Category Archives: Gulf restoration

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

NPR: For BP Cleanup, 2013 Meant 4.6 Million Pounds Of Gulf Coast Oil

Leave a comment

http://www.npr.org/

by DEBBIE ELLIOTT
December 21, 2013 5:14 AM

As we near the end of 2013, NPR is taking a look at the numbers that tell the story of this year. They’re numbers that, if you really understand them, give insight into the world we live in. On a breezy December morning, a work crew is scouring the surf line on Grand Isle, La., scooping up tiny tar balls and collecting them in a basket. Foreman LeRoy Irving keeps track of what the 14-person team has collected as in a half day. “If I had to guess, maybe 10 pounds,” he says.

These patrol and maintenance teams as they’re called are out four days a week, combing Grand Isle and nearby beaches on this stretch of south Louisiana that continue to be a trouble spot for oiling, now approaching four years since the BP oil spill.

Gulf Coast Cleanup In Numbers
4.6 million pounds – oily material collected from Gulf Coast shoreline in 2013
106,465 tons – total oily material collected from Gulf Coast shoreline since Deepwater Horizon exploded in 2010
55 miles – shoreline in active cleanup response in Dec. 2013
4,377 – miles of shore surveyed since 2010
40,096 – holes and pits dug and sampled to look for buried oil in 2013
47,000 – total personnel working on cleanup at the peak of the response
420 – terabytes of electronic data generated (including: 10 billion pages of textual records, 12 million maps and charts, 25 million still photos and graphs, 300,000 reels of motion picture film, 400,000 video and sound recordings)
$14 billion – amount BP says it has spent on cleanup and response activities*
70 million – personnel hours BP says it has put in on cleanup and response*
Source: U.S. Coast Guard Gulf Coast Incident Management Team
*Source: BP

This year, crews have collected 4.6 million pounds of oily material from the Gulf Coast shoreline. Coastal residents are asking how long they’ll be living with the effects of BP’s 2010 oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. “A lot of people don’t realize that the Deepwater Horizon response is still going on,” says Coast Guard Petty Officer 1st Class Michael Anderson with the Gulf Coast Incident Management Team. “It’s been a marathon, not a sprint.”

Oil In The Breaches
The active cleanup is now down to 55 miles here in south Louisiana – out of more than 4,300 in the immediate aftermath of the spill. Tar balls still wash ashore on beaches in Alabama and Mississippi but now only get cleaned up when a report is called in to the National Response Center. Anderson says the active cleanup is now focused on harder-to-find oil. Tropical storms have buried it under layers of sand and sediment, both on beaches and in marshes. On Fourchon Beach, just west of Grand Isle, a fleet of trucks and front-end loaders work removing heavy oily muck that was recently uncovered here. Anderson says crews were surprised to find giant tar mats buried deep in breaches after Tropical Storm Karen in October. “The breach is actually an area that’s been worn away by the water so you have an open channel or trench between the ocean and the marshes behind,” Anderson says. More than 1.5 million pounds of oily material have been recovered in the breaches.

BP officials declined to be interviewed for this story, but in a statement, the company says it’s confident that contractors have “located substantially all the material that is feasible to recover in Louisiana.” To date, BP has spent more than $14 billion on response and cleanup activities.

‘They Killed The Fish And They Put Oil On The Beach’
But environmentalists say the fact that 4.6 million pounds was collected this year – more than three years after the disaster – is telling. “You put that much oil into an ecosystem, and you’re going to be living with the consequences of it for a long, long time,” says David Muth with the National Wildlife Federation in New Orleans.

On Elmer’s Island, a state-owned spit of land on the Gulf, Muth spots a host of shorebirds: pelicans, cormorants, terns, even the endangered piping plover. “We’re watching birds all along this beach throughout the marches, throughout the bays, in the open gulf, that are actively feeding, and the question is how much of that residual oil, oil byproduct, are they picking up?” Muth asks.

