Riki Ott2013-05-22T05:08:16-04:00Riki Otthttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/index.php?author=riki-ottCopyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Riki OttGood old fashioned elbow grease.The Exxon Pipeline Spill: Questions That Should Be Frequently Askedtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.30178972013-04-04T18:50:41-04:002013-04-04T18:46:54-04:00Riki Otthttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/riki-ott/
We at Ultimate Civics are asking the press to pose critical questions rather than regurgitate industry press releases. The public depends on the press in order to be well informed and make important decisions. It is essential for the media to search for deeper explanations and more accurate information during incidents that threaten human health, wildlife, and the environment -- and future energy choices.
We offer this guide, based on our on-the-ground first-hand experience with the nation's largest oil tanker spill (Exxon Valdez, 1989), offshore oil rig disaster (BP Deepwater Horizon, 2010), and on-land pipeline tar sands spill (Enbridge, 2010).
When was the leak discovered?
Exxon says the leak was discovered on Friday afternoon. What are residents saying? People living nearby should have known immediately from the fumes when the leak occurred or once it spilled above ground. In the case of the Enbridge tar sands oil spill in the Kalamazoo River (July 2010), residents reported smelling and seeing oil two days prior to the date Enbridge claimed the spill occurred.
What kind of oil was spilled?
Media is reporting a crude oil or sour crude spill. This oil is sour (containing high concentrations of hydrogen sulfide) but more importantly, it is heavy bitumen crude -- tar sands oil (sour by nature) that has been diluted with lighter petroleum distillates and other very toxic chemicals. These chemicals are often proprietary due to their toxic nature.
What are other names for tar sands oil?
"Tar sands oil" is a political red flag, so the industry also calls it "nonconventional oil," "heavy bitumen crude," "dilbit" (diluted bitumen), and more recently, "sour oil," and "sour crude". Don't fall for it. What spilled is the essentially the same stuff that Enbridge spilled in Michigan (July 2010) and that would be coming down the Keystone XL: tar sands oil (bitumen crude oil) with diluents, or dilbit.
What are the human health risks of exposure to tar sands oil, diluents and dilbit?
Common symptoms of exposure to conventional crude oil spills are well known and established within the medical community and include respiratory problems, central nervous system dysfunction, blood disorders, and skin problems. Unfortunately, a body only has so many ways to say it's ill and the symptoms for chemical illnesses mimic those for colds/flu, asthma, bronchitis, COPD, bad headaches, vertigo, dizziness, tingling feet and hands, fatigue, general malaise, immune suppression (sick all the time), bad looking skin rashes like MRSA, peeling palms and soles of feet (for people walking barefoot), ear and nose bleeds (gushers), bleeding hemorrhoids, and more.
Tar sands oil is concentrated with heavy hydrocarbons, known as Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs) or more commonly as ultrafine particles. Exposure to PAHs can cause the health issues listed above (and also listed as compensable injury on BP medical benefits settlement) -- and similar injury in wildlife.
The diluents are industrial solvents, containing petroleum distillates and other toxic chemicals that that target and harm the same organs of the body as PAHs/oil--the respiratory system, central nervous system, skin, and blood. This means the body takes a double hit of toxic chemicals. Diluents contain chemicals that are teratogens (disturb development of or kill babies in the womb), carcinogens, mutagens, systemic poisons, and cause hemolysis (rupture of blood cells). Some people are more vulnerable than others to dilbit, especially children, pregnant women, elderly, African Americans, and those with pre-existing illnesses. Diluents are industrial solvents and degreasers, like dispersants, that act as an oil delivery mechanism, pulling oil into the body. The emerging science from the BP Gulf disaster is finding that chemically-dispersed oil is more toxic than oil alone to wildlife and humans.
Since tar sands oil is concentrated with PAHs and VOCs/diluents, dilbit is far more toxic to humans and animals (wild and domestic) than conventional oil. The oil industry (and government) are trying to downplay the human health risks of exposure to tar sands and/or dilbit because this is extremely politically inconvenient information. It nonetheless is extremely dangerous.
Were residents informed of these health risks? Properly evacuated?
No. Residents and the city are being misinformed about health risks. A recent statement released by Exxon said, "The air quality does not likely present a human health risk, with the exception of the high pooling areas, where clean-up crews are working with safety equipment."
This is simply not true. Oil and petroleum distillates (ingredient of both dispersants and diluents) wrecked havoc with wildlife and people in the aftermath of the BP disaster and the Exxon Valdez disaster. Similarly, tar sands oil and diluents made people sick in Michigan, where residents of one trailer court and neighborhood along the oiled riverbank blame exposure to tar sands oil and fumes for illness outbreaks and eighteen deaths -- and counting. Oil and diluents can cause short- and long-term harm to health if people are not forewarned (educated about chemical illnesses, exposure, symptoms, and treatment) and given protection.
Dilbit has a mandatory 1,000-foot evacuation zone. Was it uniformly enforced? In Michigan, people in richer areas were evacuated while people in poorer areas were either not evacuated or were forced to relocate when the city condemned public housing units. Enbridge housed workers in some of the homes it purchased, raising health concerns. If the home wasn't safe for the original occupants, why was it safe for the workers? Unprotected workers and the general public are at risk of exposure and chemical illness. Children, elderly, pregnant women, people with pre-existing illnesses, and African Americans, in particular, and domestic animals should have been evacuated immediately.
The local department of health should issue Public Health Advisories, warning residents of the signs and symptoms of exposure, such as headaches, nausea, vomiting, dizziness, nose bleeds, and cold- and flu-like symptoms, among others. Occupational and environmental medicine (OEM) doctors should be on hand to diagnose and treat illnesses that family doctors are not trained to recognize. These specialty physicians should NOT be provided by the industry; the city should hire them and ask industry for reimbursement. People should be given baseline health exams before returning to homes they evacuated; their homes should be tested for air quality. Wood and fabric, for example, absorb oily fumes and will off-gas over time. The industry should pay if homes, furniture, clothes, carpet, toys, etc., need to be replaced.
Were the cleanup crews given and wearing adequate personal protective equipment?
Photos from KTHV in Little Rock, AR, show backhoe operators and others with absolutely no protective gear at all. Compare what the cleanup crews are wearing with what EPA and other federal responders were wearing, especially during the early response. During the Michigan response, EPA crews wore respirators and Hazmat gear. Hazmat crews with protective equipment and workers or the general public without similar protection in the same area is a sign of trouble for unprotected persons - and disingenuous PR statements. In Prince William Sound, Alaska, Alyeska's SERVS workers are trained, provided with, and required to wear personal protective equipment, including respirators, during oil spill response.
WHAT HAPPENS WHEN DILBIT AND/OR TAR SANDS OIL GETS IN CITY SEWERS?
Photos from KTHV in Little Rock, AR, show dilbut bubbling down into storm sewers. City wastewater treatment facilities are not designed to process and remove even small amounts of oil. Individuals are fined hefty amounts for releasing even a quart of oil into sewers. Tar sands oil is thick, sticky goo and the diluents are extremely toxic chemicals. ExxonMobil needs to detail how it plans to help municipalities clean out the sewers and the wastewater treatment system -- without contaminating the city's water supply. If it is too late to avoid contamination of the city's water supply, how will industry provide safe water for city residents?
Are tar sands oil and dilbit more corrosive than conventional oil?
Yes. Period. No debate. Bitumen blends are more acidic, thick, and sulfuric than conventional crude oil. DilBit contains 15-20 times higher acid concentrations and 5-10 times as much sulfur as conventional crudes. The additional sulfur and high concentrations of chloride salts cause corrosion that weakens and ages pipelines, especially when dilbit is pumped under high temperature and pressure. Tar sands crude oil also contains high quantities of abrasive quartz sand particles, much more than used by liquid sandblasters. (Keystone XL pipeline maximum capacity would mean over 125 pounds of quartz sand and alumino-silicates per minute. Common sandblasters use between 1.5 and 47 pounds of sand per minute.) Conventional crude oil does not contain quartz sand particles. Dilbit is also up to 70 times more viscous than conventional crude.
Not surprisingly, tar sands pipeline spills occur more frequently than spills from pipelines carrying conventional crude oil because of diluted bitumen's toxic, corrosive, and heavy composition. Between 2007 and 2010, pipelines transporting diluted bitumen in the northern Midwest spilled three times more oil per mile than the national average for conventional crude oil. Between 2002 to 2010, internal corrosion caused over 16 times as many pipeline spills per 10,000 miles in Alberta, Canada, where pipelines transport mostly dilbit, than in the US, where pipelines transport mostly conventional crude oil. Finally, in its first year, the U.S. section of Keystone 1, carrying diluted tar sands oil, had a spill frequency 100 times greater than the TransCanada forecast. In June 2011, federal pipeline safety regulators determined Keystone 1 was a hazard to public safety and issued TransCanada a corrective action order.
Why does industry claim there is so little risk? Who pays the cost of spills?
The oil industry is aware of the higher risk of spills from transporting dilbit and the higher cost of spill response, based on the Enbridge tar sands spill in Michigan. To minimize liability, industry lobbyists successfully argued that dilbit was not conventional oil and therefore exempt from the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund. Oil shippers pay into this fund, which is then used by the federal government for spill response. Now the shippers most likely to spill oil, those shipping diluted tar sands oil, do not pay into the fund. But the fund is still tapped for spill response. If the fund goes bankrupt, U.S. taxpayers would foot the bill -- on top of the annual $375 million subsidy for saving the oil and gas industry from paying into the fund in the first place.
What does the press need to do?
The government and industry are pushing the press away from these scenes with claims of safety concerns. Really? Are the media crews different from the workers or residents? The media could obtain and wear the same safety gear worn by the federal responders, if this is truly government's concern. The BP Gulf disaster set horrible precedent for media access -- and the media acquiesced instead of insisting upon, and fully exercising, their First Amendment rights. THE MEDIA IS NOT GETTING THE FULL STORY IF THEY ARE DENIED ACCESS TO THE SPILL SITE -- and neither are the American people.
The ExxonMobil tar sands oil spill is very inconvenient for government, Congress, and industry. The U.S. State Department is taking public comment for the Keystone XL Pipeline until April 22. There will be a huge push by industry and the government to shut down the true risks and costs of transporting tar sands oil as inconvenient truths. It is the media's job to accurately research and portray these risks to the public. In-depth research and reporting on the ExxonMobil tar sands spill in Arkansas would be a good start.
(This article is fully footnoted with citations on our website.)]]>Unfinished Business: The Unspoken Link Between Dispersants and Sick Children in the Gulf of Mexicotag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.22194932012-11-30T21:38:22-05:002013-01-30T05:12:01-05:00Riki Otthttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/riki-ott/
The Creppels live in Boothville, La., in south Plaquemines Parrish. Area health clinics and hospitals are experiencing an influx of sick children for treatment for a range of symptoms that began after the BP oil disaster. The increase in numbers of sick children coincides with the massive spraying of toxic chemical dispersants into the water and air that began in 2010. More troubling is the fact that the children are still having these symptoms to this day.
The Corexit dispersants used in the Gulf are known human health hazards, causing eye and skin irritation, respiratory problems, harm to liver, kidney, and blood cells, injury and even death to unborn babies, immune suppression, skin disorders, and more.
Not surprisingly, the symptoms Julie's children suffer are epidemic across the Gulf states that were impacted by the BP disaster -- and the secondary disaster, the widespread use of Nalco's Corexit dispersants. Most medical doctors in the Gulf have continuously treated the sick with standard drugs used for infections and viruses. Nasonex. Citirizine. DryMax. Azithromycin. Zofran. Cefdinir. Xopenex. Amoxicilin. Flovent. Suprax. Viravan-P. Albuterol. Cefixime. Ichitha ointment. Budesonide. And more.
Some of these are potent drugs that children should not be taking for long periods of time because of side effects, including, ironically, many of the very symptoms being treated. They are taking the drugs for months and now even years because the children (and adults) are not getting better. So the medical doctors prescribe more drugs, but the persistence of the symptoms belies the diagnoses.
This child suffers from frequent spontaneous nose bleeds, a symptom consistent with chemical exposure. (photo courtesy Kindra Arnesen.)
