Category Archives: Gulf restoration

fossil fuels, gulf of mexico clean-up, Gulf restoration, marine pollution, oil pollution

E&E: Passing the baton in oil spill research on the Gulf Coast; Students find 1250 lb Tar mat found on Pensacola Beach (with images)

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FDEP Monitoring Report_02.27.14_FLES2-005_SOM

Woods Hole Oceanographic Institute picked a perfect day to go to Pensacola Beach. Our DEP boys found a 1250 lb Tarmat. Had to remove it by hand, since bp clean up team, OSRO, wasn’t allowed into waist high water to mitigate. Captain Walker, former FOSC is supposed to be there tomorrow AM. BP is working on getting long arm excavator to remove additional oil.

Oh the irony! FL DEP is discontinuing these efforts June 30, 2014 due to lack of $ had these men not been out doing their observations/ we would have missed this incident. Also terrible management that CG and OSRO teams cannot go in water to remove. This is why I have been pushing for updates to OPA and improving response due to real life scenarios.

Hope this is the moment people will remember and take action in helping our state with continued response issues.

Susan Forsyth

Special thanks to Richard Charter

Environmental News Network

From: Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution Media Relations Office
Published February 26, 2014 09:30 AM

As part of on-going research nearly four years after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, scientists from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) will team up with a group of high school students in Florida to collect remnants of oil from Gulf Coast beaches this week. Marine chemist Chris Reddy studies how the many compounds that compose petroleum hydrocarbon, or oil, behave and change over time after an oil spill. He and his researchers have collected and analyzed about 1,000 oil samples from the Gulf Coast since the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

“With an iconic and wide-ranging spill like Deepwater Horizon, the need to perform such long-term studies is a top priority for me,” said Reddy. He has already catalogued many of these samples in an on-line database to make the data available to the public and scientific community.

How the compounds react and weather in the environment also can help inform the chemical industry, governments, and cleanup efforts when future oil spills occur.

“Spilled oil undergoes a series of changes due to Mother Nature called ‘weathering.’ Weathering differs from one site to another based on several factors including the type of oil spilled and the local climate. Therefore, each location is a living laboratory that allows us to interrogate how Nature responds to these uninvited hydrocarbons.”

On Feb. 28, the group of students will work alongside Reddy’s team and colleagues from the Florida State University in one such living laboratory at a Pensacola, Fla. beach. This field expedition is part of a new education initiative called the Gulf Oil Observers (GOO), which trains volunteers to be effective citizen scientists. GOO mentors are educators and scientists associated with the Deep-C Consortium research project – a long-term study investigating the environmental consequences of oil released in the deep Gulf on living marine resources and ecosystem health.

The students from West Florida High School of Advanced Technology in Pensacola will collect samples of small, round clumps of sand mixed with crude oil. These oiled sand patties can be easily overlooked on the beach. No bigger than a silver dollar, they resemble small dark rocks, driftwood, and other beach debris.

“But if you know what to look for, they’re not difficult to identify,” said Reddy. That’s why he and WHOI researcher Catherine Carmichael will train 23 high school students, the first group of GOO volunteers, on-site in Pensacola, Fla. to help conduct this research.

Read more at Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
Deepwater Horizon sand samples image via WHOI.

gulf of mexico clean-up, Gulf restoration, oil pollution

Times-Picayune: BP Deepwater Horizon spill oil causes heart damage that can kill tuna, new study finds

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video at:

http://www.nola.com/environment/index.ssf/2014/02/bp_deepwater_horizon_spill_oil.html?fb_action_ids=10152204442102698&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_ref=s%3DshowShareBarUI%3Ap%3Dfacebook-like&fb_source=other_multiline&action_object_map=%5B124634777728610%5D&action_type_map=%5B%22og.likes%22%5D&action_ref_map=%5B%22s%3DshowShareBarUI%3Ap%3Dfacebook-like%22%5D

Nola.com

tuna
A school of bluefin tuna. A new study by scientists with Stanford University and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration link oil from the BP Deepwater Horizon spill to heart damage in tuna and other marine species. (Richard Herrmann/Galatee Films)

By Mark Schleifstein, NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune

on February 13, 2014 at 3:03 PM, updated February 13, 2014 at 3:05 PM

Crude oil from the BP Deepwater Horizon spill contains a chemical that interferes with fish heart cells, slowing heart rates, reducing the ability of the heart to contract and causing irregular heartbeats that can lead to heart attacks or death, according to new research released Thursday by researchers at Stanford University and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The scientific paper, which will be published in the Feb. 14 edition of the journal Science, was discussed by several of the researchers at a news conference at the annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Chicago.
The research was conducted as part of the federal Natural Resource Damage Assessment process required by the Oil Pollution Act in the aftermath of the spill. Its findings will help federal and state officials, working with BP, to determine the extent of damages to natural resources from the spill and how those damages should be mitigated.
Researchers took samples of crude oil from the spill and tested the effects of tiny amounts mixed with water on living heart muscle cells of bluefin and yellow fin tuna.

