http://www.justicenewsflash.com/
BP Oil Spill Cleanup Workers Still Searching for Answers
2013-10-17 19:11:08 (GMT) (JusticeNewsFlash.com – Health & Law, Press Release)
10/14/2013 // BP Oil Spill Claim Website (Press Release) // Greg Vigna // (press release)

Court hearings continue over the financial responsibility of oil giant BP for damages caused by the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010. In a recent news report it was stated that the attorneys for the company and the federal government remain at odds over methods used to estimate how big the massive spill was. Estimates from both sides show that over three million barrels were leaked into the Gulf during the nearly three months it took to stop it.

The outcome of the recent court matter could lead to BP having to shell out hundreds of millions of dollars in fines under the Clean Water Act. This is in addition to other sums set aside for the compensation of those who were injured or sustained property damage as a result of the spill.

Those who worked as response workers for cleanup efforts following the oil spill are also now being considered in the group of those with potential damage claims against BP. Although many injured cleanup workers are still waiting for answers regarding their eligibility to pursue damages, a proposed settlement is being discussed by attorneys and others to compensate injured response workers for medical expenses. A number have experienced respiratory, skin, and other health conditions due to crude oil contaminant exposure and toxic chemical exposure to dispersants sprayed during cleanup efforts.

Injured BP oil spill response workers can contact the BP Gulf Oil Spill Help Desk for information regarding the status of the proposed settlement, and what their available medical and legal options may be. The help desk is now open for those who would like to request a free case review.

http://www.redandblack.com/

UGA researchers help continue Gulf oil spill research, community
By Jeanette Kazmierczak @sciencekaz | Posted: Thursday, October 17, 2013 1:00 pm

When millions of barrels of oil spilled out of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig and into the Gulf of Mexico in April 2010, researchers and coastal communities braced themselves for a long haul recovery. University of Georgia researchers at the Skidaway Institute of Oceanography in Savannah are conducting continuing research on the potential effects of oil on the life cycles of economically important blue crabs and shrimp.

Richard Lee, a professor emeritus at Skidaway, and his team studied the effects of emulsified oil, and initial results show exposure reduces the production of eggs and embryos in female shrimp and alters immune-related blood cells in blue crabs.
“Emulsified oil is produced when oil is vigorously mixed with seawater to produce a water-in-oil emulsion which is much more viscous than the original crude oil,” Lee wrote in an email to The Red & Black. “The catalysts are metal compounds in the crude oil that produce the emulsion. We have found that emulsified oil remains on the sediment when washed ashore and thus because of its persistence is more toxic to marsh animals, such as crabs.”

Observations made on blue crabs were done in conjunction with Anna Walker, a professor of pathology at Mercer University in Macon. “We looked at tissues from control blue crabs and then blue crabs that had been fed emulsified oil over a period of various numbers of days,” Walker said. “And it did appear that those animals that had consumed the emulsion for seven days, they had some kind of material in their hemocytes.” Hemocytes are the invertebrate equivalent of human white blood cells. “The suggestion that we had – because this is all very preliminary – is that the hemocytes were not functioning properly. And if they can’t function properly, they can’t remove any type of infectious organism from the hemolymph therefore the blue crab would be at a greater risk for the development of an infection.”

Walker stressed these are extremely preliminary results, based on one set of observations. She also said she and Lee are trying to avoid coming across as “Chicken Little.” While the immediate consequences of the spill were dire for many animals, the long-term consequences are proving to be less horrible than was expected. She said the key point to take away was that studying both types of consequences is important for understanding the repercussions of not only this, but future oil spills.

Researchers working with Lee have also been looking at the effects of dispersed oil, which is different from emulsified oil in that dispersed oil is treated by a chemical to break it up into droplets to prevent slicks. Lee said to imagine using oil-cutting soap to clean dishes – the oil isn’t destroyed, just broken up. He wrote in his email that the idea was that in this form the oil would be more quickly degraded by marine bacteria.

“This point is still in some disagreement by scientists, particularly in the case of a large oil spill,” Lee wrote. “We have determined that these dispersed oil droplets can be taken up by plankton, the small organisms that make up much of the biomass of the ocean. This is work we did with Marion Koshland at the University of Griefswald in Germany and Gustav Paffenhoeffer at [Skidaway]. Fish and other larger organisms can consume plankton containing dispersed oil and thus this oil enters the marine food web.”

Lee wrote the overall effect of the oil spill on population numbers of crabs and shrimp is hard to determine because population will vary from year to year anyway.

Lee and his team have also collaborated with researchers at the University of Southern Mississippi to provide outreach for affected communities. Jessica Kastler, the coordinator of program development at USM’s marine education center, said much of their work was with the Vietnamese-American fishing community in Ocean Springs, Miss.

“Our goal in this project was to talk to people about the role of science because science is going to be coming up with answers about the oil spill for at least another decade,” Kastler said. “And it would be nice if people were listening for those answers when they come up and then we can keep that information available for making decisions about future things. But working within the community – there’s a real, strong interest within the Vietnamese-American community to work with scientists and to be part of the data collection and interpretation effort.”