Jonathan Henderson of the Gulf Restoration Network documents the ongoing impacts of the BP oil spill. On Elmer’s Island, he’s armed with a specimen jar and blue latex gloves – and picking through tar balls in the tide line. “You can look in this line, you can see they’re everywhere. So there’s literally thousands and thousands and thousands of them,” he says. He filled his jar in about three minutes with tar balls ranging from the size of a dime to a silver dollar. “You crack them open and you can see they’re kind of brownish and sandy on the outside, but open, they’re black in the middle. You can smell it right away once you crack it open, the fumes start coming out of them,” Henderson says. Henderson also does regular flyovers of the Gulf’s oil production platforms, looking for evidence of leaks that might not make the headlines that BP did. “Any time could turn into something bigger. Clearly one of the dangers of deepwater drilling like this is once you have a blowout the damage is really going to be done and it’s going to stick with you for a long time,” he says.

That’s been a hard lesson for Dean Blanchard, a shrimp processor on Grand Isle. “Basically they turned us into a ghost town,” Blanchard says. “The thing to do down here was to fish and to lay on the beach. They killed the fish and they put oil on the beach.” There’s no reason for people to come now, he says, unless they work on an oil cleanup crew.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

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

NOLA.com: More massive tar mats from BP oil spill discovered on Louisiana beaches

Leave a comment

Beach-Cleanup-4-1170×583 1.jp 2

More massive tar mats from BP oil spill discovered on Louisiana beaches

The Lens – In-depth news and investigations for New Orleans
Environment

By Bob Marshall, Staff writer December 18, 2013 10:51am

Bob Marshall / The Lens

Beach-Cleanup-4-1170x583 1.jp 2
Heavy equipment digs into Fourchon Beach searching for more of the massive oil mats left by the BP blowout in 2010.
The 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster was just a month old and BP’s crude oil was still gushing from the Gulf floor when state officials began to grasp the true scope of the insult to Louisiana’s coast: Beaches, estuaries and wetlands would be under assault for decades.

“I’ve been told by the ocean experts this stuff could hang out there on the bottom of the Gulf for more than 100 years. And as long as it’s out there, it can come ashore,” said Robert Barham, Secretary of the state Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, in 2010. “We might not see big black waves, but we may be seeing a smaller, but serious problem, for years and years to come.”

The accuracy of that prediction is visible once again on the Lafourche Parish beach between Elmer’s Island and Port Fourchon, where a line of mud haulers waits to collect BP oil being unearthed by giant excavators digging just yards from the Gulf waves.

According to the U.S. Coast Guard, in the past few weeks this one spot has yielded 1.5 million pounds of “oily material” – a designation that includes oil products as well as associated shell, sand and water.

And that’s in addition to 1.79 million pounds already collected from Fourchon, by far the largest share of the 8.9 million pounds recovered from all Louisiana beaches in the past two years.

The heavy ongoing cleanup is emblematic of the problems spill experts say Louisiana can expect due to the rapid erosion of its coastline, especially along the beaches between Grand Isle and Port Fourchon. The rapid shoreline retreat in this area has resulted in a silt-filled backwash in the nearshore shallows. Patches of Deepwater Horizon oil that reached this zone became embedded with sand, shells and mud particles in the water column, creating malleable tar balls, patties and mats, depending on their size.

These are more than mere eyesores. The weathered oil contains toxic hydrocarbon components than can remain a threat to fish, wildlife and human health for 50 years. So even small tar balls must be cleaned up.

Gunk not quickly collected by cleanup crews soon became covered with sand and submerged by the advancing Gulf. They disappeared from view – but only temporarily. Weather events that bring rough waves and high tides often uncover the pieces, sometimes picking them up and spreading them spread across the beach and into adjacent marshes.

That happened again in October, during Tropical Storm Karen, which limped across the southeast Louisiana coast as a tropical depression. The Coast Guard assessment team that searched the Fourchon Beach area hadn’t expected to find much. That made the recent discovery of a large mat surprising, public information officer Michael Anderson said.

“That was a big mat – we collected 53,000 pounds from that one site,” he said. The size of the mat triggered another search.