The same child also experiences unexplained hair loss. (photo courtesy Kindra Arnesen.)
It should be clear to the medical community by now that they are misdiagnosing the illness and mistreating the patient. I believe the children are suffering from chemical illness, not from biological agents. This should have been clear back in 2010 after the first six to eight rounds of antibiotics and medication prescribed for babies, elders, coastal residents, visitors, and spill responders didn't clear the symptoms. It should have been clear two years after the disaster in March 2012 when BP completely reversed its position of denial of any harm to human health from oil-dispersant exposure and listed pages of same symptoms and illnesses that people had been reporting for two years as now covered by the BP medical benefits settlement (Exhibit 8) -- so-called, I can only suppose, because it mostly benefits BP, but that's another story.
The problem is the illnesses -- like BP's oil -- just don't "go away" because it's an inconvenience for oil companies and the federal government in charge of an impossible situation: There is no way to clean up oil spills, including tar sands spills. But there are many ways to lessen the impacts to workers and the public, none of which have been done to date in the Gulf.
Plenty has been done to lessen the liability and financial impacts to BP and the other companies involved in this tragedy. The most recent injustice was when U.S. District Judge Barbier dismissed Nalco from lawsuits over health problems stemming from use of its products. Barbier shielded Nalco from liability because, he reasoned, the dispersants had been approved by the federal government, and in most cases pre-approved by the Gulf states for use during spill response. The judge also was noted that a lawsuit might have a "chilling" effect on future use of these same dispersants in oil spill response -- exactly the opposite effect desired by the federal government and the oil industry.
The two main dispersants stockpiled in the United States for use on future spills are Corexit 9500 and Corexit 9527A -- the same dispersants that were known to be harmful to ecosystems and humans before the BP disaster, and that proved to be so after the disaster. These two dispersants are stockpiled in coastal communities around the contiguous United States and in Alaska and Hawaii. Most are owned either by the U.S. Coast Guard regional strike teams or the major national Oil Spill Response Organizations.
The federal government shields itself from any liability for use of these and other dangerous oil spill response products. Even worse, the federal government now considers human health an acceptable "risk tradeoff" for dispersant use. The March 2012 Dispersant Use Initiative, a document intended to guide and plan research needs and decision-making in future spills, states that key needs include, among others, "understanding risk to workers and public safety, and communicating the risk successfully, and understanding the trade offs of using dispersants with respect to human health" (emphasis added).
In other words, what happened in the Gulf of Mexico could happen to anyone who lives or works near, or recreates, or visits America's coasts. Many of the same chemicals in dispersants are also ingredients in diluents for tar sands and drilling fluids for hydraulic fracturing and manufactured by -- guess who -- Nalco. We need to stick together on this one, or all get sick together. Making it right in the Gulf is up to all of us before the next marine oil disaster.
Here are some suggestions for how YOU can help make it right in the Gulf.
2. Find out what dispersants or products are stockpiled in your backyard for oil spill response. Start by contacting your State Emergency Response Commission (google State name + SERC). The SERC page will list all the Local Emergency Planning Committees. Contact an LEPC near you and ask for a complete list of oil spill response products, which they will have as required under the Community Right-to-Know Act. For coastal communities, I would be surprised if that list did not include the ubiquitous Corexit dispersants. Raise local support to have your municipality pass a rights-based resolution to ban toxic dispersants and chemicals during oil spill response within the city's jurisdiction. A resolution template is available at www.ultimatecivics.org.
3. Ask your congressional delegates to hold hearings to investigate the link between Corexit dispersants and public health, especially children's health, in the Gulf of Mexico. Ask your delegates to support banning Corexit dispersants used during the BP Gulf disaster, as human health "tradeoffs" cannot be justified.
I would like to personally appeal to Warren Buffet to fund community health clinics in the Gulf of Mexico. His stock trading company Berkshire Hathaway bought shares of Nalco in 2009 before the BP disaster as an investment on water filtration, which at the time was most of Nalco's business. Berkshire divested its Nalco holdings in late 2010 -- after Nalco made millions in dispersant sales. The idea for community health clinics originated within the impacted communities as a way of getting treatment for immediate needs, but it was cherry-picked by BP as the centerpiece of BP's medical benefits settlement. One clinic in particular in Jean Lafitte, La., was ready to open its door to clients in fall 2011 but the doors remain closed because the settlement is stalled in court. Opening that clinic, now and independent of BP controls embedded in the settlement, could be done with private donations to the Jean Lafitte Health Clinic.
Early into the BP disaster, I warned people about the short- and long-term consequences of exposure to oil and dispersants. Now those consequences are hitting home -- especially vulnerable are the children. Don't believe those BP ads. We need to all help make this right for real.
Riki Ott will be touring the Gulf of Mexico in February, helping communities organize at the grassroots level to ban toxic chemical dispersants. Persons interested in hosting a training should contact via her web site, www.RikiOtt.com.]]>"Making It Right" After BP Oil Disaster Is Up to Us - Not BPtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.14407042012-04-20T12:32:00-04:002012-06-20T05:12:02-04:00Riki Otthttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/riki-ott/Grand Isle, Louisiana. When I returned to Cordova, Alaska, in December 2010 after my first six-month stint in the Gulf coast communities impacted by the BP oil disaster, fishermen greeted me wryly. "See you found your way home."
Fishermen were interested in stories because even then, twenty-one years after the Exxon Valdez oil spill, there was still no sense of closure. Exxon never "made it right." How could Exxon "make right" family lives shattered by divorce, suicide, or strange illnesses stemming from the "cleanup" work? Or the sense of betrayal by the Supreme Court to hold Exxon to its promise to "pay all reasonable claims"?
As fishermen listened to the Gulf stories, one asked, "Do they know how f---ed they are yet?" No, I explained, they've only lost one fishing season and they just now are filing claims for the first deadline.
When I returned to the Gulf in early January 2011, I heard the same story from Louisiana to Florida. "Everything you warned us about is coming true." During the next four months, I witnessed "oil-sick" people from grandbabies to elders, people distraught from claims denied, shellfish fisheries collapsing, baby and adult dolphins dying in unusually high numbers, continued dispersant spraying, and the early stages of Gulf ecosystem collapse -- all while nationwide ads claimed BP is "making it right."
Two years after the BP oil disaster, I ask for people to help make it right -- in the Gulf and across the country. We have the power to stop BP and the federal government from doing more harm. It is time to exercise our power in our communities.
Stop the false ad campaign.
When you hear one of BP's "making it right" ads, call your local media station. Tell them to pull the greenwashing ads and get the real story. The Gulf is sick and so are its coastal residents. Money, even heaps of it, will never make it right. Airing the misleading ads only makes things worse, especially in the Gulf where people despise BP's bid to brainwash other Americans.
Stop spraying chemical dispersants.
Chemical dispersants are the oil industry's preferred method of marine spill response in the United States. Dispersants drive the oil out of sight, out of mind, while dispersant production companies like Nalco profit handsomely and the spiller writes off the expense as a cost of doing business. Big oil companies often make their own dispersants -- and profits from sales -- but hide connections through subsidiaries. Small wonder that spillers prefer dispersants.
The problem with dispersants is exactly what is occurring in the Gulf. The federal government uses outdated and minimal testing procedures for dispersants, which hugely underestimate the chemicals' impacts to marine -- and human -- life. Some of the reported chemicals in dispersants are known human health hazards; many of the proprietary chemicals are as well as we learned from Gulf disclosures. Dispersants are now linked, or heavily implicated, with the widespread occurrences of lesions and maladies in fish and shellfish, dolphin deaths, and dramatic decline in populations of some Gulf species such as shrimps and killifish.
Yet people have a say in dispersant use. For example, dispersants were sprayed in the Gulf in coastal seas and nearshore areas in direct contradiction to reports from the US Coast Guard and EPA because the coastal states have signed pre-approval letters to allow dispersant use anywhere, anytime. But people in coastal communities of America could pass local ordinances banning dispersant use in state waters after marine oil spills; people could make sure their state had a signed no-approval letter as part of their Regional Response Team's spill contingency plan. Changing the National Contingency Plan would take more effort, so let's start locally by banning these deadly chemicals in our coastal seas.
Stop pretending that people in the Gulf coastal communities aren't "oil-sick" and that BP isn't responsible and liable.
It's not only the dolphins that are sick and dying. For two years, BP and the state and federal governments denied the epidemic of respiratory problems, dizziness and headaches, horrific skin lesions, and blood problems was linked with the oil and chemical disaster -- despite the fact that medical literature identifies these identical symptoms as characteristic of oil spill exposure. Now under the BP-Plaintiffs' Settlement, BP has agreed to pay literally billions of dollars for medical claims, medical monitoring for twenty-one years, medical services, and community health clinics for underserved populations staffed with specialists in chemical illness treatment -- but with no admission of liability.
Get educated and educate others about what is happening in the Gulf. Tell your local film festivals to screen the award-winning Gulf documentary, Dirty Energy, in which local residents talk about being "oil-sick." Many of the same chemicals in dispersants are in drilling muds, used in both onshore and offshore oil drilling, and in injection fluids, used in hydraulic fracturing ("fracking") in drilling for natural gas. Not surprisingly, the "oil-sick" symptoms are not limited to the Gulf.
Stop pretending that people in other oil sacrifice communities aren't "oil-sick" and that the oil companies aren't responsible and liable.
Independent films such as Gas Land and Split Estate are amplifying voices of residents from shale gas sites who are suing over fracking side-effects including earthquakes, exploding tap water, and mysterious debilitating illnesses. In Pennsylvania, residents are forced to sign non-disclosure agreements that prevent them from speaking about their contaminated well water in trade for a supply of clean fresh water from the very companies that caused the problem -- while the same companies then claim there is no documented evidence of well contamination.
Independent filmmakers and videographers have amplified the voices of people sickened from the tars sands drilling operations in Alberta, Canada, and the 2010 tar sands oil spill in Battle Creek, Michigan. Already eleven people have died in one small trailer court near the Kalamazoo River from illnesses that they and their doctors believe were triggered or worsened by the tar sands that flowed past their homes and soiled the river banks.
Start taking responsibility for what is happening in your backyard.
The oil companies are polluting our air, poisoning our drinking water and land, poisoning people and communities across the country, collapsing ocean ecosystems from Alaska's Prince William Sound to the Gulf of Mexico, and even altering our climate in pursuit of profit, while leaving people and communities with the costs. The federal government clearly has no exit strategy off fossil fuels, so is beholden to -- actually partnered with -- this industry. When the industry and its supporters chant drill, baby, drill, politicians enable oil activities and help maximize profit by drilling loopholes and exemptions into the very laws and regulations designed to protect public health, worker safety, and the environment.
It is the ordinary people, not the bureaucrats and oil cats, who have the power to alter our collective future -- and make it right for everyone. We all matter.
We start with town meetings to recognize what we value collectively in our community, determine a shared vision, then prioritize the actions to achieve that vision. We move our money and resources to encourage businesses that match our values. Towns across America are doing this now as people strive to become more self-reliant from the corporate-driven government policies that disconnect our jobs from what we love and value.
We need to insist on energy sources that do not create, then sacrifice, communities. We need an energy policy that leaves no Americans behind -- not in the mountains of Appalachia, not in the Gulf of Mexico or along the North Slope of Alaska, not in the western Rockies or over the eastern Marcellus shale deposits, not in northern tar sands oil pits or pipeline corridors, not on foreign soil in wars over oil.
Making it right in the Gulf starts with diversifying our energy portfolio in our own backyards. A federal energy policy for the sake of energy alone will "make it wrong" for many people because all jobs not created equal. Jobs that simultaneously support healthy people, thriving communities, and environmental quality are worth more than jobs that pollute and poison the biosphere for profit.
What government of, for, and by the people puts corporate profit above the wellbeing of millions of people and the very survival of the youngest generations? Governments are instituted to secure the safety, health, and wellbeing of the people. Laws and policies that fail to safeguard these rights and protect the environment are illegitimate and unjust in a democratic society. Writing laws to protect our backyards starts in our backyards with local ordinances. The community-based movement builds to constitutional reform to assert that only real humans are sovereign and entitled to human rights.
