suspended in water colum and on sea floor Shifting constantly with the currants .

[shilow]

11:06 PM on 02/14/2011

La state senator demands stoppage of toxic dispersants in gulf.. Oil leaking 10 miles from macondo well since 2004 relief wells being drilled .
www.floridaoilspilllaw.com

[Genders]

10:24 PM on 02/14/2011

That may indeed be the case. You cannot clean up massive oil spills. So what should we charge BP?

[bleedingheart9]

12:06 AM on 02/15/2011

Their license to "operate"

[Genders]

04:15 PM on 02/15/2011

FF!

[AnthropologistAmongApes]

06:47 PM on 02/14/2011

We've heard what the "Coast Guard" has to say; what do biologists and every other related science have to say, that is what we should be able to hear without political or corporate interference.

[Almondo]

06:44 PM on 02/14/2011

Just a bunch of felons disguised as an oil company.

[Pleroma]

12:56 PM on 02/15/2011

And the Coast Guard?

[Almondo]

06:38 PM on 02/15/2011

At this point they are just un-indicted co-conspirators in the destruction and coverup of the destruction of the gulf.

[StopThePlanet]

06:27 PM on 02/14/2011

Birds, sea turtles, fish and other species are more likely to be harmed by an aggressive cleanup than by simply leaving remnants of oil and letting it slowly degrade, the Coast Guard said.

Sounds like BS to me.

[1tiel]

08:20 PM on 02/14/2011

I agree. They're the Coast Guard, not scientists with Ph.D.s, so what is that? An opinion based on what? Coast Guard training? Yeah, that's nice but what the heck do they know? Really? If there's oil still in the environment aren't forms of life likely to be killed or made ill by it? So how is leaving the oil there saving them? So some mollusk deformed from the oil can have even more deformed offspring even less able to easily survive?? How is that helping? I don't think they care at all about the life there...they probably just had some "mine is bigger than yours" argument with the crews cleaning up the oil and they just want their territory back... Like two dogs barking over who urinated on a hydrant first...it's pathetic and it has nothing to do with the welfare of the coastline -- that's the saddest part of it!

[coolrepublica]

09:05 PM on 02/14/2011

Oh the typical snob is in the wild.

The coast guard knows more than the PH.D by far. I like to think of the PH.D guy as an architect. He come with all these big ideas on how to build a building, but the construction guy who did not go to Harvard has to set him straight about how the laws of physics work in real life. Just because you got a fancy degree doesn't make you know everything. The guy doing the job day in and day out knows more than the PHD guy and always will.

[Moder8tion]

10:46 PM on 02/14/2011

I for one don't think a coast guard helicopter pilot has decided this.... I'm reasonably confident that the CG has employees with PhD’s, consultants with PhD’s, and men on the ground that are concerned about a favorable outcome.

You libs destroy your message when you categorically deny EVERYTHING.

[nevernot]

04:37 PM on 02/14/2011

There's still toxic amounts of oil in Alaska from the Exxon Valdez spill years upon years later. I frankly don't care what they think about it, they made a colossal mess and knew the risks associated with their well. Now it's their responsibility to clean up after their negligence. I also take issue with the statement that the oil left falls within guidelines for humans... Lets not forget there's guidelines for the amount of arsenic and rat feces in your food supply. Doesn't mean for one second that I want it there or that it's acceptable in any way shape or form.

[whitebeach]

06:08 PM on 02/14/2011

Yeah, and Prince William Sound and the Gulf of Mexico are so exactly alike, aren't they?

Let me ask you. About thirty years ago, and lasting for about nine months, there was a spill in the Gulf at an underwater well site called Ixtoc. It was nearly as large as the BP spill. Some people would claim it was even larger. Both were far, far larger than the Valdez spill.

So the question is, thirty years after Ixtoc, or twenty years, or even ten years, what exactly were the terrible toxic effects obvious in the Gulf of Mexico? What effects at all were still in evidence? Who in fact even remembered the Ixtoc event until the Deepwater Horizon spill occurred?

Let me leave you with one final thought. You complain that you don't want even a tiny trace of any substance in the environment that in larger quantities is harmful. That's unrealistic. Saying that it's not "acceptable" is like saying you can stop the sun from rising. But what's really weird in your way of looking at things is this: Take the purest gallon of seawater you can find from the Gulf or anywhere else. Drink it during the course of a day or two. It will make you very, very sick. It may even prove fatal. And that won't be because of the arsenic it contains, although it certainly will contain some.