During the spill the parish and state had used booms and other material to block four channels leading from the beach to the interior marsh in an effort to keep the oil from coating vegetation. It was a prudent decision; the beach area became one of the most heavily oiled in the entire Gulf. “During the spill we collected a lot of oil that was building up against those structures,” Anderson said. But as time went on, storms and shoreline changes buried the structures. When the post-Karen mat was discovered in one of those channels, the search was on for the remaining three. It paid off. One site, which is still under excavation, has yielded 780,000 pounds; another 53,000 pounds were found at the third site; the third contained 320 pounds, and the fourth was clean.

BP spokesman Jason Ryan said in an email that the only place where a “sizable deposit” of oily material was found after Tropical Storm Karen was at Fourchon Beach, “where the area’s deep channel and breach structure, combined with previous storms, created an environment where sediment collected in a way that was unlike any other area in Louisiana.”

He continued, “This is not new material that washed ashore; it was buried under 6 to 9 feet of sand deposited by tropical storms in 2010 and 2011. The oiled material is 85-90% sand, shells, silt, and water, and 10-15% heavily-weathered residual oil. However, in these breach areas it is difficult to separate this oiled material from the surrounding clean sand, which is reflected in the volume of material recovered.”

Discovery of those buried deposits proved the wisdom of what’s called the Louisiana Augering and Sequential Recovery Program, which involves boring holes through the beach layers about every 30 feet. Anderson said about 5,800 holes were bored over 5.8 miles of Fourchon Beach – 14,366 across Louisiana beaches in total.

The need for such thorough investigation was obvious after tar mats laid bare by storm action showed that BP’s oil is so prevalent in some areas that the Coast Guard resorted to doing complete beach restorations. So far the program has led to removal of 4.7 million pounds of oily muck. Most of it was sand, but sand so laden with oil that removal was the only option.

“In some sections we’ve had to dig down to the clay and peat layer that supports the beach – about three to four feet deep – and just remove the sand and replace it with new, clean sand,” Anderson said. “That was the only way to really get the job done.”

But as Barham, the Wildlife and Fisheries chief, knew two years ago, the work in fact is far from complete.

“We do have new tar balls coming ashore on these new beaches,” Anderson said. “This Fourchon area is really the most problematic place in the entire area of operation – the entire Gulf from Florida to Texas. “We know after each storm we’ll probably be finding something.

And in Louisiana, coastal storms aren’t going to stop anytime soon.
This story was modified after publication to include a comment from BP and to remove the reference to how much the shoreline has retreated because The Lens has received conflicting information about the extent of the loss.

ABOUT BOB MARSHALL

Bob Marshall covers environmental issues for The Lens, with a special focus on coastal restoration and wetlands. While at The Times-Picayune, his work chronicling the people, stories and issues of Louisiana’s wetlands was recognized with two Pulitzer Prizes and other awards. In 2012 Marshall was a member of the inaugural class inducted into the Loyola University School of Communications Den of Distinction. He can be reached at (504) 232-5013

Special thanks to Richard Charter

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

Gulf Restoration Network: Bird’s Eye View: More Pollution Incidents to Report with New Photos

Leave a comment

photos at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/healthygulf/sets/72157638638305963/show/with/11354064155/

story at:
https://healthygulf.org/201312132180/blog/general/birds-eye-view-more-pollution-incidents-to-report-with-new-photos

Blog – General
Friday, 13 December 2013 12:43

As I wrap up things before heading off for a much needed holiday vacation, I wanted to be sure to share with you some photos of GRN’s most recent Gulf monitoring trips. As you look at the photos, please be sure to read the included descriptions for important details. After you have finished reading this blog and viewing the photos, if like me you are feeling angry, sad, frustrated, and motivated to do something, please take a minute to take action. There are many ways that you can help and I have included some options for you at the end of this blog. But first, below is a brief summary of our most recent watchdogging trips.