The transformation starts when we believe that we have the power to act. When enough of us prove another way is possible and demand change, the politicians will have no choice but to follow the people's lead and make things right in America.
Riki Ott is a co-founder of Ultimate Civics, a project of Earth Island Institute. Her latest book is Not One Drop (Chelsea Green) and an original essay, "They have no ears," will appear in Arctic Voices (Seven Stories Press, May).]]>Lots of Inconvenient Truths -- Chemical Illness Epidemic in the Wake of the BP Blowouttag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.8735822011-06-08T19:59:52-04:002011-08-08T05:12:01-04:00Riki Otthttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/riki-ott/Gulf Coast Claims Facility to "make it right" for people harmed by the British Petroleum oil blowout disaster, told a Louisiana House and Senate committee that he had not seen any claims, or any scientific evidence, linking BP's oil and dispersant release to chemical illnesses. Feinberg also stated that chemical illnesses take years to show up -- conveniently well after his tenure with the compensation fund.
Instead of tossing the media a juicy bone, Feinberg tossed a red herring. He is wrong at worst, or intentionally misleading at best, on all points.
The GCCF process makes it difficult for people to be compensated for medical claims or even raise illness claims, while making it easy to release claims and rights to future medical care and benefits for chemical illnesses or other medically-proven illness related to the BP blowout and disaster response.
In fact the GCCF process is so blatantly egregious in terms of protecting corporate liability at the expense of human rights and health that a bill was introduced in the Louisiana state legislature, specifically targeting the BP oil disaster, to declare such "contractual releases are invalid as against public policy" and the release of claims to future medical care and related benefits null and void. In Louisiana. BP lobbyists are reportedly out in force, trying to gut the legislation.
Further, the pro-industry bias in the GCCF process turned thousands of people away. Over 130,000-plus claimants have filed lawsuits, now consolidated in Louisiana federal court under Judge Carl Barbier. According to one of the law firms involved, many of these claimants have indicated concerns about health and desire medical monitoring.
Feinberg's downplay of chemical illnesses and other medical issues stemming from the BP oil disaster -- with full knowledge of the parallel court proceedings -- shows that he and his boss, BP, have no intention of "making it right" for people in the Gulf.
"Not recognizing that there is a problem -- that's the problem," said Joey Yerkes, a former Florida cast net fisherman who became sick from chemical exposure while doing cleanup work during summer 2010. He filed a medical illness claim for compensation through the GCCF in early 2011 despite the obstacles. He had to file all his paperwork for medical claims twice because the GCCF employees could not find his initial paperwork. Joey undertook a rigorous treatment under medical care to detoxify his body -- but he exhausted his finances before completing treatment. Now he is forced to wait for the BP-controlled GCCF to pay, while his health steadily deteriorates. It's all he can do, he says, "just to chase my 2-year-old daughter around the park when we play."
Unlike Joey Yerkes, Monette Wynne has not filed medical claims through the GCCF. Her entire family -- herself, husband, 4-year-old twins, and 6-year-old child -- all tested positive for oil in their blood after spending last summer in their seaside home in Santa Rosa Beach, Florida. Wynne was so upset about her sick family that she and her husband drove to Atlanta, Georgia, and presented the family's test results to seven toxicologists with the federal agency, Center for Disease Control.
"We were told the levels of oil were of no concern," Wynne said. The federal scientists told them their levels of oil in blood were typical of urban dwellers who breathe traffic exhaust. Wynne didn't believe it -- her family's blood work shows they have more oil in their blood than most people, and her family is all sick with symptoms like those of Joey Yerkes -- symptoms that became widespread in Gulf communities during summer 2010; symptoms that are not going away. Wynne is considering borrowing money to treat her family. She and her husband had exhausted their savings to buy their dream home, a home that is now for sale.
Unfortunately for Joey Yerkes and the Wynne family -- and the legions of other Gulf residents and visitors with similar medical issues from summer 2010, British Petroleum is the "responsible party" for its disaster, but BP is actually responsible, by law, to its shareholders, not the injured people in the Gulf. This inherent conflict of interest means Feinberg is nothing more than a well-paid sock puppet for BP. He can be expected to act to minimize liability and financial damages for the "responsible party" by covering up the chemical illness epidemic in the Gulf.
Similarly, the federal government is also in denial about the horrific-and-federally-sanctioned poisoning of the Gulf people and wildlife, despite prior and post knowledge of the extent of contamination and the health impacts of oil and chemicals used to drill or disperse oil.
As Joey pointed out, denial of the problem is the problem. At the root of the issue of oil and chemical poisoning in the Gulf and elsewhere in America lies the problem of corporate constitutional rights -- transnational corporations claiming human rights. The challenge for all Americans is to reclaim our democracy and end corporate rule.
Activist and author Riki Ott is attending the Democracy Convention in Madison, Wisconsin, August 24-28, hosted by the grassroots coalition MoveToAmend. To learn more about what happened in the Gulf, and people and communities are doing to reclaim democracy and end corporate rule, visit www.changingtheendgame.org.
]]>Will the Government Let BP Reduce Its Fines and Penalties for Deepwater?tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.8384522011-03-21T15:17:57-04:002011-05-25T18:40:24-04:00Riki Otthttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/riki-ott/
BP and its contractors face as much as $30 billion in criminal fines and $21 billion in civil penalties for its disaster. Yet there is already talk among observers that the fines negotiated between BP and the government will be much lower than the maximum fines and penalties because BP agreed to pay billions of dollars for damage claims and has already paid billions of dollars for the disaster response.
There is already precedent that the federal government is willing to forgive and forget oil spill fines and penalties. This week also happens to be the 22-year memorial of the Exxon Valdez oil spill, which had the dubious distinction of being North America's largest environmental disaster until BP's deepwater blowout offshore of Louisiana.
Some two-plus years after Exxon's tanker wreck in Alaska, a U.S. District Court approved the negotiated settlement among the federal and state governments and Exxon. Under the Criminal Plea Agreement, Exxon was fined $150 million -- and forgiven $125 million in recognition of Exxon's good corporate behavior in responding to its spill.
Good corporate behavior? Oil companies are obligated by law to contain and cleanup spills as part of their operating permits and contingency plans approved by state and federal officials. People expect the government to hold oil companies accountable for promises traded for public trust and operating permits. If there is an "accident," people expect the company to clean up its mess -- whatever the cost -- as well as pay fines and penalties. Anything less is an abrogation of public trust and public duty.
I hesitate to use the word "accident" because neither the Exxon Valdez oil spill nor the BP disaster were accidents. Both were the predictable result of the oil industry's culture of gaming with laws and regulations to shave operating costs and increase profits. This is one big strike against "corporate good behavior."
Another huge strike is the remarkable lack of preparation to contain and control a catastrophic oil disaster. Simply put: in both the Gulf of Alaska and the Gulf of Mexico, the voluminous contingency plans that had been approved on paper didn't work in practice. Words are cheap and cleanup equipment is not, so the oil industry invested heavily in toxic chemical dispersants that conveniently sink oil -- out of sight, out of mind, and it scrimped and bought only the cheapest brands of booms, skimmers, and absorbent material -- and in nowhere near the quantity needed for a large mess.
It is also costly to provide adequate safety training and protective gear for people to recognize, and protect themselves from overexposure to oil and chemical hazards. So BP also scrimped on these costs -- even going so far as to threaten workers with job termination if they wore respirators. Given that in 2010, the health hazards of breathing oil and chemical solvents were well known and understood by the medical community and the oil industry, this strike against corporate good behavior should count as criminal negligence in my opinion.
Further, "cleanup" is not the correct word for what BP did to the Gulf. Dumping over two million gallons of toxic chemical dispersants on top of the oil -- and in coastal waters, while claiming no knowledge of what this would do to sea life, workers, coastal residents or visitors, only made a horrible situation even worse. The dispersants "dispersed" the oil into the sea and the air, making oil more available to wildlife and humans alike. Dispersants made it impossible to clean up the oil in the conventional sense of the word. Strike four.
Finally, BP underestimated spill volume, overstated effectiveness of its dispersants while understating human health and ecosystem impacts, downplayed health risks to front-line workers, especially those at the source, and ignored public health risk. BP continues to ignore what appears to be an epidemic of chemical illness among workers and coastal residents from western Florida to western Louisiana. Small wonder the federal investigators are conducting a criminal probe.
Throwing money around to cover up damages and minimize liability should not count as corporate good behavior. But, since it worked so well for Exxon, it should be no surprise that BP is trying the same ruse.
In Exxon's case, the remaining $25 million in criminal fines (after $125 million was forgiven) was paid to the North American Wetlands Conservation Fund and the national Victims of Crime Fund -- not one dime returned to help restore ecosystems or people impacted by Exxon's spill. Exxon paid an addition $100 million in criminal restitution, which was evenly divided between the state and federal governments and mostly spent on capital construction projects -- not on restoring injured people, communities, or ecosystems.
And, finally, under the civil settlement for natural resource damages under the Clean Water Act, Exxon paid $900 million over ten years. These funds were not inflation-proofed so the actual amount paid was about half of the initial penalty -- an amount that did not have a significant effect on Exxon's earnings or curtail any of its plans. About one-third of civil penalties were spent on ecosystem studies and restoration, while the rest went to capital construction projects, habitat acquisition, administration, and even reimbursing Exxon for its 1992 "cleanup" expenses. (Yes, you read that correctly.) Further, the civil settlement also provided for a $100 million clause to reopen the settlement in the advent of unanticipated long-term harm. However last month, ExxonMobil flat refused to pay additional funds for restoration, claiming the presence of lingering oil -- and lingering harm -- is "not hardly unexpected."
There's one more problem with reducing fines and penalties based on money spent for the disaster response. Exxon recovered at least half, and likely more, of its cash outlay for its spill response through tax write-offs, lawsuits with its insurance companies, and reimbursements. According to The Dallas Morning News, Exxon wrote off more than $2.8 billion for spill-related expenses (resulting in an estimated direct tax savings of $670 million), forced insurers to pick up about $1.2 billion of its cleanup expenses, and was reimbursed another $38 million from its civil penalties. BP will likely use exactly these means to recover its expenses, while at the same time trying to leverage the full amount it spent to reduce criminal fines and civil penalties. Strike six.
The bottom line is that if the American people want BP to be held fully accountable for its irresponsible behavior, then people and organizations should demand that the U.S. Justice Department charge British Petroleum with the maximum criminal fines and civil penalties under law. Otherwise, the governments are likely to forgive fines and forget damage, just like they did after the Exxon Valdez oil spill.
]]>BP's Promise Versus What BP Really Means: Some Insights on Making People Hole (Whole) and Just Us (Justice) in the Gulftag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/theblog//3.8123722011-01-21T16:02:12-05:002011-05-25T18:25:24-04:00Riki Otthttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/riki-ott/Santa Rosa Beach, Florida. When Louisiana fisherman Michelle Chauncy called the BP claim office (Kenneth Fineberg's Gulf Coast Claims Facility) last Friday to check on the status of her claim for Michelle's Crab Shack, the office couldn't find her claim. It had vanished.
Michelle had filed her claim in October along with bank statements and records to support the loss of her wholesale/retail crab business of eighteen years. BP/Fineberg denied her claim in November and, because it was under $250,000, she couldn't appeal.
According to BP/Fineberg's rules, the little claims that support thousands of little businesses across the Gulf are too bothersome to deal with; many are simply being dropped. The Fineberg claims process manifests BP's disregard of the "small people living in the Gulf," so-called by BP Chairman Carl-Henric Svanberg.
Michelle had appealed her claim anyway, because she had no other choice. After a night of stewing on her dilemma, she called the BP claim office again on Saturday as our car caravan prepared to move to Fort Walton to meet with the next group of community liaisons. Our small group was sharing information and coordinating efforts to deal BP's "Making It Right," or as it's known in the Gulf, "Making It Disappear" campaign.
Florida fisherman Kathy Birren's daughter, eight-year-old Mandy Birren, had tried to cheer the normally vivacious Michelle as we loaded the cars. Michelle apologized to the child, explaining that she was aggravated. "Everyone who talks to them gets aggravated," said Mandy, who had already seen and heard too much for being only eight.