Try to understand that guidelines exist for good reasons.

[aligatorhardt]

06:35 PM on 02/14/2011

Thanks for the opinion of a true shill and soul-less excuse for humanity.

[aligatorhardt]

06:36 PM on 02/14/2011

 So that they can be ignored?

[shilow]

12:27 AM on 02/15/2011

www.oilspilllaw.com

[shilow]

12:32 AM on 02/15/2011

sorry, oil spill law is wrong Its www.floridaoilspilllaw.com

[whitebeach]

04:36 PM on 02/14/2011

This is simple good sense. Tarballs were washing up on Gulf beaches long, long, long before this spill, or the Ixtoc spill thirty years ago, or any artificial spillage of oil at all. Tarballs are basically harmless to humans and to wildlife, and to continue to scour the beaches to remove every trace of them would be not only futile in the long run but very hurtful to the environment in the short run. At some point you simply have to realize that the doomsday scenarios have not played out and that heroic measures are no longer suited to the situation that actually exists.

[KIVPossum]

04:12 PM on 02/14/2011

Nice back door way to say, 'This is all BP will pay for'

[Moder8tion]

10:49 PM on 02/14/2011

I didn't see any inference or slant in the article to pulling everyone out or stopping the cleanup.

[lightningbolt]

03:28 PM on 02/14/2011

BP will make the government do anything it wants to save a buck.  Let's not forget that the entire U.S. government works for the oil industry.  Both democrats and republicans follow their orders.  The U.S. declares wars for them, covers up crimes for them, distorts scientific data for them, and now the Coast Guard is helping BP save a few bucks by requesting that the clean up effort be scaled back.

[zenman2]

10:58 AM on 02/15/2011

What a joke letting the coast guard decide this is over. Big oil is bigger than we know, we will all pay for this blight on the planet. When we loose the ocean we are finished. It is all about the money always has been.
Next case

[BobHiggins]

02:13 PM on 02/14/2011

What the CG is not saying is that the the Spring is coming and the tourists must not be frightened away by the sight of cleanup workers and equipment.

Scaling down the effort now will lessen visibility and fear of the beaches as well as costing their buddies at BP less in clean up costs and liability for recovered oil.

In addition, since BP and much of the government has for months been pronouncing the Gulf's seafood perfectly safe to eat and the beaches just lovely for swimming, (New slogan: Bring your own feathers the tar is free") the sight of people roaming the beaches in protective gear and rubber gloves might scare off those folks looking to lunch on crab cakes or frolic in speedos and thongs.

[whitebeach]

04:44 PM on 02/14/2011

Winter condo rentals, hotel visits, and so on along the Gulf Coast have been much in line with those for the years before the spill. Obviously people are not being terrified by the presence of cleanup workers.

Also, do you have any evidence at all that Gulf seafood is not safe? Any evidence at all that it would be unsafe (winter temps aside) to "frolic" in the Gulf anywhere along its northern coast?

Of course you don't. But it's so self-esteem-promoting to think that you do, isn't it? Imagine how wonderful you'll feel when spring and summer come and millions and millions of people are enjoying those lovely beaches and turquoise waters, not caring at all about a few tarballs, while you have the secret knowledge that they're all doomed.

[BobHiggins]

05:34 PM on 02/14/2011

Try something unusual, do a Google search for Gulf coast seafood safety, BP gulf coast cleanup or try and be creative on your own and actually read some of the articles that are not written by someone sharing a bed with the oil industry or have another stake in the game.

I doubt that you will because you have little interest in reality, you might even be paid to overlook it.

[shilow]

11:46 PM on 02/14/2011

Many dead trees and plants i believe from acid rain from the gulf . Each rain all summer made them worse, Rains stopped around Oct and we got the first real heavy rain since then around Feb 4 and 5. I had brought a few flowers inside from a bush that survived the summer barely. I didnt think it would make it as the leaves were all dried up and brown. After that i wanted 3 new flowers and was supprised to see that they were losing their vivid color in fact some were whitish towards the bottom.
I found a few that that were lighter but looked ok and brought them inside. Then it rained quite a bit Feb 10th . I went outside today to look at the flowers and leaves . Lots more flowers had lost almost all color and the leaves had brown and white spots on them and looked kind of burnt.

[KarlaElisa]

10:13 PM on 02/14/2011

You are SO correct.