On November 26th a buddy of mine, Edwin Miles, and I drove down to Grand Isle to look for ongoing BP impacts. We went to Grand Isle State Park and it didn’t take very long to find hundreds of tar balls presumed to be ongoing impacts from the BP disaster. I filed a report with the National Response Center (NRC) and the next morning received a call from the Louisiana Oil Spill Coordinator’s office. I was informed that based on my report, which included GPS coordinates, that a clean-up crew was on the way to remove the oil. Please click below to view a slideshow of the photos then click “Show Info” to read the descriptions.
On December 11th, I accompanied Debbie Elliot, a national reporter with National Public Radio (NPR), to Elmer’s Island. Debbie is doing a news report about ongoing BP clean-up operations. In addition to me, Debbie conducted several interviews with other individuals for a story that is scheduled to air nationally on Sunday, December 22nd during NPR’s Weekend Edition. Check your local NPR affiliates for listings, and be sure to check their website to listen online and view photos. On this trip to Elmer’s Island, thousands of tar balls could be found on the shoreline. It took me less than three minutes to fill an entire sample jar. It was disgusting. Also on Elmer’s Island that day there was a staging area for a BP oil excavation operation currently underway on a private beach adjacent to Elmer’s. An estimated 200,000 pounds of oily material has been removed so far from this location in the last couple of weeks. The oil is buried deep in the sand on the beach. While I was not allowed to go and document the excavation operation, as you will see if you keep reading I had something else up my sleeve!

On December 12th, I conducted an overflight as part of GRN’s ongoing watchdogging of pollution in the Gulf. A very special thank you is in order for GRN member Lamar Billups for sponsoring this flight. With me on this flight was Bob Marshall, who covers environmental issues for The Lens. While at The Times-Picayune, Bob’s work chronicling Louisiana’s wetlands was recognized with two Pulitzer Prizes and other awards. Bob is working on a report about the ongoing efforts by GRN to document and report new leaks and spills and our involvement with the Gulf Monitoring Consortium. Be on the lookout for Bob’s written report which will appear in The Lens as well as his radio report which will air sometime in the next couple of weeks on NPR affiliate WWNO. On this flyover, we transected coastal wetlands, bays, offshore, and along the Mississippi River looking for pollution incidents. While it was a gorgeous day on the Louisiana coast, it was windy, which makes it tricky to spot oil sheens, especially smaller ones. Take a look at the photos and read the descriptions to see what we found. Based on our findings, I filed two reports with the National Response Center: one for coal and petroleum coke in the Mississippi River, and one for the ongoing Taylor Energy leak 12 miles off the coast of Louisiana. I did spot several other locations such as a platform in Barataria Bay that may have been leaking but the wind and waves made it too difficult to know for sure. As such, no NRC reports were filed for those. As for that ‘something up my sleeve’ regarding the BP oil excavation operation on Grand Isle of which I was not permitted to access, I flew over that location and have included photos in the slideshow.

Finally as promised, here are some ways to take action if you don’t like what you see in the photos:

1. BP has spent millions of dollars on glossy ads saying everything is ok in the Gulf. Help us counter BP’s lies with real, documented truth. Share this report with your friends and family and share on social media such as Facebook. Also, be sure to “Like” GRN’s Facebook page so you can receive daily updates from the Gulf.

2. As the trial for the BP disaster continues, it’s more important than ever that the Justice Department holds BP accountable to the fullest extent of the law. Take action by clicking here to send a letter to the Justice Department. We’ve made it easy for you so all you have to do is enter in your information and click send.

3. GRN is committed to ongoing monitoring and reporting of pollution in the Gulf. However, the monitoring trips are very expensive, especially for a small environmental nonprofit. Make a donation and become a member by clicking here. Your tax deductible contribution gives us the tools and the resources to do this work.

4. Report any leaks, spills, and tar balls you encounter in the Gulf region to the National Response Center.

Happy Holidays!
Jonathan Henderson is the Coastal Resiliency Organizer for Gulf Restoration Network.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

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

NOAA: NOAA asks for public comment on proposed Deepwater Horizon oil spill early restoration plan and projects

Leave a comment

http://www.noaanews.noaa.gov/stories2013/20131206_nos_dwh_phase_3_projects_announcement.html
Trustees include 44 projects in $627 million, multi-agency draft plan to restore barrier islands, shorelines, dunes, underwater grasses, oysters, and lost recreation

December 6, 2013

Barrier island restoration work conducted earlier by NOAA Fisheries and partners through the Coastal Wetland Planning, Protection and Restoration Act.
Noaa1
Chaland Headland Louisiana barrier island restoration work conducted in 2006 by NOAA Fisheries and partners through the Coastal Wetland Planning, Protection and Restoration Act. is similar to the Chenier Ronquille restoration work project proposed in the Phase III plan.
Credit:NOAA

NOAA and its federal and state trustee partners today urged the public to provide comments on a draft plan to restore the Gulf after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill. The plan outlines and describes 44 proposed restoration projects, totaling approximately $627 million.