Mandy's parents, Kathy and Ron, filed damage claims for their Hernando Beach Seafood business in November. BP/Fineberg denied their business claim and Ron's personal claim, but paid Kathy's claim, even though their personal claims were exactly identical. BP/Fineberg also denied the personal and business claims of Louisiana shrimp fishermen Tracy Kuhns, who was part of our caravan, and her husband. The blatant unfairness of the process, the helplessness of the situation, and the growing family debt, were sledgehammers of stress, pounding on both Tracy's and Kathy's marriages.
As a plaintiff in the Exxon Valdez case, I experienced first-hand this same treatment by Exxon and the U.S. "justice" system. For twenty years, Exxon, then ExxonMobil, used its billions to manipulate the legal system to ultimately deny justice for 22,000 claimants -- and thousands of others whose legitimate spill losses had been discarded on legal technicalities before trial. Instead of making us "whole," ExxonMobil had made us "hole," leaving a trail of broken marriages, suicides, lost livelihoods, foreclosures, bankruptcies, and insurmountable debt. In the process, ExxonMobil had saved its shareholders billions of dollars. Since the process had worked so well for ExxonMobil, BP was now repeating it -- including using a U.S. government-sanctioned process as cover for legitimacy.
During the drive to Fort Walton, I rode with Michelle to spare the children. Southern gentility has its limits. "You don't understand," Michelle firmly told the claims person. "I have been on my own since I was sixteen. I would gladly have worked for this money. You are forcing me to beg for a handout. I can't pay my bills. I am losing my home; I am losing my business; and I am about to lost my mind!"
An hour later, as we pulled into Fort Walton, a Fineberg supervisor informed Michelle that her claim had suddenly been found. When Michelle hung up, she looked at me. "I need a good drink," she said.
Instead, we joined the next gathering. There, as in other communities along our coastal route, people's concerns about their Fineberg claims, personal and family health issues, and seafood safety all tossed together in an unlikely mix. But the concerns all hinged on BP's massive release of oil and dispersants into the Gulf: People couldn't pay for medical expenses (many weren't even seeking treatment) because they had no money -- their BP claims had been denied or stalled; people couldn't afford to move out of harms way, even though they believed their families were suffering and ill from the dispersant use in coastal areas; and if dispersants were making people sick, what was it doing to seafood and why were fisheries opened?
It turns out that dispersants are not -- and never were -- explicitly banned within three miles of the coast or in less than ten meters of water (the "nearshore environment") as federal officials with the USCG, EPA, NOAA, and others staunchly maintained. The Coast Guard and states can approve dispersant use in the nearshore environment on a case-by-case basis across the Gulf if the incident commander decides the toxic chemicals were "expected to prevent or minimize substantial threat to the public health or welfare, or to mitigate or prevent environmental damage" -- a statement that appears in both of the official Regional Response Team dispersant policies. In fact, neither of the policies for Region IV (Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida) or Region VI (Louisiana) have any areas where dispersant use is expressly banned. Louisiana even has an expedited process for requests to spray dispersants in the nearshore environment.
Planes fly at night over beach-front homes, spraying chemicals that made Lorrie Williams and her child sick. Lorrie Williams, Davis Bayou, MS October 2010.
When it comes to oil, the Coast Guard's priority is to "remove it" -- not assess impacts on the ecosystem or human health. And they have tried to remove it -- from the open Gulf all the way to the coasts and bayous.
The Louisiana Bayoukeeper has requested that the State of Louisiana provide documentation of dispersant spraying and experimental release of bio-engineered bacteria in nearshore areas under the Freedom of Information Act. Organizations in Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida would be wise to do the same. This information is critical for understanding health and ecological impacts as well as economic harm.
BP's oil mixed with Corexit fluoresces bright orange at night under high-powered ultra-violet lights, revealing areas where beach sand is coated with the mixture that is invisible under daylight conditions. Photo by Rip Kirby.]]>Bio-Remediation or Bio-Hazard? Dispersants, Bacteria and Illness in the Gulftag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.7204612010-09-17T00:28:16-04:002011-05-25T17:40:20-04:00Riki Otthttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/riki-ott/Ocean Springs, MS -- A grandmother made me rethink all the bio-remediation hype. The "naturally-occurring oil-eating bacteria" have been newsworthy of late as they are supposedly going to come to the rescue of President Obama and BP and make good on their very premature statement that "the oil is gone."
We were talking about subsurface oil in the Gulf when she said matter-of-factly, "The bacteria are running amok with the dispersants." What? "Those oil-eating bacteria -- I think they're running amok and causing skin rashes." My mind reeled. Could we all have missed something so simple?
The idea was crazy but, in the context of the Gulf situation -- an outbreak of mysterious persistent rashes from southern Louisiana across to just north of Tampa, Florida, coincident with BP's oil and chemical release, it seemed suddenly worthy of investigating.
I first heard about the rash from Sheri Allen in Mobile, Alabama. Allen wrote of red welts and blisters on her legs after "splashing and wading on the shoreline" of Mobile Bay with her two dogs on May 8. She reported that "hundreds of dead fish" washed up on the same beach over the following two days. This was much too early for the summer sun to have warmed the water to the point of oxygen depletion, but not too early for dispersants and dispersed oil to be mixed into the Gulf's water mass. By early July, Allen's rash had healed, leaving black bruises and scarring.
A mysterious persistent skin rash has occurred across the Gulf, coincident with BP's release of oil and chemical dispersants. Mobile, Alabama, resident Sheri Allen was one of the first to report its occurrence in early May. (Photo: Sheri Allen)
Sheri Allen's rash had largely healed by July 2, leaving bruises and scarring, similar to other reports across the Gulf. (Photo: Sheri Allen)
Other people -- both residents and visitors to the Gulf Coast -- wrote of similar rashes or other skin problems like peeling palms. The rashes have been diagnosed as scabies and staph infections, including MRSA, the potentially lethal Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus bacteria. Most cases lingered for months, as the rash did not respond well to antibiotics, steroid creams, or steroid shots.
Medical doctors are diagnosing skin rashes on Gulf visitors and residents alike as scabies and staph infections, including MRSA (this photo, identity protected). The rashes resist prescribed treatments and often reoccur for months. (Photo permission: Riki Ott)
Normal looking scabies contrasts sharply with the Gulf cases. (Photo: provided by Nurse Ali Schmidt)
That should have been a clue that maybe the primary cause was not biological, but chemical. A secondary biological infection might clear up with antibiotic treatment, but then keep reoccurring because the primary chemical illness had not been treated.
Retired Registered Nurse Allison Schmidt agrees. Referring to Allen's case, she said, "I can say without hesitation that these skin rashes have nothing to do with scabies. Scabies is a parasite, which causes a skin infection and is extremely contagious. It spreads from person to person by direct skin contact or by wearing an article of clothing worn by an infected person." Schmidt said, "If this were scabies you would see entire families infected and NOT just a single family member."
Another clue to the real cause of the mystery rash is its prevalence across the entire oil-impacted Gulf. Something in the water or air, or both, could explain this. While public officials and BP claim that dispersant use was halted in May for Corexit 9527A and on July 19 for Corexit 9500A, evidence collected by Gulf residents has shown that dispersants are being used in nearshore and inland waters, close to highly populated areas across the Gulf. Further, oil and the Corexit marker have been found in air and inland water.
Despite denial by public officials and BP, evidence mounts of continued dispersant use in inland and nearshore waters near populated areas across the Gulf. Private contractor in Carolina Skiff with tank of Corexit dispersant, August 10, south of Pass Christian Harbor, Mississippi, 9:30 AM. (Photo: Don Tillman)
I have heard from Gulf residents and visitors who developed a rash or peeling palms from contact with Gulf water, including such activities as swimming or wading, getting splashed, handling oiled material or dead animals without gloves, and shucking crabs from the recently opened Gulf fisheries. I have also heard from people who developed the same symptoms after contact with Gulf air by wiping an oily film off their airplane's leading edges after flying over the Gulf (absorbent pad tested positive for oil) or swimming in outdoor pools, or splashing in puddles, after it rained.
Outraged by the unprecedented release of oil and toxic chemicals in the Gulf, Nurse Schmidt and Mike McDowell developed a project to test Gulf rainwater for harmful chemicals. Schmidt said, "We are convinced the chemicals used in the Gulf to help disperse oil have evaporated and will eventually come down mixed with the rain."
Another clue, more like a condemnation, is that NOAA and EPA decided to use dispersants in the Gulf without considering what harm the chemicals and dispersed oil might do to people, specifically, the general public. Dr. Sylvia Earle, former chief scientist of NOAA, and other scientists, criticized the agencies' decision, in part, based on concern about harm to human health. Other scientists have also criticized the agencies' decision. Citing the National Academy of Sciences, a Texas Tech University professor testified in Congress that the chemicals break down cell walls, making organisms (including people) more susceptible to oil. The professor called the Gulf an "eco-toxicological experiment," which is inexcusable, because OSHA has known about harm from solvent exposure since at least 1987. Don't these federal agencies talk amongst themselves -- or with others?
Which all brings me back to the grandmother. After talking with her, I've been reading about bacteria, and I now think the Great Gulf Experiment is going very badly for humans. One can only wonder about the rest of the ecosystem.
There are two distinct types of bacteria based on the structure of their cell walls. Gram-positive bacteria have a single-membrane cell wall, while Gram-negative bacteria have a double-membrane cell wall. Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) bacteria are "Gram-positive," while the oil-eating bacteria are Gram-negative.
But! A component of the double-membrane cell wall structure of Gram-negative bacteria can irritate human skin, causing inflammation and activating the immune system. In other words, oil-eating bacteria, just because they are Gram-negative, can cause skin rashes. In the case of Alcanivorax borkumensis, the reaction can erupt on the skin like MRSA infections.
To make things a little scarier, some of the oil-eating bacteria have been genetically modified, or otherwise bioengineered, to better eat the oil -- including Alcanivorax borkumensis and some of the Pseudomonas. Oil-eating bacteria produce bio-films. According to Nurse Schmidt, studies have found that bio-films are rapidly colonized (p. 97) by other Gram-negative bacteria -- including those known to infect humans.
Scientists anticipated early on that the Gulf leak would cause populations of oil-eating bacteria to soar. Still, infections are not likely in healthy people. However, exposure to oil weakens a person's immune system function, as does the mental stress of dealing with disaster trauma. And then there are people who are more at risk than others to bacterial infections, especially when first challenged with oil and solvent exposure. This includes children, people with cystic fibrosis or asthma, and African Americans (who are prone to blood disorders), to name a few.
Is this the perfect storm -- an exploding population of opportunistic Gram-negative bacteria (some natural, some not), millions of gallons of food (oil) for the bacteria, and a susceptible population of stressed-out people?
Perhaps. If the outbreak of skin rashes across the Gulf is any indication, the health care providers, media, and Congress ought to be taking a hard look at this question. Further, people ought to be connecting the dots to illnesses that surfaced in Exxon Valdez spill responders and to the illnesses occurring now in Michigan residents coping with the Enbridge oil pipeline spill.
In the Gulf, Nurse Schmidt believes:
This is like a major bacterial storm. It could be the reason we are seeing a variance of symptoms in different individuals. In some people, we see respiratory complications, while in others we see skin or GI symptoms. I think it is due to a multitude of colonized bacteria -- which may have been triggered by BP's disaster.
The nurse and I think the grandmother is onto something.]]>An Open Letter to US EPA, Region 6tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.6973762010-08-27T15:27:16-04:002011-05-25T17:30:22-04:00Riki Otthttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/riki-ott/Sam Coleman
U.S. EPA, Region 6
1445 Ross Ave.
Dallas, TX 75202-2733 Via email: coleman.sam@epa.gov
August 27, 2010
Re: Documentation of continued dispersant spraying in near shore and inland waters from Florida to Louisiana (despite contrary claims by USCG and BP) and documentation that dispersants made oil sink
Dear Mr. Coleman,
During the August 25 Dockside Chat in Jean Lafitte, LA, it came to our attention that the federal agencies were unaware -- or lacking proof -- of the continued spraying of dispersants from Louisiana to Florida. Further, the federal agencies were woefully ignorant of the presence of subsurface oil-dispersant plumes and sunken oil on ocean and estuary water bottoms. We offer evidence to support our statements, including a recently declassified subsurface assessment plan from the Incident Command Post.