The tests revealed that very low concentrations disrupted potassium ion channels in heart membranes that control the flow of molecules into and out of the heart cells that in turn regulate the electrical impulses that cause the heart to contract and relax.

The studies found that certain three-ring versions of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons found in the oil – which are also found in coal tar, creosote, air pollution and stormwater runoff from land – were what blocked the potassium ion channels, which increased the time it took for the heart to restart on every beat.

Tuna were chosen for the study in part because the BP spill occurred in an area of the Gulf of Mexico where Atlantic Bluefin tuna were spawning at the time of the accident.

The effects are believed to be more of a problem for fish embryos and early developing fish, because the heartbeat changes could also affect the development of other organs, including the lungs and liver, said Nathaniel Scholz, head of the Ecotoxicology Program at NOAA’s Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Seattle.

Adult fish have developed gill and liver systems that can detoxify the PAHs, he said.
He said similar secondary effects were found in other fish species in Alaskan waters in the aftermath of the Exxon Valdez oil spill in 1989, including cardiac edema and deformed spines.

The research also found that weathered oil contained more of the three-ring PAH compounds, and thus was more toxic to fish, said Barbara Block, a marine biologist at the Hopkins Marine Station of Stanford University in Pacific Grove, Calif.

Block’s research has included tracking individual tuna moving into and out of the Gulf of Mexico during spawning seasons. One of those tuna moved back and forth in a part of the Gulf adjacent to the site of BP’s Macondo well a year before the accident.

The study used four different samples of oil from the BP spill: oil taken directly from the riser pipe of the well, riser oil that was artificially weathered by heating, and samples collected from oil slicks by Coast Guard cutter Juniper on July 19 and July 29, 2010, about three months after the Deepwater Horizon accident.

Soon after the news conference, BP issued a statement raising questions about the study and the use of its conclusions in the damage assessment process.

“The paper provides no evidence to suggest a population-level impact on tuna or other fish species in the Gulf of Mexico,” the statement said. “Bathing isolated heart cells with oil concentrations is simply not comparable to the real-world conditions and exposures that existed in the Gulf for whole fish.

“The bodies of live tuna have numerous defensive mechanisms that isolated heart cells do not,” the statement said. “Equally important, the oil concentrations used in these lab experiments were rarely seen in the Gulf during or after the Deepwater Horizon accident.”

The statement said the paper also doesn’t include a realistic assessment of the exposure of fish to oil and its PAH constituents, “and it is scientifically inappropriate to take data from in vitro laboratory tests on isolated tuna heart cells and use it to make unsupported predictions about effects on a variety of live marine species or humans in the Gulf – effects that no one has observed or measured in the field.”

During the news conference, Scholz said other studies under way as partof the damage assessment are aimed at the exposure question.

Meanwhile, Jacqueline Savitz, a spokeswoman for the Oceana environmental group, said it was ironic the study finding Gulf fish “suffering from broken hearts” came on the eve of Valentine’s Day, but said the results are not surprisng.

“Fish larvae are generally more sensitive to the toxic effects of oil and other chemicals than adults,” Savitz said in a statement. “Even in a healthy ocean, only a small fraction of larval fish have what it takes to make it to adulthood. So after a spill, toxic chemicals in the oil could wipe out some of the few fish that might have otherwise succeeded, which could be a major setback to a species in need of recovery like bluefin tuna.”

She said the study backs up her group’s concerns that offshore drilling remains unsafe.

“This and other studies on the impacts of the spill, underline the importance of breaking our oil addiction and not expanding offshore drilling into the Atlantic or the Arctic,” Savitz said.

The research paper concludes that the effects seen in tuna are likely to occur in other vertebrates found in the Gulf of Mexico, including shrimp and other fish species, marine mammals and turtles.

The paper also warns that the scientists’ findings may also indicate a threat to human health resulting from exposure to PAHs in air pollution, including from car exhausts.

“The protein ion channels we observe in the tuna heart cells are similar to what we would find in any vertebrate heart and provide evidence as to how petroleum products may be negatively impacting cardiac function in a wide variety of animals,” Block said in a news release announcing the paper. “This raises the lpossibility that exposure to environmental PAHs in many animals – including humans – could lead to cardiac arrhythmias and bradycardia, or slowing of the heart.”