The plan was released by the Natural Resource Damage Assessment Trustees for the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, nine federal and state agencies that act on behalf of the public to restore resources directly or indirectly harmed by oil released into the environment following the spill.

The projects included in the plan, The Draft Programmatic and Phase III Early Restoration Plan and Draft Early Restoration Programmatic Environmental Impact Statement,would restore barrier islands, shorelines, dunes, underwater grasses, oysters, and lost recreation. Under the Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) process, the Trustees have proposed projects that seek to address both natural resource and recreational losses caused by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

“The Deepwater Horizon oil spill contributed to the loss of valuable natural resources all along the Gulf Coast,” said Dr. Mark Schaefer, assistant secretary of commerce for conservation and management and NOAA deputy administrator. “NOAA is committed to working in collaboration with partners in the public and private sectors to restore the health of the Gulf of Mexico. We want to engage the public in defining the path forward.”

These projects will be funded through the $1 billion provided to the trustees by BP, as part of the 2011 Framework Agreement on early restoration.

NOAA would take a leading role in executing four of the 44 proposed projects. Under the draft plan, NOAA would partner with Louisiana and the Department of the Interior to fund and execute restoration of beach, dune and back-barrier marsh habitat on Chenier Ronquille, a barrier island off the coast of Louisiana. Chenier Ronquille is one of four barrier islands proposed for restoration as part of the Louisiana Outer Coast Restoration Project. The total cost to restore the barrier islands as identified in this plan is expected to be $318 million.
NOAA 2

Alabama, Florida, Mississippi, and NOAA would partner to undertake three living shorelines projects. Living shorelines involve a blend of restoration technologies used to stabilize shorelines, provide fish and wildlife habitat, and provide recreational opportunities. The three projects are:

Alabama: NOAA would partner with the state to implement the proposed $5 million Swift Tract project. This project would construct approximately 1.6 miles of breakwaters covered with oyster shell to reduce shoreline erosion, protect salt marsh habitat, and restore ecosystem diversity and productivity in Mobile Bay. Restoration experts expect that over time, the breakwaters would develop into reefs, providing added reproductive and foraging habitat and shelter from predators.

Florida: The project, with NOAA partnering, would restore shoreline at two linked sites in Pensacola. Project GreenShores Site II is located immediately west of Muscogee Wharf in downtown Pensacola. Restoration at PGS Site II has been planned in conjunction with the adjoining Sanders Beach site. Both proposed projects would feature breakwaters that protect the coastline and create and restore approximately 18.8 acres of salt marsh habitat and four acres of reefs. Together, the Pensacola projects would cost approximately $11 million.

Mississippi: NOAA would work with the state to improve nearly six miles of shoreline as part of the proposed Hancock County Marsh Living Shoreline project. The goal of the project is to reduce shoreline erosion by dampening wave energy and encouraging reestablishment of habitat in the region. The estimated cost is $50 million.

Release of the draft plan opens a 60-day public comment period that runs through Feb. 4, 2014. During the comment period, the trustees will hold 10 public meetings across the Gulf states. All meetings will begin with an open house during which trustee representatives will be available to discuss project details. The open house will be followed by a formal presentation and opportunity for public comment. Meeting times, dates and locations are listed on www.gulfspillrestoration.noaa.gov.

Ten early restoration projects already are in various stages of implementation as part of the first two phases of early restoration. Updates on these projects are available in an interactive atlas.

Early restoration provides an opportunity to implement restoration projects agreed upon by the trustees and BP prior to the completion of the full natural resource damage assessment and restoration plan. BP and other responsible parties are obligated to compensate the public for the full scope of the natural resource injury caused by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, including the cost of assessing such injury and planning for restoration.