Kastler said discussion wasn’t always easy, both because of the language barrier and the emotions tied up in the ramifications of the oil spill, but she said the Vietnamese-American community was more interested even than some of the charter boat captains because their livelihoods are so intricately tied to the water.
“They got to learn how science works, they got to practice some of the things Dr. Lee was doing in his lab,” she said. “Then they got to share some of the messages from the project – this is the role of science, this is not, this is what science can tell us and we’re going to be waiting a long time for all of the answers.”
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Special thanks to Richard Charter

The Associated Press By The Associated Press
October 17, 2013 at 6:33 PM, updated October 17, 2013 at 6:34 PM

One of the lawyers singled out in an investigation of alleged misconduct in the settlement program for victims of BP’s 2010 Gulf oil spill is questioning the chief investigator’s impartiality.

Before a judge appointed him to lead the investigation, former FBI Director Louis Freeh disclosed that he is a partner at a law firm that is working on an unrelated case with lawyers for Kirkland & Ellis, a firm that represents the London-based oil giant.
In a court filing Wednesday, lawyers for New Orleans-based attorney Jon Andry argue they need more information about the relationship to determine whether to seek Freeh’s disqualification as “special master.”

In a report last month, Freeh said he found “ample evidence” that Andry and other attorneys tried to corrupt the settlement process by using a lawyer on the staff of claims administrator Patrick Juneau to expedite a $7.9 million settlement claim by The Andry Law Firm.

Andry’s lawyers claim Freeh has withheld evidence that could clear Andry of wrongdoing and “abandoned all pretense of the neutrality required of a Special Master.” “It requires no imagination to understand the value to BP and by extension its law firm, Kirkland & Ellis, of the criticisms made by Freeh,” they wrote. Freeh is a partner and chairman of the executive committee of Pepper Hamilton LLP, a law firm that also owns his consulting company, Freeh Group International Solutions. Andry’s lawyers said Pepper Hamilton is working with Kirkland & Ellis on class-action litigation over the diabetes drug Avandia. “Jon Andry has a right to a Special Master free of conflicts and free of the appearance of conflicts,” his lawyers wrote. “Mr. Jon Andry’s lawyers’ belated and rambling motion to recuse the Special Master is without merit in law and fact,” Freeh said in a statement emailed by Freeh Group International Solutions LLC president and CEO Jim Bucknam.

Freeh said he fully disclosed the “claimed conflicts” before he was appointed. “Additionally, all of the Special Master’s fees in this case are approved by the Court, not by BP and its lawyers,” he wrote. Separately, Andry’s attorneys, led by Lewis Unglesby, asked U.S. District Judge Carl Barbier for an order requiring Freeh to turn over all of the material that he gathered during his investigation.

“Freeh has made mistakes. They are substantial. They have caused great damage, but these errors are fixable once all the facts come out,” they wrote. In the report he issued on Sept. 7, Freeh cleared Juneau of engaging in any “conflict of interest, or unethical or improper conduct.” But he concluded that top members of Juneau’s staff engaged in conduct that was improper, unethical and possibly criminal. Freeh said Andry and another private attorney, Glen Lerner, used Lionel Sutton, a lawyer on Juneau’s staff, to expedite their firm’s claim. In return, Sutton received more than $40,000 in fees from payments on claims he had referred to their law firm before joining Juneau’s staff, Freeh’s report says. Freeh recommended that his report be forwarded to the Justice Department so it could determine whether Andry and others broke any laws. He also urged Barbier to consider disallowing payment on the $7.9 million claim.
By Michael Kunzelman, Associated Press

Special thanks to Richard Charter

Monday, 21 October 2013 09:29
By Dahr Jamail, Aljazeer

Three years after well blowout, declining seafood catches and deformities point to an environment in distress. (Photo: Erika Blumenfeld)

New Orleans – Hundreds of kilograms of oily debris on beaches, declining seafood catches, and other troubling signs point towards an ecosystem in crisis in the wake of BP’s 2010 oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

“It’s disturbing what we’re seeing,” Louisiana Oyster Task Force member Brad Robin told Al Jazeera. “We don’t have any more baby crabs, which is a bad sign. We’re seeing things we’ve never seen before.”

Robin, a commercial oyster fisherman who is also a member of the Louisiana
Government Advisory Board, said that of the sea ground where he has harvested oysters in the past, only 30 percent of it is productive now.

“We’re seeing crabs with holes in their shells, other seafood deformities. The state of Louisiana oyster season opened on October 15, and we can’t find any production out there yet. There is no life out there.”

According to Robin, entire sectors of the Louisiana oyster harvest areas are “dead or mostly dead”. “I got 10 boats in my fleet and only two of them are operating, because I don’t have the production to run the rest. We’re nowhere near back to whole, and I can’t tell you when or if it’ll come back.”