Special thanks to Richard Charter

BP Spill, fossil fuels, gulf of mexico clean-up, Gulf restoration, oil pollution

Miami Herald: Way cleared for medical claims in 2010 BP spill

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http://www.miamiherald.com/2014/02/13/3933403/way-cleared-for-medical-claims.html#storylink=cpy
Miami Herald > Business > Business Breaking News
Posted on Thursday, 02.13.14

By KEVIN McGILL
Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS — A federal appeals court has cleared the way for thousands of workers to be compensated for medical treatment for exposure to crude oil or chemical dispersants during the 2010 BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

The 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals’ action Tuesday involves a settlement approved by a federal judge in January 2013 between BP, workers and some coastal residents from specified beachfront and wetlands areas who said they were injured or sickened during the spill cleanup.

Objections by some members of the settlement class were withdrawn over the past year, resulting in the formal dismissal of appeals. The medical settlement is separate from a larger economic damages settlement, which remains the subject of an appeal.

Among provisions in the medical settlement are programs providing cash payments for physical conditions associated with exposure to oil, such as respiratory problems, skin rashes and neurological issues; comprehensive medical evaluations once every three years for 21 years; and procedures under which covered workers or residents who develop spill-related illnesses in the future could file suit for compensatory damages.

Members of the affected class have a year from Wednesday’s effective date to file claims. Neither side estimated the potential monetary value of the settlement. It was unclear how many people might be eligible but the plaintiffs have estimated the number could reach 200,000.

BP said the medical settlement also provides $105 million for groups working to increase the availability of health care in 17 affected Gulf Coast counties and Louisiana parishes.

Company spokesman Geoff Morrell said in a news release the settlement resolves a substantial majority of medical claims stemming from the Deepwater Horizon accident.

“It’s been a long four years, but now hundreds of thousands of people will finally get the medical care and compensation they need,” attorneys Stephen Herman and James Roy, who represent plaintiffs in the oil spill litigation, said in a joint statement.

The April 20, 2010, blowout of BP’s Macondo well killed 11 workers and spewed millions of gallons of oil into the Gulf.

BP Spill, fossil fuels, gulf of mexico clean-up, Gulf restoration

EcoWatch: Scientist Takes a Closer Look at the Deep-Sea Impacts of BP Gulf Oil Spill

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http://ecowatch.com/2014/02/12/deep-sea-impacts-bp-gulf-oil-spill/

Ocean Conservancy | February 12, 2014 8:33 am

By Alexis Baldera

Most images related to the BP Deepwater Horizon oil disaster are of oil floating on the surface of the Gulf of Mexico or washing up on its shores, but what has happened in the deep-sea environment? Dr. Paul Montagna of Texas A&M University-Corpus Christi explores that question. In a recent publication in PLOS ONE, he estimated the size of the deep-sea “footprint” left behind by the BP Deepwater Horizon Macondo well blowout. He has documented severe impacts to bottom-dwelling animals over a nine-square-mile area (equivalent to 4,356 football fields) and moderate impacts within another 57 square miles, an area twice the size of Manhattan.

Ocean Conservancy: What do your findings tell us about impacts from the BP oil disaster?

Dr. Montagna: We discovered that oil did reach the bottom, and it did have a very large impact on the organisms that live on the bottom. We could identify a footprint of the oil spill. We saw increased hydrocarbons, increased metals associated with petroleum activity, and reduced diversity and abundance of some key indicator organisms.
OC: What were the specific impacts to organisms?

Dr. M.: The primary one that I focused on is about a 30 percent reduction in diversity in an area about nine square miles around the blowout site. What that means is that the organisms that were sensitive just disappeared.

OC: Do the impacts to the deep sea have impacts to the rest of the Gulf ecosystem?

Dr. M.: Yes, the things that live on the bottom are very important for different reasons. They serve as food for higher trophic (food chain) levels, particularly for fish and other organisms that come and feed on the bottom sediments. Additionally, the deep sea is characterized as a depositional environment. In other words, material is constantly falling on the deep sea. The deep sea is very important in recycling organic matter and generating new nutrients. Deep-sea organisms also play a role in carbon sequestration. In that regard, they are important for helping maintain the climate and productivity of the ocean in general.

OC: How do your findings relate to other deep-sea impacts studies, for example those showing dead or dying coral near the Deepwater Horizon site?

Dr. M.: The key is that both the coral studies and the sediment invertebrate studies that independent researchers have done both show that bottom-dwelling organisms were impacted by the spill.