For more than 20 years, NOAA’s Damage Assessment, Remediation, and Restoration Program has worked cooperatively with federal and state agencies, tribes, industry, and communities to respond to oil spills, ship groundings, and toxic releases. During that period NOAA has protected natural resources at more than 500 waste sites and 160 oil spills, securing more than $2.3 billion from responsible parties.

NOAA’s mission is to understand and predict changes in the Earth’s environment, from the depths of the ocean to the surface of the sun, and to conserve and manage our coastal and marine resources. Join us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and our other social media channels.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

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

Government Accountability Project: Corexit: Deadly Dispersant in Oil Spill Cleanup

Leave a comment

http://www.whistleblower.org/program-areas/public-health/corexit

On April 19, 2013, GAP released Deadly Dispersants in the Gulf: Are Public Health and Environmental Tragedies the New Norm for Oil Spill Cleanups? The report details the devastating long-term effects on human health and the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem stemming from BP and the federal government’s widespread use of the dispersant Corexit, in response to the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

GAP teamed up with the nonprofit Louisiana Environmental Action Network (LEAN) to launch this effort in August 2011 after repeatedly hearing from Gulf residents and cleanup workers that official statements from representatives of BP and the federal government were false and misleading in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon disaster. Over the next 20 months, GAP collected data and evidence from over two dozen employee and citizen whistleblowers who experienced the cleanup’s effects firsthand, and GAP studied data from extensive Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests. Taken together, the documents and the witnesses’ testimony belie repeated corporate and government rhetoric that Corexit is not dangerous. Worse than this, evidence suggests that the cleanup effort has been more destructive to human health and the environment than the spill itself.

Conclusions from the report strongly suggest that the dispersant Corexit was widely applied in the aftermath of the Deepwater Horizon explosion because it caused the false impression that the oil disappeared. In reality, the oil/Corexit mixture became less visible, yet much more toxic than the oil alone. Nonetheless, indications are that both BP and the government were pleased with what Corexit accomplished.

The report is available here:
Part One, Corexit_Report_Part1_041913
Part Two, part2
Part Three _part3
You can download an Executive Summary of the report here.Executive_Summary_Corexit
Additional report exhibits are on file with GAP.

To produce the report, GAP investigators interviewed 25 whistleblowers who provided firsthand accounts of Corexit’s impact. While many chose to remain anonymous – including government officials – 16 whistleblowers provided full affidavits about their experiences, made publicly available in the report (excerpts from these affidavits can be found below).

Witnesses interviewed include cleanup workers, professionals (doctors, industry leaders), divers contracted by the federal government, and Gulf residents. The interviewees represent different geographic areas and are diverse in terms of age and gender. LEAN was instrumental in supporting this investigation. Further, one of GAP’s key whistleblowers, Dr. Wilma Subra, is a technical advisor for LEAN/Louisiana Mississippi Riverkeeper.

GAP has also teamed up with TakePart to tell the EPA: Ban Corexit! Sign our petition today!

Read the joint letter that LEAN, GAP and Gulf partners sent to the federal government, calling on various agencies to address the health crisis in the Gulf.

Read the in-depth Newsweek/The Daily Beast story on GAP’s report here.
Read the TakePart coverage here.
Read the New Orleans Times-Picayune coverage here.
Read the Mother Jones coverage here.
Watch the Al Jazeera coverage here.
Select Report Findings

Existing Health Problems

Eventually coined “BP Syndrome” or “Gulf Coast Syndrome,” all GAP witnesses experienced spill-related health problems. Some of these effects include: blood in urine; heart palpitations; kidney damage; liver damage; migraines; multiple chemical sensitivity; neurological damage resulting in memory loss; rapid weight loss; respiratory system and nervous system damage; seizures; skin irritation, burning and lesions; and temporary paralysis.
Interviewees are also extremely concerned about recognized long-term health effects from chemical exposure (from those specific chemicals found in Corexit/oil mixtures), which may not have manifested yet. These include reproductive damage (such as genetic mutations), endocrine disruption, and cancer.
Blood test results from a majority of GAP interviewees showed alarmingly high levels of chemical exposure – to Corexit and oil – that correlated with experienced health effects. These chemicals include known carcinogens.