But first, you mentioned that such activities (continued spraying of dispersants and sinking oil) -- if proven -- would be "illegal." As you stated, sinking agents are not allowed in oil spill response under the National Contingency Plan Subpart J §300.910 (e): "Sinking agents shall not be authorized for application to oil discharges."
We would like to know under what laws (not regulations) such activities are illegal and what federal agency or entity has the authority to hold BP accountable, if indeed, such activity is illegal. It is not clear that the EPA has this authority.
For example, on May 19, the EPA told BP that it had 24 hours to choose a less toxic form of chemical dispersants and must apply the new form of dispersants within 72 hours of submitting the list of alternatives. Spraying of the Corexit dispersants continued unabated. On May 26, the EPA and Coast Guard told BP to eliminate the use of surface dispersants except in rare cases where there may have to be an exemption and to reduce use of dispersants by 75 percent. Yet in a letter dated July 30, the congressional Subcommittee on Energy and the Environment reported the USCG on-scene commander (OSC) had approved 74 exemption requests to spray dispersants between May 28 and July 14.
Under the National Contingency Plan Subpart J, the authorization of use §300.910 (d) gives the OSC the final authority on dispersant use: "The OSC may authorize the use of any dispersant... without obtaining the concurrence of he EPA representative... when, in the judgment of the OSC, the use of the product is necessary to prevent or substantially reduce a hazard to human life."
Given this history of events and the NCP regulation, we would like to know what federal entity actually has the final authority to: order BP to stop spraying of dispersant; declare that spraying of dispersant after issuance of a cease and desist order is illegal; and prosecute BP for using product to sink oil.
The documentation of dispersant spraying in nearshore and inland waters includes:
√ claims by USCG and BP
√ eyewitness accounts
√ fish kills in areas of eyewitness accounts
√ photos of white foam bubbles and dispersant on boat docks in areas of eyewitness accounts
√ sick people in areas of eyewitness accounts
Claims by USCG and BP - and Counter Evidence
July 30-31: Lt. Cmdr. of USCG confirms, "Dispersants are only being used over the wellhead in Louisiana."
When reached for comment, Lt. Cmdr. Dale Vogelsang, liaison officer with the United State Coast Guard, told The (Destin) Log he had contacted Unified Command and they had "confirmed" that dispersants were not being used in Florida waters.
"Dispersants are only being used over the wellhead in Louisiana," Vogelsang said. "We are working with Eglin and Hurlburt to confirm what the flight pattern may be. But right now, it appears to be a normal flight."
Vogelsang also said Unified Command confirmed to him that C-130s have never been used to distribute dispersants, as they "typically use smaller aircraft."
Contradicted by evidence in same Destin The Log article and posted on websites:
But according to an article by the 910th Airlift Wing Public Affairs Office, based in Youngstown, OH., C-130H Hercules aircraft started aerial spray operations Saturday, May 1, under the direction of the president of the United States and Secretary of Defense. "The objective of the aerial spray operation is to neutralize the oil spill with oil dispersing agents," the article states.
A Lockheed Martin July newsletter states that "Lockheed Martin aircraft, including C-130s and P-3s, have been deployed to the Gulf region by the Air Force, Coast Guard and other government customers to perform a variety of tasks, such as monitoring, mapping and dispersant spraying."
Further: "Throughout the effort, Lockheed Martin employees have been recognized for their contributions in a wide range of roles. IS&GS senior network engineer Lawrence Walker, for example, developed a solution to a critical networking issue involving two C-130's that arrived from the Air Force Reserve Command's 910th Airlift Wing at Youngstown, Ohio, as part of the cleanup mission."
May 11: USCG and BP claims of no dispersant spraying activities are further contradicted by intentional mislabeling of flight plans:
Aerial dispersant operations - Houma Status Report, Dispersant Application Guidance, p. 4, point 8: "Use discreet IFF codes as provided on separate correspondence. This removes need to file DVFR flight plans."
Destin - Fort Walton, FL
July 30-31: Destin Mayor Sam Seevers investigating claims of dispersant spraying:
Resident and former VOO worker Joe Yerkes testified that he witnessed a military C-130 "flying from the north to the south, dropping to low levels of elevation then obviously spraying or releasing an unknown substance from the rear of the plane."
The unknown substance, Yerkes wrote, "was not smoke, for the residue fell to the water, where smoke would have lingered."
Austin Norwood, whose boat is contracted by Florida Fish and Wildlife, also provided a written account of a "strange incident."
While Norwood was observing wildlife offshore, he had received a call from his site supervisor at Joe's Bayou. After telling the supervisor that he and his crewmember were not feeling well, the supervisor had the two men come in "to get checked out because a plane had been reported in our area spraying a substance on the water about 10- 20 minutes before."
Norwoord complained of a bad headache, nasal congestion while his crewmember said he had a metallic taste in his mouth.
After filling out an incident report, both Norwood and his crewmember were directed to go to the hospital. The following day, the two men were once again "asked to go to the hospital for blood tests."
Aug. 2: Joe Yerkes reported sludgy brown oil and foamy white dispersant bubbles in Destin and 40 miles east in St. Joe Bay, just days before a fish kill of croaker, flounder, trout, and baitfish on August 5.
Perdido Pass, AL
Aug. 24: Received report of oil debris from anchor chain while weighing anchor at position 30*15.6 N 87*32.7 W, 0.6 nm east of Perdido Pass sea buoy. Samples taken.
Dauphin Island, AL
Aug. 21: Fisherman Chris Bryant documents Corexit 9500 use
Bob Naman is the analytical chemist who performed the tests featured in WKRG's broadcast. He was interviewed by or an August 24 report. Highlights include:
Naman found 2-butoxyethanol in the Cotton Bayou sample. [Ingredient in 'discontinued' Corexit 9527.]
Naman said found no propylene glycol, the main ingredient of Corexit 9500.
Naman said he went to Dauphin Island, Alabama last night and while there observed many 250-500 gallon barrels which were labeled Corexit 9527. Naman took pictures that he will soon be sharing.
Naman said he saw men applying the Corexit 9527 while he was in Dauphin Island and also in Bayou La Batre, Alabama.
Naman said the Corexit 9527 is being haphazardly sprayed at night and is impacting beach sands in a highly concentrated form.
Bayou La Batre, AL
Aug. 4: Fisherman Chris Byrant documents oil-dispersant in Mississippi Sound, northwest of Katrina Cut, in an area open to fishing in state waters between Dauphin Island and Bayou La Batre
Aug. 19, Aug. 21: Rocky Kistner with NRDC documents use of Corexit 9527a and Corexit 9500 and oil-dispersant visible sheen in area open to fishing in state waters
Aug. 23: Natural Resources Defense Council Switchboard posting
We spotted huge plastic containers marked with Corexit warning labels on the dock public docks near Bayou La Batre. ...
The next day at a town hall meeting in Buras, LA, BP Mobile Incident Commander Keith Seilhan was asked about the use of chemical dispersants. "We are not using dispersants and haven't been for some time," he said.
But when asked whether contractors who operate in state waters could be, he said he could not be certain. "We have lots of contractors, but no one should be using them. If they are, we need to know about it and stop it."
Long Beach, MS
Aug. 8: Fisherman James "Catfish" Miller sampled the subsurface oil plume (VIDEO)
Miller tied an oil absorbent pad onto a pole and lowered it 8-12 feet down into deceptively clear ocean water. When he pulled it up, the pad was soaked in oil, much to the startled amazement of his guests, including Dr. Timothy Davis with the Department of Health and Human Services National Disaster Medical System. Repeated samples produced the same result. Three weeks earlier, there had been a massive fish kill along the same shoreline from Gulfport to Pass Christian.
Aug. 23: The methods for sampling subsurface oil used by Mr. Miller are also being used by Incident Command for the Deepwater Horizon as evidenced in a declassified document (p. 3).
Hancock County, MS
Aug. 23: Dispersant container found in Bayou Caddy Hancock County marsh. White foam indicative of dispersant use in marsh. Samples taken and being analyzed.
Venice, LA
Aug. 11 (reported): Contractor sick from dispersant spraying
Summary: Based on these documents, and more, we believe that dispersant spraying in inland and near shore waters across the Gulf of Mexico from Louisiana to the western Florida panhandle is occurring now and has continued unabated (before) and since July 19, the date that the seafood safety panel proclaimed was the last day dispersants were sprayed. Based on these documents, and more, we believe that the dispersant spraying in inland and near shore waters is being conducted for the sole purpose of sinking the visible oil, an activity that is supposedly illegal. According to the University of South Florida, dispersed oil micro-droplets have been documented throughout the Gulf water column and are likely to affect the entire ecosystem.
The inability of the federal and state agents who attended the Dockside Chat in Jean Lafitte, LA, on Aug. 25 to find recent subsurface oil and ocean bottom oil or dispersant spraying activity in inland or near shore waters gives us zero confidence in these same agencies' declaration that they can find no oil or dispersant in Gulf seafood product.
Sincerely,
Riki Ott, PhD
Ultimate Civics Project
Earth Island Institute
POB 1460
Cordova, AK 99574
970-903-6818
www.RikiOtt.com
]]>Seafood Safety and Politics Don't Mix: Opening of Gulf Fisheries at Odds With Evidence of Harmtag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.6788132010-08-11T17:55:02-04:002011-05-25T17:20:22-04:00Riki Otthttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/riki-ott/
Brashears spent 65 days spotting oil in Lake Ponchartrain; Mobile Bay; and along the coast off Destin, Florida; Ocean Springs, Alabama; and Cat Island, Mississippi. His team reported oil sightings during the day. At night, planes sprayed dispersant to break up the oil.
The fish are not the only thing that haunts him from his Gulf work. His lungs feel "leaden," he has trouble concentrating on his graphic designs that used to give him so much pleasure, his moods swing unpredictably, he is dizzy, and the fragrance in ordinary household products makes his eyes water and sinuses stuffy.
"You would think," Brashears said over the phone, "that they [his subcontractor] would not send us out the next day if they knew the dispersants would make us sick. You would think they would warn us or give us a day off."
But Brashears received no such warning. Nor did other people across the Gulf as BP applied at least 1.8 million gallons of dispersants to the oil it spilled there. Even though the number of gallons reported by BP is widely questioned as conservative, this is still by far the longest and heaviest application of dispersant in world history. Yet neither workers nor the public were, or are, being adequately informed of the risk of exposure to oil and dispersants.
I have been in the Gulf since May 3 and have witnessed the outbreak of a public-health epidemic as the oil and dispersant came ashore. Every day now, former workers, Gulf coast residents, and visitors share similar stories with me of respiratory problems, central nervous system problems, chemical sensitivities, or bad skin rashes after exposure to air or water in the Gulf -- predictable illnesses from chemical exposure, all of which were avoidable given adequate warning and protection.
Stories of illnesses persist despite assurances from four federal agencies -- the Environmental Protection Agency, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, and the U.S. Coast Guard -- that no levels of oil or dispersant measured in Gulf water or air were found to be unsafe.
But government officials have no credibility in communities across the Gulf because the official story does not match the reality of what people are seeing and smelling. The community stories that string together across the Gulf coast paint a picture quite different from what BP, its contractors, and our government report.
A week ago, a team dispatched by local officials with Plaquemines Parish, Louisiana, discovered a beach on a barrier island oozed oil from tiny holes drilled by Hermit crabs. Oil trapped in fragile marshes degrades slowly. It's been more than 40 years since the Florida barge ran aground in Buzzards Bay, Massachusetts, and spilled 200,000 gallons of fuel oil. Yet the oil is still there -- and still has measurable effects on marsh life.
Off Long Beach, Mississippi, on August 8, fisherman James "Catfish" Miller tied an oil absorbent pad onto a pole and lowered it 8-12 feet down into deceptively clear ocean water. When he pulled it up, the pad was soaked in oil, much to the startled amazement of his guests, including Dr. Timothy Davis with the Department of Health and Human Services National Disaster Medical System. Repeated samples produced the same result. Three weeks earlier, there had been a massive fish kill along the same shoreline from Gulfport to Pass Christian.