OC: What does recovery mean for this deep-sea environment?

Dr. M.: One interesting thing about the deep sea is that it is uniformly cold. The entire deep sea is about the same temperature as a refrigerator, it is about 4 to 5 degrees Celsius [39 to 41 degrees Fahrenheit]. You know we put things in a refrigerator so they don’t degrade. Through my own past studies and other work, we know that metabolic rates in this environment are ridiculously slow, so I would imagine that any oil that wound up on the bottom is going to be around for quite a while. It is entirely possible for it to take a very, very long time for recovery to occur via natural degradation. Another way the deep-sea environment could recover would be through deposition: in other words, the oil just gets naturally buried. That is something we definitely want to be able to look at in the future.

OC: Are you still collecting samples?

Dr. M.: We collected samples in June of 2011, and we’re working on those right now. They will tell us a little about change through time. We’re considering going back out in the summer of 2014.

OC: Is there uniform coldness below a certain depth?

Dr. M.: The depth doesn’t matter; it relates to the density. Seawater is most dense at about four degrees Celsius, so that is why that water sinks. And once it gets to the deepest parts of the ocean, it kind of just sits there.

OC: How should we define the deep sea for this blog?

Dr. M.: Two ways: In the Gulf of Mexico, it is below about 200 to 300 meters, or say, beyond the edge of the continental shelf. It might be best to include both descriptors because the shelf break occurs at different distances from shore and different depths in different places.

OC: What can we do to restore, or compensate for injury in, the deep-sea benthic environment?

Dr. M.: This has to be one of the most challenging things about the situation. We have never had an accident of this scale and scope in the deep sea before, and the deep sea is difficult to work in because it is largely inaccessible. There is a real concern about what we can and should do for restoration. Under the state and federal Natural Resource Damage Assessment laws and regulations and restoration planning process, we are required to restore natural resources. I’m not sure that the types and amounts of restoration have been determined yet. I think there are several possibilities.

One option would be primary restoration of resources in place. Another option is compensatory restoration in other places; in other words, do something somewhere else to try and mitigate impacts. The third alternative may be some habitat creation or restoration projects; it may be possible to create some artificial habitats offshore. Since deposition will occur over time, it could be a matter of waiting. However, how long this will take I don’t know.

OC: Do we also need additional research to help develop strategies and policies that can effectively promote and maintain the productivity and health of the Gulf ecosystems you study? What is highest on your list of research that still needs to be done? And how critical is this scientific work to the future of the Gulf and the communities that depend on it for their livelihoods.

Dr. M.: Although deep-sea studies have been going on for many decades, we still don’t know some fundamental facts. Because it is so expensive to do deep-sea research, we haven’t sampled the same locations at different times, so we know little about how communities change over seasons, years or decades. Biodiversity of the deep-sea is large, yet we have identified very few of the species that are new to science. So, classical systematic studies are critical to improve our understanding of diversity.

There are still some unanswered questions in the shallow regions. Coastal restoration projects are an experimental manipulation of the environment, yet we seldom collect sufficient data after a project to learn from our experiences, so I think we should require extensive follow-up studies to improve our abilities to restore the coast. I also have a concern about known biodiversity and productivity hot spots, such as areas where there are bottom features such as pinnacles and reefs.

The Gulf is “America’s Sea” with many, many users. There will always be competing interests, so we need a fuller understanding of the Gulf’s bounty and how to manage its resources to benefit future generations.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

BP Spill, gulf of mexico clean-up, Gulf restoration, oil pollution

Huffingtonpost.com: BP Deepwater Horizon and human health

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Date: February 5, 2014 7:24:22 PM PST

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/claudia-s-miller-md-ms/gulf-war-syndrome-comes-t_b_4698433.html?utm_hp_ref=green

Claudia S. Miller, M.D., M.S.
Professor, environmental and occupational medicine, University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio

Gulf War Syndrome Comes to the Gulf of Mexico?

A large cadre of marine scientists assembled this week in Mobile, Ala. to discuss the environmental fallout from the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster that occurred nearly four years ago off the Gulf Coast. Sadly, the impact on human health took a backseat at these meetings to fisheries, socio-economic effects, coastal ecosystems and the circulation of petrochemicals in the sea.

These are critical topics, to be sure, but the health of residents on and near the coast deserve as much attention. Unknown numbers may have been sickened by exposures to chemicals from the spill, including the highly toxic dispersant, Corexit. Those exposures can lead to subsequent intolerances to other substances, including common chemicals, through a newly described disease mechanism called TILT, or Toxicant Induced Loss of Tolerance.