The Failure to Protect Cleanup Workers

Contrary to warnings in BP’s own internal manual, BP and the government misrepresented known risks by asserting that Corexit was low in toxicity.
Despite the fact that the Occupational Safety and Health Administration has developed a highly-lauded safety training program for cleanup workers, the workers interviewed reported that they either did not receive any training or did not receive the federally required training.
Federally required worker resource manuals detailing Corexit health hazards (according to a confidential whistleblower) were not delivered or were removed from BP worksites early in the cleanup, as health problems began.
A FOIA request found that government agency regulations prohibited diving during the spill due to health risks. Yet, divers contracted by National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and interviewed by GAP dove after assurances that it was safe and additional protective equipment was unnecessary.
BP and the federal government, through their own medical monitoring programs, each publicly denied that any significant chemical exposure to humans was occurring. Of the workers GAP interviewed, 87% reported contact with Corexit while on the job and blood test results revealed high levels of chemical exposure.
BP and the federal government believed that allowing workers to wear respirators would not create a positive public image. The federal government permitted BP’s retaliation against workers who insisted on wearing this protection. Nearly half of the cleanup workers interviewed by GAP reported that they were threatened with termination when they tried to wear respirators or additional safety equipment on the job. Many received early termination notices after raising safety concerns on the job.
All workers interviewed reported that they were provided minimal or no personal protective equipment on the job.

Ecological Problems & Food Safety Issues

A majority of GAP witnesses reported that they found evidence of oil or oil debris after BP and the Coast Guard announced that cleanup operations were complete.
BP and the federal government reported that Corexit was last used in July 2010. A majority of GAP witnesses cited indications that Corexit was used after that time.
The oil-Corexit mixture coated the Gulf seafloor and permeated the Gulf’s rich ecological web. GAP witnesses have revealed underwater footage of an oil-covered barren seafloor, documenting widespread damage to coral reefs.
The FDA grossly misrepresented the results of its analysis of Gulf seafood safety. Of GAP’s witnesses, a majority expressed concern over the quality of government seafood testing, and reported seeing new seafood deformities firsthand. A majority of fishermen reported that their catch has decreased significantly since the spill.

Inadequate Compensation

BP’s Gulf Coast Claims Fund (GCCF) denied all health claims during its 18 months of existence. Although a significant precedent, the subsequent medical class action suit excluded countless sick individuals, bypassed the worst health effects resulting from exposure to dispersant and oil, offered grossly inadequate maximum awards compared to medical costs, and did not include medical treatment.

Recommendations

The BP spill was the worst environmental disaster in American history, but the government’s consent to BP’s use of Corexit has caused long-term human and ecological tragedies that may be worse than the original spill. As deepwater drilling expands off U.S. coasts, it is inevitable that other incidents will occur. Renewed reliance on Corexit is planned for future oil spills, and BP has declared it will continue to use the deadly dispersant as long as the government permits doing so.

GAP’s report illustrates that both BP and the government must take corrective action to mitigate ongoing suffering and to prevent the future use of this toxic substance. The report makes recommendations for:

A federal ban on the use of Corexit, which is already banned in the United Kingdom (BP’s home country) and Sweden.
Congressional hearings on the link between the current public health crisis in the Gulf and Corexit exposure.
The immediate reform of EPA dispersant policy, specifically requiring the agency to determine whether such products are safe for humans and the environment prior to granting approval under the National Contingency Plan (NCP).
The establishment of effective medical treatment programs ­– by medical experts specializing in chemical exposure – for Gulf residents and workers.
The federal government’s funding of third-party, independent assessments of both the spill’s health impact on Gulf residents and workers, and such treatment programs when established.

