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The Big Lie: BP, Governments Downplay Public Health Risk From Oil and Dispersants
PENSACOLA BEACH, Florida -- 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.
Click here to see Riki Ott's photos.
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.
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23 Comments so far
Show AllIt's not just the oil that is toxic; much more dangerous is the Corexit that BP has been spraying all over the place.
I just watched a YouTube video taken by a group of citizens who took samples of the Gulf water and sent them to an independent lab. The ultimate verdict: "This water is poisonous." No wonder the government and BP are conspiring to keep the press out of the Gulf area. See for yourself:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gq65E7rmO_kfeature=player_embedded
Jill, indeed. Indeed....
rita
BP and the government have no idea what to do.
The disaster is beyond them.
The problems aware citizens have (as most on CD are)
You go to bed every night sickened,
you wake up every morning saddened.
So you try ignore your surroundings,
but you can't, because the awareness
won't go away.
Baboon,
Indeed.
well said, sadly...
hope for change? yes, still...
we frequently notice that corporations are bound to profit for their investors, and thus explain behaviors that damage our living world...
interesting that we never see ourselves in that same light...
we are bound to profit for our investors: our landlords...
this puts 'work', and the resulting damage, in a different light, and provides a possible out: the land...
let us take back the land, and our inherent right to inhabit...
Global Start Date: September 22, 2012...
The bad guys (oil lawyers, lobbyists) are waiting for the 'Media' to lose interest, which is already happening. Two years from now the Gulf region will be like a third world country.
and a dead zone
You are exactly right. I already have to search around to find any new information about the gusher. It seems the "heat wave" is the newest, biggest concern of all the MSM. Of course they are only catering to the attention span of the average citizen...
The Gulf disaster reminds me of the aftereffects of 9/11, the poisonous dust that settled everywhere was not supposed to be dangerous. But it turned out to be toxic and full of carcinogens. Our government does not act on behalf of the people, only corporations. The sick children, the pregnant women who will have miscarriages, the cleanup workers who will come down major health problems are living testimony to the callousness of the government. The wheels have come off this "democracy" and we are hurtling down a steep incline. The worst is yet to come.
Well thank goodness for BP. At least they finally found a market for all the obsolete solvents and poisons and toxic waste they've been wanting to dump in the ocean. They can sell it to the US government when they finally go broke. And who's going to know? Everything's already dead.
If the "bottom kill" fails just like the "top kill" did, then some geologists calculate the oil volcano will spew like this for 24 years.
That's probably enough to put a sheen on every ocean in the world. I mean, it's already entered the loop current and gulf stream, so it's trucking up the Atlantic seaboard by now.
Silly me, I forgot that the mayor of Gastown, Texas (Galviston) says it's just a "fluke" just a few harmless tar balls. Ever stepped on a tar blob on LA beaches? I have. They're everywhere in LA after the 1970's Oil Spill off Santa Barbra. It takes Gasoline and a rag to get it off your heel.
I guess the North Carolina "Tar Heels" were named after the first oil spill FUBARS from shipping in the 1930's and 40's.
Possible?
If so, their heels are going to get a whole lot blacker.
TJ
From day 1 the Obama's response team has given BP a benefit of a doubt and they've been shown wrong over and over, yet they continue to put corporate interests over public interests. This is nothing new with either party.
The political leadership is dominated by psychopaths like Obama, Pelosi, and Reid.
They have no conscience.
Any questions?
Another day of being a piece of meat in the Europeans Toxic Stew World. Europeans sure can brew up one toxic stew in all their toxic stew laboratories. Their nuclear waste will get you faster. All sorts of their nuclear stuff I can't even spell leaking in the waters of the earth. Released in the air when all the stuff from all their testing is already there.
All the DUI stuff they talk about the Europeans use in other Nations. Something about they were using DUI shells in Hawaii that they stole from the Hawaiians.
Let me be meat in your toxic stew with you
How wonderful it is to be meat in your toxic stew with you
And it's so wonderful for all our Indian children, too
To be meat in your Toxic stew with you.