Also this past weekend on a beach near Dauphin Island, Alabama, a family was alarmed to find themselves covered in thick gooey oil after swimming in what looked to be clear water.
In Florida, Joe Yerkes reported sludgy brown oil and foamy white dispersant bubbles in Destin and 40 miles east in St. Joe Bay, just days before a fish kill of croaker, flounder, trout, and baitfish on August 5.
Sludgy brown oil-dispersant concentrated by rip current in Destin Bay, Florida. August 5, 2010. Permission: Joe Yerkes.
Oil plume and telltale dispersant bubbles in St. Joe Bay, Florida, offer one explanation for fish kill on August 5, 2010. Permission: Joe Yerkes.
Let's think about this. There's been an unprecedented release of oil and dispersants -- industrial grade solvents -- into the Gulf. Unprecedented means we have no past history to fall back on and really no science to guide us because it's an ongoing experiment, right now.
The old science, the old standards, and the old protocols may be dangerously unreliable -- as was the case in the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Scientists relied on old science in 1989 and predicted that spill impacts would be short-term and the ecosystem would recover rapidly. Ten years later, the new science proved there were long-term impacts; 21 years later, the oiled ecosystem still has not fully recovered.
To borrow Brashears' phrase, you would think the federal government would warn us if it thought there was -- or even might be -- a problem. But the framework of risk management is very narrow and limits itself to educated best guesses among the experts -- until proven otherwise.
And therein lies the current danger of this evolving Gulf experiment. The federal government is re-opening vast areas of the Gulf that were closed to fishing because it has "not observed any oil" in these areas and because the "rigorous safety standards" will supposedly "ensure the seafood is safe."
The problem is the 'rigorous safety standards' are outdated. The protocol relies on visual oil. What of the underwater plumes? The chart produced by NOAA last week shows, in effect, that over 50 percent of the oil (not to mention dispersant) is still in the water column as dispersed or dissolved oil. Scientists have found that the oil-dispersant mixture is getting into the foodweb.
The Food and Drug Administration only tests for oil in "edible" tissue of seafood. So if oil has contaminated a fish's organs or other body parts, it would still be deemed safe for consumption if the flesh tested fine. If a steer had cancer in its kidney and blood, would you eat its "edible" tissue? To make matters worse, though, there is no test for dispersants -- yet.
The new Coalition of Commercial Fishing Families across the Gulf is urging the federal government to use precaution rather than 30-year old standards. The coalition has asked NOAA to close all Gulf fisheries until updated protocol and standards are available to test seafood product. Fishermen are also concerned about losing consumer confidence. Kathy Birren, a commercial fisherman from Hernando Beach, Florida, stated at a Gulf of Mexico Alliance conference last week in Gulfport, "We believe that Gulf and Inland waters have been prematurely re-opened to fishing. Fishermen do not want to lose our credibility or deliver contaminated seafood to market. We have lost enough already."
BP has already stated that it is "not responsible" for any long-term effects from its dispersant experiment. Unless American seafood consumers want to be part of the Gulf experiment, I suggest we all support our fishermen -- and not trust the federal government to warn us about seafood safety.]]>Oilgate! BP and All the President's Men (Except One) Seek to Contain Truth of Leak in the Gulf (PHOTOS)(VIDEO)tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.6677092010-08-02T15:49:49-04:002011-05-25T17:15:21-04:00Riki Otthttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/riki-ott/Barataria, LA. -- Bonnie Schumaker slowed her souped-up Cessna 180 from 130 to 50 knots so I could hold open the window for documentary film producer Bo Bodart to shoot the grim scene below us. The oil-laced air rushed in and stung our throats and eyes.
Bay Jimmy on the northeast side of Barataria Bay was full of oil. So was Bay Baptiste, Lake Grande Ecaille, and Billet Bay. Sitting next to me was Mike Roberts, a shrimper with Louisiana Bayoukeepers, who has grown up in this area. His voice crackled over the headset as I strained to hold the window. "I've fished in all these waters - everywhere you can see. It's all oiled. This is the worst I've seen. This is a heart-break..."
Bay Jimmy, northeast end of Barataria Bay. July 31, 2010. Bo Bodart.
We followed thick streamers of black oil and ribbons of rainbow sheen from Bay Baptiste and Bay Jimmy south across Barataria Bay through Four Bayou Pass and into the Gulf of Mexico. The ocean's smooth surface glinted like molten lead in the late afternoon sun. Oil. As far as we could see: Oil.
This was July 31, Day 103 of BP's disaster and more than two weeks after BP had sealed its broken wellhead that had hemorrhaged oil into the Gulf for nearly three months. BP's latest pretend is that tropical storm Bonnie washed the oil away - or at least off the surface - so the company is busily laying off response crews and claiming damages were over-exaggerated.
Since Day 1, BP has consistently downplayed the size of its gusher and the damage it was causing to wildlife and people. This is what happens when governments leave the spiller in charge of the spill or, in this case, the criminal in charge of the crime scene. Evidence disappears as the criminal seeks to minimize its liability for damages. What should be a war on the spill becomes a war against the truth, the environment, and the injured people.
The official story emerging now from BP and most of the president's men - and now being echoed by some national media - is: the oil is gone; the danger is past and was exaggerated; the dispersants were effective in keeping oil from reaching the shore; the oil that does reach shore is mostly weathered and not toxic; and federal officials have found no unsafe levels of oil in air or water samples and no evidence of illness due to oil or dispersant use.
As my father used to say: Good story if true.
The official story does not match the reality that I saw from the Cessna or have heard from people I have met during community visits since the well was temporarily sealed - and ever since I first arrived in early May. Public health is a huge concern - and with good reason.
BP has created Frankenstein in its Gulf laboratory: an oil-dispersant chemical stew that so far has contaminated over 44,000 square miles of ocean and caused internal bleeding and hemorrhaging in workers and dolphins alike, according to Hugh Kaufman, a senior policy analyst at the EPA, who recently blew the whistle on the industry-government cover up. BP has sprayed dispersants steadily in the Gulf with Coast Guard approval from the beginning - under the sea, on the surface, offshore, near shore, in inland waters, at night, during the day - despite a public uproar to cease and desist.
The dispersants used in BP's draconian experiment contain solvents such as petroleum distillates and 2-butoxyethanol. Solvents dissolve oil, grease, and rubber. Spill responders have told me that the hard rubber impellors in their engines and the soft rubber bushings on their outboard motor pumps are falling apart and need frequent replacement. They say the plastic corks used to float the absorbent booms during skimming operations dissolve after a week of use. They say the hard epoxy resin on and below the waterline of their fiberglass boats is also dissolving and chipping away. Divers have told me that they have had to replace the soft rubber o-rings on their gear after dives in the Gulf and that the oil-chemical stew eats its way into even the Hazmat dive suits.
Given this evidence, it should be no surprise that solvents are also notoriously toxic to people, something the medical community has long known. In Generations at Risk, medical doctor Ted Schettler and others warn that solvents can rapidly enter the human body: They evaporate in air and are easily inhaled, they penetrate skin easily, and they cross the placenta into fetuses. For example, 2-butoxyethanol is a human health hazard substance: It is a fetal toxin and it breaks down blood cells, causing blood and kidney disorders.
I suspect that the oil-chemical stew is likely the culprit behind the strange rashes reported by people across the Gulf - rashes that break out into deep blisters on legs or repeated peeling on hands. Stories accompany the rashes, stories of handling dead sea turtles, wading or swimming in the Gulf, or washing clothes of spill responders. Medical doctors are diagnosing rashes as staph infections or scabies, but the rashes are not responding to medical treatment as they would if the causation was biological instead of chemical.
Blisters and rashes experienced by fisher and Venice, Louisiana, Councilwoman Kindra Arneson are widespread across the Gulf. Rashes are not responding to treatment for staph or scabies. The cause may be chemical, not biological. 2010 Kindra Arneson.
Cindy Feinberg and her family visited Ft. Walton, Florida, on vacation in mid June when the "ocean was full of tar" and crews were picking up tar balls on the beach. The day after swimming in the Gulf - people were told it was safe, her palms became fiery red and flaked and peeled repeatedly for several days. Other people have shown me similar rashes that have lingered for months. June 18, 2010. Cindy Feinberg.
In Sound Truth and Corporate Myths, I wrote of similar rashes and peeling skin experienced by Exxon Valdez spill responders, especially ones who used dispersants and other chemical solvents. Yet in the Gulf, many doctors are turning a blind eye to chemical causes, because BP insists that solvents "disappear" after only a day or two. Retired toxicologist and forensic chemist John Laseter disagrees. Laseter's long career includes evaluation of human health effects of some of the largest toxic chemical and petroleum releases into the environment in the United States and Europe. He also founded and ran Accu-Chem, a lab that analyzed blood work for criminal justice cases.
Laseter told me that solvents "solubilize" or become soluble in oil and remain a threat for up to two months. He said the oil-solvent mixture sticks on biological tissue - gills of fish, the organic film coating sand grains and raindrops - and can wreak havoc. He told me that the dispersants are "almost certainly" making the oil penetrate more deeply into the skin and could very well be causing the rashes in the Gulf. Other toxicologists confirm that dispersants amount to a "delivery system" for oil: the combination is worse for human and sea life than the oil or dispersant alone.
Yet all the president's men - the Coast Guard, OSHA, NIOSH, FDA, and the EPA (except the EPA whistleblower noted above), in keeping with the cover up, cannot seem to find any unsafe levels of oil or solvents in the air or water. But other people are.
For example, about a week after the oil started coming ashore in Alabama, the Mobile television station WKRG took samples of water and sand from Orange Beach, Gulf Shores, Katrina Key, and Dauphin Island. The test was nothing fancy. The on-air reporter simply dipped a jar into the ocean and another into some surf water filling a sand pit dug by a small child. In the samples, oil was not visible in the water or the sand, but the chemist who analyzed them reported astonishingly high levels of oil ranging from 16 to 221 parts per million (ppm). Except for the Dauphin Island sample -- that one literally exploded in the lab before testing could be completed. The chemist thought maybe the exploding sample contained methane or 2-butoxyethanol.
There is also evidence of dangerous levels of oil in the air. A preliminary study commissioned in mid-July by Guardians of the Gulf, a community-based nonprofit organization in Orange Beach, Alabama, found that nightly air inversions - common in the area during the summer and fall - were trapping pollutants near the ground.
Total Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) - including the carcinogen benzene, and oil vapors - reached 85 to 108 ppm at 9:00 a.m. but rapidly dropped to zero (or nondetectable) within half an hour as the sun burned through the inversion layer. (For comparison, the federal standard for 15-minute exposure to benzene is 5 ppm.) The EPA did find unsafe levels of VOCs once in early May, but pulled much of its early data, as I reported earlier.
Such high levels could explain the bout of respiratory problems, dizziness, nausea, sore throats, headaches, and ear bleeds that I have heard about from residents and health professionals from Houma, Louisiana, to Apalachicola, Florida. Even the oil industry knows that these chemicals are unsafe. As long ago as 1948, the American Petroleum Institute confirmed, "The only absolutely safe concentration for benzene is zero."
When we landed after our 2-hour flight, our pilot told us that she sometimes has to wipe an oily reddish film off the leading edges of her plane's wings after flying over the Gulf. Hurricane Creekkeeper John Wathem documented similar oily films on planes he chartered for Gulf over-flights. Bonnie doesn't wear gloves when she wipes her plane. She showed me her hands -- red rash, blisters, and peeling palms.
If peeling palms are an indication of the oil-solvent stew, the reddish film on Bonnie's plane and others means that the stew is not only in the Gulf, it is in the rain clouds above the Gulf. And in the middle of hurricane season, this means the oil-solvent mix could rain down anywhere across the Gulf.
Why all this pretend in the Gulf by BP and all the president's men except the EPA whistleblower that oil and dispersants are not toxic? By comparison, last week in Calhoun County, Michigan, an Enbridge pipeline ruptured, spilling at least 19,500 barrels of oil. At least thirty families were temporarily relocated because of the stench and roads and beaches were closed. Health officials have warned people to stay away from the fumes and beaches, and to avoid swimming and fishing near oiled areas. "It's a very toxic and dangerous environment," Calhoun County health officer Jim Rutherford said.