Early, preliminary finding of this GAP investigation was reported in April 2012 by a cover story in The Nation magazine. On April 19, 2013, on the eve of the third anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, noted journalist Mark Hertsgaard published many of the full report’s findings in Newsweek/The Daily Beast.
Select Excerpts from Whistleblower Affidavits & Report Statements

As an environmental scientist, I look at the way the government and BP are handling, describing and discussing the spill … [T]he government did not account for the increased toxicity of the combined oil and Corexit.
– Scott Porter, Diver, Marine Biologist

[W]hen a BP representative came up on the speedboat and asked if we need anything, I again explained my concerns about breathing in the Corexit and asked him for a respirator … He explained ‘If you wear a respirator, it is bringing attention to yourself because no one else is wearing respirators, and you can get fired for that.’
– Jorey Danos, Cleanup Worker

What brought all of these individuals into the same pool was the fact that their symptoms were almost identical, and were different from anything that I had ever observed in my 40 plus years as a physician … However, until people are educated about the symptoms associated with exposure to toxic waste from the spill, we cannot assume they will make the connection. I continue to witness this disconnect and these symptoms on a daily basis.
– Dr. Michael Robichaux, Physician

When [the national director of The Children’s Health Fund] went to Boothville Elementary in Plaquemines Parish and they opened the medical closet, it was full of nebulizers … Where’s the red flag? What is causing that many breathing problems with that number of kids? That is abnormal. At Boothville Elementary we have sick kids all over the place who are suffering from upper respiratory infections, severe asthma, skin infections, blisters in between their fingers and arms and on their legs and their feet. Some kids have blisters all around their mouths and their noses. These kids were perfectly fine before the spill and the spraying of Corexit began.
– Kindra Arnesen, Louisiana Resident

The MSDS [federally required chemical labeling and safety information] for Corexit list several of the health problems I am now having, and they still used … it throughout the Gulf … When I lived on the barge, for 24-hours a day I was exposed. I would be outside too, breathing in what they were burning, without a respirator or a Tyvek suit. I had an apron, a hairnet, a spatula and some rubber gloves, and they told me to go in the midst of this dangerous chemical environment. Yet they were willing to tell me that the dispersant mixed in with the oil I was cleaning was as safe as touching Dawn dishwashing soap? Then a year later I have health problems that I have never had before working on the barge…
– Jamie Griffin, Cook & Cleaner on Bunkhouse for Cleanup Workers

They hired people from all over who didn’t know about the conditions and real safety hazards, but you did what you had to do; you had to take the job and deal with it because you didn’t have money to go home … There was a safety culture of, ‘hush hush, it didn’t happen.’
– Anonymous Cleanup Worker

EPA and BP knew of the health impacts associated with [Corexit and oil] … The issue was responding to an oil spill of this magnitude, with unprecedented quantities of Corexit, including novel subsurface application. Gulf coastal communities, and individuals who consume gulf seafood or recreate in the gulf, are the guinea pigs left to deal with the consequences and will be feeling the full effect in years to come.
– Dr. Wilma Subra, Chemist, MacArthur Genius Award Recipient

As part of an impromptu meeting to provide feedback from the shrimping industry to EPA and NOAA, I met with EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson in Venice on June 1, 2010. By that point, already 800,000 to 900,000 gallons of Corexit 9527A had been sprayed. I was sitting across the table from Ms. Jackson and I asked her, ‘Why is it that when you have all of this going on and three air monitors from Venice, Louisiana, EPA’s reports are not showing any high levels of chemicals?’ Ms. Jackson responded, ‘Well the levels were a little high, but we didn’t want to create a public panic.’
– Clint Guidry, President, Louisiana Shrimp Association

It’s been really hard to get an accurate diagnosis or treatment, because none of the local doctors will even admit there is a problem … There’s one friend of mine who happens to be a doctor, and he’s very well aware of what’s going on but is afraid to take a hard stand on it.
– Shirley Tillman, Mississippi Resident, Cleanup Worker

Most of our members right now who are sick are in litigation … They aren’t going to sufficiently pay our medical bills to demonstrate that they were responsible for the actions they took, just as they didn’t give us respirators to demonstrate that our working environment was unsafe.
– A.C. Cooper, Vice President, Louisiana Shrimp Association

Every time I check, there is still oil on the beaches and in the estuary systems and in the wetlands and the marshes. People go to the beaches and swim in the gulf, and report to me that they still come up stained with a brownish tan color that they believe is oil.
– Dr. Wilma Subra, Chemist, MacArthur Genius Award Recipient