How wonderful kind and good of you
To let us be meat in your toxic stew with you
Yes it really is a treat, and it's really so sweet
To be meat in your toxic stew.
What a song this would be for Dino if he weren't dead.
Get a horn section and strings for Mel Torme. I think he's sitll alive. But wait, Tony Bennett.
Is he still alive. Anyone know. Hey, Tony, got a hot song for you. Tony, Baby, this will chart with all the Save the Earth people. You'll have a whole new generation and audience listing to you.
Now take my hand darling beneath the moon
As we live and breath the European toxic stew
Hmmm, how about Johnny Rotten. Go punk with this thing.
The Ramones. Ah, what's his face is dead so their out.
20 20 24 hours a day I am meat in European Toxic Stew
So getting this narrowed down between Tony Bennett or Johnny Rotten.
Now take my hand darling beneath the moon
As we live and breath in the European Toxic Stew
They'll love this at a Native Site. I may not be big with you people but I'm "Aces" elsewhere.
Now take my hand darling beneath the moon
As we live in breath in the European Toxic Stew
The stars shining so bright each every night
We're meat in the European Toxic Stew
Who wants to take a bite.
Life is good. What an experience! It's always best to forgive.
'public' health...............
what's it doing to the sea dwellers???................
"Perhaps it is time for the government to protect public health first and BP's profit second. "
Yep indeed except one problem. They don't believe in single payer health care or letting us have our pot. We also don't wanna "offend" the "Peak Oil" enthusiasts by offering alternative solutions or the faux "environmentalists" still hooked to fossil fuels without their realization. To them, I'm a psycho for speaking against the Rockefellars and Big Oil like that. I think I should consider learning Hindi and Japanese and moving to India and Japan where it's a little cleaner?
These last few years have been just a really hardcore demonstration of Corporate power and government subservience, the Wall Street bailout and the healthcare issue and now the oil disaster.
At least now the apologists are reduced to absurdity- blaming environmentalists for the spill, civil libertarians for the crackdown, the unemployed for the bad economy, Islam for our invasion of Muslim lands... now it's only the kind of mumbling you'd hear from some old cuss.
And the rest of us? We'll work the problems as this century goes on. And if the solutions aren't on the table, well then we'll just burn the table. Just burn it.
"And if the solutions aren't on the table, well then we'll just burn the table. Just burn it."
You might as well burn the table if the good solutions keep getting taken off while the bad ones keep getting put on the table. Even on the Left, some people find good solutions "offensive". Sad isn't it?
Just like 911!
I would like to know why we don't demand to know what is in Corexit? Trade secrets over our health? Do we have a government?
I think the answer to that question is NO. We have a government which is captured by multinational corporations.
Obama is financed by multinationals. He has no allegiance to the American people or government. He is a suit from Harvard, which is a multinational corporate school.
The American people have been beaten down for decades; now, the people are demoralized and depressed. They elected who they thought would be their advocate and find that they have been duped again.
Good Grief.
THE ENEMY OF THE PEOPLE
The quality and strength of the system of public health in a community is a critical eye on the manner in which a government cares for its citizens, There is always a political component to Public Health and it can , on occasion result in enormous pain and suffering. Read Ibsen's The Enemy of the People to really appreciate what can happen to a physician who puts medical duty before the commercial powers of his community.
Once again this saga is repeated on the Gulf coast. The volatile components of the crude oil which are contaminating the environment are highly toxic and are responsible for many of the symptoms which people living in the area are exhibiting. This is most prominent among workers who are trying to clean the oil which has been deposited on the beaches. Benzene, an organic chemical, present in crude oil not only causes acute irritation of the eyes and lining of the mouth and lungs but is also a carcinogen.
All this is well known to BP and the Public Health Service. Greed and political dishonesty are once again being used to suppress the truth. We are reliving the same incident which Ibsen related so well in The Enemy of the People.