If spilled oil is "toxic and dangerous" in Michigan, it's also toxic and dangerous in the Gulf. But in the Gulf, public officials have downplayed the health risk despite hard evidence of an epidemic of chemical illnesses related to, I believe, the oil-chemical stew.
The fact that the official story in the Gulf does not match what people are experiencing is more alarming to me than the oil disaster. How can our president hold BP accountable if he accepts - or worse is complicit in - the crime?
Correcting the false official story is the first step toward holding the criminal accountable to the law and lore of the land. If the government fails to hold the criminal accountable, as it did during the Exxon Valdez, then the people and environment will bear the costs of this avoidable tragedy.
]]>BP, Governments Downplay Public Health Risk From Oil and Dispersants (PHOTOS)tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.6383692010-07-07T16:29:26-04:002011-05-25T17:00:24-04:00Riki Otthttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/riki-ott/Pensacola Beach, FL -- When Ryan Heffernan, a volunteer with Emerald Coastkeeper, noticed a bag of oily debris floating off in Santa Rosa Sound, she ran up to BP's HazMat-trained workers to ask if they would retrieve it.
"No, ma'am," one replied politely. "We can't go in the ocean. It's contaminated."
Ryan waded in and retrieved the bag. That was Wednesday, June 23, the first day visible oil hit Pensacola Beach. Ryan had been swimming off the beach the day before, as she said, "to get in my last swim before the oil hit." The trouble is that not all of the oil coming ashore is visible. Dispersed oil - tiny bubbles of oil encased in chemical dispersants - are in the water column. On Thursday Ryan was treated at a local doctor's office for skin rash on her legs.
Three days later on Pensacola Beach, I watched BP's HazMat-trained workers shovel surface oiled sand and oily debris into bags early in the morning. The workers followed the waterline like shorebirds, scurrying up the beach in front of breaking waves and moving back down with receding waters.
The late morning sun retired the workers to the shade of their tents and the job of "observing," while it brought out throngs of beach-goers -- children, parents, grandparents -- who happily plunged into the "contaminated" ocean without a second thought.
I was astounded. Why did people think the ocean was safe for swimming?
There were five HazMat tents, four front-loaders, and at least two dozen HazMat workers on the beach. HazMat workers wore yellow over-boots duct-taped to their long pants' legs to minimize risk of contact with the water. The white surf popped with visible black tar balls as it rolled towards the beach. Waves left an oily signature of tar balls on the beach, melting in the sun. The treads of my Chacos weighed down with oily sand despite trying to avoid the mess. Most people were barefoot. Hotels set up oil cleaning stations on their premises - and signs saying the water advisory (put in place after Ryan's incident) had been lifted.
What's wrong with this picture?
Lots. For starters, Ryan's story from Pensacola Beach is not an isolated incident. I have received emails and heard personal stories from Louisiana to Florida of people who have developed skin rashes and blisters from going in the ocean. People describe stings by "invisible jellyfish." Turtle patrol volunteers who walk beaches daily write of blisters and bronchitis. And then there are individuals like Sheri Allen who took her dog for a walk on a beach in Mobile Bay in May.
Sheri wrote me that her "arms and legs were burning, even after the shower. The following morning ... (there were) ... small blood blisters. By evening the blisters had begun to welt. By the fourth day, the areas had got larger and swollen." She went to see a doctor but the sores remain and they have begun to scar her arms and legs. For several days after Sherri's incident, her husband found fish kills on the beach.
William Rea, MD, who founded the Environmental Health Center-Dallas, treated a number of sick Exxon Valdez cleanup workers. He once told me, "When you have sick people and sick animals, and they are sick because of the same chemical, that's the strongest evidence possible that that chemical is a problem."
It's not just skin rashes and blisters. At community forums, I commonly hear from adults and children with persistent coughs, stuffy sinuses, headaches, burning eyes, sore throats, ear bleeds, and fatigue. These symptoms are consistent across the four Gulf states that I have visited. Further, the symptoms of respiratory problems, central nervous system distress, and skin irritation are consistent with overexposure to crude oil through the two primary routes of exposure: inhalation and skin contact.
Most distressing to me are stories about sick children. "Dose plus host makes the poison," I learned in toxicology. A small child is at risk of breathing a higher dose of contaminants per body weight than an adult. Children, pregnant women, people with compromised or stressed immune systems like cancer survivors and asthma sufferers, and African Americans are more at risk from oil and chemical exposure - the latter because they are prone to sickle cell anemia and 2-butoxyethanol can cause, or worsen, blood disorders.
Public officials have failed to sound an alarm about the public health threat because three federal agencies - DHHS, EPA, and OSHA - cannot find any unsafe levels of oil in air or water. Perhaps the federal air and water standards are not stringent enough to protect the public from oil pollution. Our federal laws are outdated and do not protect us from the toxic threat from oil - now widely recognized in the scientific and medical community.
BP is still in the dark ages on oil toxicity. BP officials stress that, by the time oil gets to shore, it is "weathered" and missing the highly volatile compounds like the carcinogenic benzene, among others. BP fails to mention the threat from dispersed oil, ultrafine particles (PAHs), and chemical dispersants, which include industrial solvents and proprietary compounds, many hazardous to humans.
If oil was so nontoxic, then why are the spill response workers giving hazardous waste training? Our federal government should stop pretending that everything is okay. What isn't safe for workers isn't safe for the general public either.
Ryan's rash was getting better until she sat on Pensacola Beach to watch fireworks on July 4. The next day her skin erupted in fiery red burns. She is worried about her health. So are many other people along the Gulf.
Perhaps it is time for the government to protect public health first and BP's profit second.
Riki Ott, PhD, is a marine toxicologist from Alaska, volunteering in the Gulf. She has written two books on surviving the Exxon Valdez oil spill - Sound Truth and Corporate Myths on biological impact of oil to people and wildlife, and Not One Drop on emotional impact of disaster trauma and litigation to people and community. www.rikiott.com. Ott is working with Emerald Coastkeeper and others to petition the EPA to delist toxic chemical products in oil spill response.
]]>From the Ground: BP Censoring Media, Destroying Evidencetag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.6087242010-06-11T09:18:56-04:002011-05-25T16:45:26-04:00Riki Otthttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/riki-ott/Orange Beach, Alabama -- While President Obama insists that the federal government is firmly in control of the response to BP's spill in the Gulf, people in coastal communities where I visited last week in Louisiana and Alabama know an inconvenient truth: BP -- not our president -- controls the response. In fact, people on the ground say things are out of control in the gulf.
Even worse, as my latest week of adventures illustrate, BP is using federal agencies to shield itself from public accountability.
For example, while flying on a small plane from New Orleans to Orange Beach, the pilot suddenly exclaimed, "Look at that!" The thin red line marking the federal flight restrictions of 3,000 feet over the oiled Gulf region had just jumped to include the coastal barrier islands off Alabama.
"There's only one reason for that," the pilot said. "BP doesn't want the media taking pictures of oil on the beaches. You should see the oil that's about six miles off the coast," he said grimly. We looked down at the wavy orange boom surrounding the islands below us. The pilot shook his head. "There's no way those booms are going to stop what's offshore from hitting those beaches."
BP knows this as well -- boom can only deflect oil under the calmest of sea conditions, not barricade it -- so they have stepped up their already aggressive effort to control what the public sees.
At the same time I was en route to Orange Beach, Clint Guidry with the Louisiana Shrimp Association and Dean Blanchard, who owns the largest shrimp processor in Louisiana, were in Grand Isle taking Anderson Cooper out in a small boat to see the oiled beaches. The U.S. Coast Guard held up the boat for 20 minutes - an intimidation tactic intended to stop the cameras from recording BP's damage. Luckily for Cooper and the viewing public, Dean Blanchard is not easily intimidated.
A few days later, the jig was up with the booms. Oil was making landfall in four states and even BP can't be everywhere at once. CBS 60 Minutes Australia found entire sections of boom hung up in marsh grasses two feet above the water off Venice. On the same day on the other side of Barataria Bay, Louisiana Bayoukeeper documented pools of oil and oiled pelicans inside the boom - on the supposedly protected landward side - of Queen Bess Island off Grand Isle.
With oil undisputedly hitting the beaches and the number of dead wildlife mounting, BP is switching tactics. In Orange Beach, people told me BP wouldn't let them collect carcasses. Instead, the company was raking up carcasses of oiled seabirds. "The heads separate from the bodies," one upset resident told me. "There's no way those birds are going to be autopsied. BP is destroying evidence!"
The body count of affected wildlife is crucial to prove the harm caused by the spill, and also serves as an invaluable tool to evaluate damages to public property - the dolphins, sea turtles, whales, sea birds, fish, and more, that are owned by the American public. Disappeared body counts means disappeared damages - and disappeared liability for BP. BP should not be collecting carcasses. The job should be given to NOAA, a federal agency, and volunteers, as was done during the Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska.
NOAA should also be conducting carcass drift studies. Only one percent of the dead sea birds made landfall in the Gulf of Alaska, for example. That means for every one bird that was found, another 99 were carried out to sea by currents. Further, NOAA should be conducting aerial surveys to look for carcasses in the offshore rips where the currents converge. That's where the carcasses will pile up--a fact we learned during the Exxon Valdez spill. Maybe that's another reason for BP's "no camera" policy and the flight restrictions.
On Saturday June 12, people across America will stand up and speak out with one voice to protest BP's treatment of the Gulf, neglect for the response workers, and their response to government authority. President Obama needs to hear and see the people waving cameras and respirators. Until the media is allowed unrestricted access to the Gulf and impacted beaches, BP - not the President of United States - will remain in charge of the Gulf response.
For more information on community rallies, please visit HERE.
]]>Human Health Tragedy in the Making: Gulf Response Failing to Protect Peopletag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.5826552010-05-19T19:20:48-04:002011-05-25T16:30:24-04:00Riki Otthttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/riki-ott/
Fishermen responders who are working BP's giant uncontrolled slick in the Gulf are reporting bad headaches, hacking coughs, stuffy sinuses, sore throats, and other symptoms. The Material Safety Data Sheets for crude oil and the chemical products being used to disperse and break up the slick -- underwater and on the surface -- list these very illnesses as symptoms of overexposure to volatile organic carbons (VOCs), hydrogen sulfide, and other chemicals boiling off the slick.
When the fishermen come home, they find their families hacking, snuffling, and complaining of sore throats and headaches, too. There is a good reason for the outbreak of illnesses sweeping across this area.
Last weekend, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) posted its air quality monitoring data from the greater Venice, Louisiana, area. The data showed federal standards were being exceeded by 100- to 1,000-fold for VOCs, and hydrogen sulfide, among others--and that was on shore. These high levels could certainly explain the illnesses and were certainly a cause for alarm in the coastal communities.
I wrote an article based on EPA's information. So did chemist Wilma Subra with the Louisiana Environmental Action Network (LEAN). Baton Rouge-based LEAN is an advocate of public health and worker safety, and a trusted source of information on chemicals, exposure, and safety monitoring throughout this region.
Two days after the EPA posted its air quality monitoring data, most of it vanished from its website--except for the data showing the very highest level of airborne chemicals. Subra reports that she had a conference call with EPA officials yesterday and those officials confirmed that the higher levels they initially reported had remained on the site and were accurate.
"The detection levels on the instrumentation used by the EPA were not accurate enough to report airborne chemicals at lower levels," explains Subra. "So the EPA removed the data showing low levels from their website. But the EPA maintained the higher levels--those concentrations of 5 to 10 parts per billion, the concentration where you start getting acute health impacts."
This raises serious concerns for people in and around the coastal city of Venice, Louisiana, where the data were collected. And concentrations of oil and chemical dispersants are expected to be much, much higher offshore above the slick. How high? Five oil rigs have been shut down in the Gulf near BP's blowout allegedly because of concerns about fire. However, many of the fishermen in this area also work on the rigs. And the fishermen know the oil workers coming in from the rigs are suffering identical symptoms to the fishermen and their families.