Sadly, researchers and doctors remain unaware of this new mechanism for disease caused by chemical exposures. We’re like the doctors at the turn of the century who, lacking knowledge of the germ theory, had no idea what was causing rampant fevers and deaths during the Civil War.

There are individuals who were affected by the spill now being diagnosed with anxiety and depression. These are common effects of chemical exposures in susceptible persons, and can also be caused by stressful events.

Of course, at this late date, those exposed in the Gulf area no longer have increased levels of chemicals in their tissues. The petrochemicals and dispersants they were exposed to have left their bodies and are no longer measurable. This is not DDT which deposits in our fat stores and remains there for decades. These are synthetic organic chemicals that in susceptible persons cause TILT. They enter the body, do their damage, and leave within days. Subsequently, everyday exposures trigger symptoms in those affected.

It’s true that large sums of money are being spent to study the health impact on people–including fishermen, cleanup workers, volunteers and others–who were exposed to the spill. But researchers who are looking into the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon spill are not asking some key questions.

In addition to fish and ecosystems, scientists at the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill and Ecosystem Conference should have focused more on the toxic impact on people. They might have started by looking at its close cousin, Gulf War Syndrome, also involving petrochemical exposures.

Thousands of Gulf War veterans have been sick and undiagnosed for more than a decade as doctors search for answers. No one can convincingly explain their diverse, multi-system symptoms, which include pain, fatigue, mood changes and cognitive impairment–symptoms also reported by many of those exposed during the Gulf Coast spill.

But what can be done? There is now a free online self-evaluation that Gulf War veterans and Gulf of Mexico residents alike can access to help identify what’s making them sick and determine what subsequent chemical, food and drug intolerances may have developed long after combat and the oil spill ended. People who are concerned that they may have chemical intolerances can go online, answer a questionnaire called The Quick Environmental Exposure and Sensitivity Inventory (QEESI) and share the results with their doctors. Internationally, the QEESI is the most widely used screening instrument for chemical intolerance and TILT among physicians and health practitioners.

Only certain individuals are prone to TILT. Many experience long-lasting and diverse symptoms, including memory and concentration problems, fatigue, headaches, weakness and mood changes such as irritability and depression. They often report gastrointestinal, respiratory and skin problems, and some develop depression, addiction or violent behavior.

With the Gulf War veterans, whether they were exposed to pesticides, smoke from the oil fires or pyridostigmine bromide pills, the result was the same–a breakdown in their natural tolerance. Long after these substances have left their bodies, the aftermath of these exposures–the new-onset intolerances–perpetuate their symptoms.

The QEESI measures sensitivities through a self-evaluation based on four scales: Symptom Severity, Chemical Intolerances, Other Intolerances, and Life Impact.” Each scale contains 10 items, scored from 0 = “not a problem” to 10 = “severe or disabling problem.” Another 10-item tool called the “Masking Index” gauges ongoing exposures and overlapping symptoms that hide responses, blocking one’s awareness of their intolerances, and the intensity of their responses to exposures.

It’s important to help people on the Gulf sort out and “unmask” the causes or triggers of their symptoms. TILT will be overlooked without the use of appropriate tools, such as the QEESI. Also needed are environmental medical units, or EMUs–environmentally controlled inpatient hospital units designed to isolate patients from exposures, including foods, that trigger their symptoms. Congress once endorsed EMU research for the Gulf War veterans but never funded it.

It’s encouraging that some doctors along the Gulf Coast are treating people for problems that they blame on the spill. Dr. Michael Robichaux, from Raceland, LA, told The Huffington Post in 2012 that he treated 50 people for a range of health problems that he believes were caused by exposure to chemicals from the spill. “The illnesses are very real, and the people who are ill are apparently people who have sensitivities to these substances that not all of us are sensitive to,” he explained.

Millions of dollars from the BP Claims Fund are being spent to expand access to healthcare in underserved communities, assisting with behavioral and mental health needs, training community health care workers on “peer listening and community input” and improving “environmental health expertise, capacity and literacy.”

And yet, not one dime has been allocated to study how toxic exposures resulting from this disaster may have rendered thousands of individuals chemically intolerant and suffering from the same disabling multi-system symptoms that continue to afflict Gulf War veterans.

Nothing will change until medical science acknowledges that we are dealing with an entirely new disease paradigm. Today we recognize that germs cause infections and that protein antigens cause allergies and immune system disorders. Now we need to understand the full range of illnesses caused by chemical exposures.

> To take the free online QEESI test, please visit www.qeesi.org

Special thanks to Richard Charter