But oilmen and fishermen are not being treated the same by BP and other oil companies operating in the Gulf. Oilmen are being evacuated because of high concentrations of dangerous chemicals, according to the fishermen, not fire danger. Meanwhile, fishermen responders are not even being provided with respirators for cleanup work - much less being protected from "fire danger."
As someone who witnessed the Exxon Valdez disaster, I saw this same charade unfold 20 years ago in Prince William Sound-and the result was literally thousands of sick cleanup workers who thought they had "the Valdez Crud," or simple colds and flu. Instead Exxon likely dismissed injured workers - and its own responsibility/liability to take care of these people - using an exemption for reporting "colds and flu" in hazardous waste cleanup regulations. 29 CFR (1904.5(b)(2)(viii)
The response to the BP leak is starting to look an awful lot like what happened during the Exxon Valdez cleanup. BP is not a self-regulated company, but it sure is acting like one.
The federal agencies responsible for monitoring public health and worker safety need to take aggressive action to prevent human tragedy. EPA should do continuous monitoring of air quality across the oil-impacted Gulf states--rather than only in communities where the oil is coming ashore--and EPA should post all the data it collects. It is public information and the people have a right to know about a toxic menace in their communities. If air quality continues to exceed public safety standards, the federal government has an obligation to act to evacuate people-just as it would in response to a hurricane, except at BP's expense.
Further, the U.S. Occupational Health and Safety Act (OSHA) officials should be monitoring BP's worker-safety program. OSHA has a responsibility to order BP to take steps to figure out why workers are getting sick and to order BP to take immediate preventative action. This is all supposed to be part of BP's worker-safety program and it's up to the federal government to make sure BP's plan works in practice as stated on paper.
The current situation is a disaster in the making. Fishermen who ask BP for respirators jeopardize their cleanup jobs. So, they've stopped asking. Fishermen are aware that only three workers need to request a Health Hazard Evaluation for the federal government to take action. But no one has stepped up because fisheries have closed and spill response might be the only job they have--even if it might cost them their health or life, as happened to Exxon Valdez workers.
Americans need to demand that Congress authorize the National Institute of Occupational Health and Safety to conduct a Health Hazard Evaluation of the Gulf situation. Failure to have our regulatory agencies act immediately to protect people's health in impacted coastal communities is a crime our country cannot afford to commit. ]]>At What Cost? BP Spill Responders Told to Forgo Precautionary Health Measures in Cleanuptag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.5787842010-05-17T12:24:37-04:002011-05-25T16:30:24-04:00Riki Otthttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/riki-ott/Venice, Louisiana -- Local fishermen hired to work on BP's uncontrolled oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico are scared and confused. Fishermen here and in other small communities dotting the southern marshes and swamplands of Barataria Bay are getting sick from the working on the cleanup, yet BP is assuring them they don't need respirators or other special protection from the crude oil, strong hydrocarbon vapors, or chemical dispersants being sprayed in massive quantities on the oil slick.
Fishermen have never seen the results from the air-quality monitoring patches some of them wear on their rain gear when they are out booming and skimming the giant oil slick. However, more and more fishermen are suffering from bad headaches, burning eyes, persistent coughs, sore throats, stuffy sinuses, nausea, and dizziness. They are starting to suspect that BP is not telling them the truth.
And based on air monitoring conducted by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in a Louisiana coastal community, those workers seem to be correct. The EPA findings show that airborne levels of toxic chemicals like hydrogen sulfide, and volatile organic compounds like benzene, for instance, now far exceed safety standards for human exposure.
For two weeks, I've been in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama sharing stories from the Exxon Valdez oil spill, which devastated the community I lived and commercially fished in, with everyone from fishermen and women to local mayors to state governors and the crush of international media.
During the 1989 cleanup in Alaska, thousands of workers had what Exxon medical doctors called, "the Valdez Crud," and dismissed as simple colds and flu. Fourteen years later, I followed the trail of sick workers through the maze of court records, congressional records, obituaries, and media stories, and made hundreds of phone calls. I found a different story. As one former cleanup worker put it, "I thought I had the Valdez Crud in 1989. I didn't think I'd have it for fourteen years."
In 1989 Exxon knew cleanup workers were getting sick: Exxon's clinical data shows 6,722 cases of upper respiratory "infections"--or more likely work-related chemical induced illnesses. Exxon also knew workers were being overexposed to oil vapors and oil particles as verified through its air-quality monitoring program contracted to Med-Tox. The cleanup workers never saw results of this program. Neither did OSHA, the agency supposedly charged to oversee and independently monitor Exxon's worker-safety program.
Alarmed by the "chemical poisoning epidemic," as expert witness Dr. Daniel Teitelbaum would later call it when he testified on behalf of sick workers, Exxon created a partial release form to indemnify itself from future health claims. Exxon paid its workers $600.50 to sign it, as I discovered in court records.
Sick workers were left to fend for themselves. Merle Savage was a foreman on the Bering Trader during the cleanup and supervised 180 workers. She described a persistent headache and "bronchitis" symptoms in 1989 that "wouldn't go away." Her medical doctors didn't connect her symptoms to her hazardous waste cleanup work. She is now completely disabled.
Richard Nagel, a master captain, supervised the workers who sprayed the dispersant Inipol. Exxon called Inipol, a "bioremediation" agent, but the Material Safety Data Sheet listed the solvent and human health hazard, 2-butoxyethanol. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency knows the Product Schedule is rife with abuse and products are used interchangeably - and that "misuses may cause further harm to the environment than the oil alone," but the charade continues. Nagel outlived most of his crew on the Pegasus. He was fifty-three when he died in 2009 of complications from systemic illnesses that his medical doctors never connected to his cleanup work.
Unlike the Exxon Valdez tragedy, in more recent oil spills human-health studies were conducted by independent qualified personnel. After the 2002 Prestige oil spill, medical researchers reported that fishermen and residents of Galacia, Spain, suffered identical symptoms to Exxon Valdez and now BP Gulf responders when cleaning up off their coast - or just from breathing air laced with oil vapors, driven by hurricane force winds. Similarly, after the 2007 Hebei Spirit oil spill off the coast of Taean, South Korea, medical researchers documented respiratory damage, central nervous system damage, and even genetic damage in volunteers and fishermen who worked on the cleanup.
There is no excuse for sick people. BP and the federal agencies charged with worker safety know that the risks of working on a hazardous waste cleanup are extraordinarily high and that it will take a concerted effort to keep workers safe and healthy. Further, it will take an equally extraordinary effort by BP and the federal government to protect public health in coastal communities downwind or downstream from the toxic stew in the Gulf.
Yet I don't see either BP or the federal government taking sufficient--or any--action to prevent human tragedy in the form of acute and likely long-term illnesses from its uncontrolled leak.
Years after the Exxon Valdez human-health tragedy, Eula Bingham, who was assistant secretary of labor for occupational safety and health in the Carter Administration, said of the federal OSHA inaction, "Quite frankly, they should have been more aggressive, but the government just folded."
I am in Louisiana as a volunteer to help make sure that, this time, the no one just folds. We need independent medical researchers to monitor health impacts. We need the Obama Administration to take aggressive steps to protect public health and worker safety and stop this unfolding tragedy before it gets worse. ]]>The Corporations Are Coming! The Corporations Are Coming!tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2010:/theblog//3.5014952010-03-16T18:01:48-04:002011-05-25T15:50:25-04:00Riki Otthttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/riki-ott/The following post was written by Paula and Paul Revere, a.k.a. Riki Ott and David Cobb.
Alaska-Colorado-California-Oregon-Washington -- Three-plus weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court threw out limits on corporate spending in political campaigns in Citizens United v. FEC, an ABC News/Washington Post poll found that 80% of Americans oppose the Court's ruling, including 65% who "strongly" oppose it. A whopping 72% want legislative action to overrule the Court and reinstate the campaign limits.
Opposition cuts across the political spectrum. 85% of Democrats are opposed to the ruling, as are 76% of Republicans, and 81% of Independents. The strong reaction against the Court's ruling in the polls is finding a voice in communities across the country, as ordinary people are organizing to overrule the Court -- just as prior movements organized to overrule Court decisions regarding slavery, women's suffrage, trade unions, and Jim Crow segregation.
David and I are part of this new community-based movement. We have both seen it grow and deepen first-hand. Twenty some years ago, David worked with Program on Corporations, Law, and Democracy (POCLAD) to coin the meme of "Corporate Personhood" -- concentrated capital with human rights. During the last two years, Riki was on the road nearly 500 days using this meme, telling her personal story of raw injustice in the aftermath of the Exxon Valdez oil spill. On that tour Riki advocated amending the Constitution to affirm that only human beings, not corporate persons, are entitled to constitutional rights and protections.
In Riki's wild "Paula Revere" ride through 28 states, she saw the culture shifting even before the Citizens United decision as people sought to build more self-reliant communities that exercise real democracy -- where the people rule. In response to the Patriot Act, communities (and three states) had passed legislation to protect civil liberties. In response to the top-down pressure to prolong our dependency on fossil fuels (foreign and domestic), communities were pledging to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and organizing as Transition Towns to find ways to become sustainable in a post-oil world.
People were working with farmers to support Community Supported Agriculture and farmers' markets. Youth were demanding solutions to the climate crisis: "We already know the problems." Teachers were responding with hands-on projects to grow food, convert waste food oils to power cars, capture solar rays to heat homes or schools, and design more energy-efficient buildings.
Recently, David and Riki teamed up for another "Paula and Paul Revere" ride post-Citizens United to coalesce communities to overrule the Court and, more importantly, to help organize people to create the society and culture we want rather than one shaped by the corporate elites and their go-to people in all three branches of our government. David and I are part of the Campaign to Legalize Democracy, a grassroots movement endorsed by over 73,000 Americans and counting. Go to www.movetoamend.org and join!
It's a new brave new world. People, including children, understand that two of the fundamental assumptions underlying the Citizens United decision are morally wrong and threaten real democracy or rule by the people. Money is not speech -- it is concentrated capital -- and corporations are not people entitled to inalienable human rights!
Our audiences -- previously filled with the "old guard" of civil rights, peace, labor, and social-economic justice activists -- are swollen with working people, moved to "do something" to get the health care they deserve and to protect their jobs, homes, savings, and children's future in light of the unleashing of corporate power from Citizens United.
What we are seeing is a fundamental clash of values and vision. In a real democracy, human values count. We ask people, "What do you value? What do you like?" Audiences -- children and adults alike -- respond with "family, friends, time to visit, peace, health, a home, a job, clean air and water," and more.
Yet our economy grows by money exchanging hands without these values attached. War profiteering, private prisons, disaster capitalism, sick people in need of expensive medicine and health care, and toxic products swell the Gross Domestic Product, our measure of economic prosperity. This growth reflects corporate capitalism and the corporate value of making money at all "costs" -- specifically the expense of protecting public health, the environment, and our planet's life-supporting climate.
We have found that people are serious about committing time and energy to challenge corporate power and build a deeply democratic society. Inspired by our talks, Colorado citizens' groups spontaneously linked efforts under a new umbrella federation, the Colorado Movement to Amend. Along the Pacific coast from Arcata, California, to Seattle, Washington, people volunteered to build the movement in our wake. Travelers that we met in restaurants came to our talks and invited us to speak and organize in their hometowns.
Citizens United has saved us decades of organizing. People are demanding deep cultural transformation like that demanded by the abolitionist, suffragists, trade unionists, and civil rights activists. With our passion, energy, and dreams, we can build a popular movement to co-create the democracy we've been promised -- and take back government of, for, and by the people.
Riki Ott and David Cobb are national spokespeople for The Campaign to Legalize Democracy (www.movetoamend.org), a coalition of national and grassroots groups calling to amend the Constitution to abolish the legal doctrine that allows corporations to claim constitutional rights. Ott is a survivor of the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Her story of personal and community healing is shared in Not One Drop: Betrayal and Courage in the Wake of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill (Chelsea Green, 2008) (www.ultimatecivics.org). Cobb is a principal with the Program on Corporations Law & Democracy (www.poclad.org) and Campaigns Director for Democracy Unlimited of Humboldt County (www.duhc.org). He can be reached directly at 707-269-0984 or david@duhc.org. ]]>