State of Louisiana statistics confirm that overall seafood catch numbers since the spill have declined.
Over three million pounds of oiled material have been found in Louisiana this year. (Photo: Erika Blumenfeld / Al Jazeera)

Everything is down’
Robin is not the only member of the Gulf’s seafood industry to report bleak news. Kathy Birren and her husband own Hernando Beach Seafood, a wholesale seafood business, in Florida.
Shrimp with tumours continue to be found along the impact zone, from Louisiana to Florida. (Photo: Dean Blanchard)

“I’ve seen a lot of change since the spill,” Birren told Al Jazeera. “Our stone crab harvest has dropped off and not come back; the numbers are way lower. Typically you’ll see some good crabbing somewhere along the west coast of Florida, but this last year we’ve had problems everywhere.”

Birren said the problems are not just with the crabs. “We’ve also had our grouper fishing down since the spill,” she added. “We’ve seen fish with tar balls in their stomachs from as far down as the Florida Keys. We had a grouper with tar balls in its stomach last month. Overall, everything is down.”

According to Birren, many fishermen in her area are giving up. “People are dropping out of the fishing business, and selling out cheap because they have to. I’m in west-central Florida, but fishermen all the way down to Key West are struggling to make it. I look at my son’s future, as he’s just getting into the business, and we’re worried.”

Dean Blanchard, owner of a seafood business in Grand Isle, Louisiana, is also deeply troubled by what he is seeing. “We have big tar mats coming up on Elmers Island, Fouchon, Grand Isle, and Grand Terre,” Blanchard told Al Jazeera. “Every time we have bad weather we get fresh tar balls and mats.”

Blanchard said his business generates only about 15 percent of what it did before the spill. “It looks like it’s getting worse,” he said. “I told my wife when she goes to the mall she can only spend 15 percent what she used to spend.”

Blanchard has also seen shrimp brought in with deformities, and has taken photographs of shrimp with tumours (see above). Others lack eyes. He attributes the deformities to BP’s use of toxic dispersants to sink the spilled oil.

“Everybody living down here watched them spray their dispersants day in and day out. They sprayed our bays and our beaches,” he said. “We got a problem, because BP says they didn’t spray down here, but we had a priest that even saw them spraying. So either we got a lying priest, or BP is lying.”

BP and the Coast Guard have told the media they have never sprayed dispersants within 10 miles of the coast, and that dispersants have never been used in bays.
Eyeless shrimp, along with other seafood abnormalities, have become common in many areas along the Gulf Coast. (Photo: Erika Blumenfeld / Al Jazeera)

A decades-long recovery
On a more sombre note, Dr Ed Cake, a biological oceanographer and a marine biologist, believes it will likely take the Gulf decades to recover from the BP disaster.

“The impacts of the Ixtoc 1 blowout in the Bay of Campeche in 1979 are still being felt,” said Cake, referring to a large oil spill near the Mexican coast, “and there are bays there where the oysters have still not returned. My prediction is we will be dealing with the impacts of this spill for several decades to come and it will outlive me.”

According to Cake, blue crab and shrimp catches have fallen in Mississippi and Alabama since the spill, and he also expressed worries about ongoing dolphin die-offs. But his primary concern is the slow recovery of the region’s oyster population.

“Mississippi recently opened their season, and their oyster fisherman are restricted to 12 sacks of oysters a day. But they can’t even reach six,” Cake said. “Thirty sacks would be a normal day for oysters – that was the previous limit – but that is restricted now because the stocks just aren’t there.”

Cake’s conclusion is grim. “Here in the estuarine areas, where we have the oysters, I think it’ll be a decade or two before we see any recovery.”

BP previously provided Al Jazeera with a statement on this topic, a portion of which read: “Seafood from the Gulf of Mexico is among the most tested in the world, and, according to the FDA and NOAA, it is as safe now as it was before the accident.”

BP claims that fish lesions are naturally common, and that before the spill there was documented evidence of lesions in the Gulf of Mexico caused by parasites and other agents.

More oil found
The second phase of the ongoing federal trial against BP investigates whether the company’s actions to halt the flow of oil during the blowout were adequate, and aims to determine how much oil was released.

“BP is mounting an aggressive legal and public relations campaign to shield itself from liability and minimise the amount of oil spilled in the Gulf, as well as the ongoing impacts from the disaster,” said Jonathan Henderson, an organiser for the Gulf Restoration Network, an environmental group.

Even Louisiana’s Republican Governor Bobby Jindal agrees. Jindal recently said, “Three and a half years later, BP is spending more money – I want you to hear this – they are spending more money on television commercials than they have on actually restoring the natural resources they impacted.”

As far away from the blowout site as Florida, researchers continue to find oil in both Tampa Bay and Sarasota Bay.

In Louisiana, according to the LA Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority (CPRA), more than 200 miles of shoreline have “some degree of oiling”, including 14 miles that are moderately or heavily oiled. From March through August of this year, over three million pounds of oiled material have been collected in Louisiana, more than double the amount over the same time period last year.

In addition, the CPRA reports that “investigations into the chemical composition of MC252 [BP’s Macondo well] oil samples demonstrate that submerged oil is NOT substantially weathered or depleted of most PAH’s [polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons],” and “disputesŠfindings relied on by the USCG [US Coast Guard] that Deepwater Horizon oil is non-toxic”.

The agency also expresses concerns that “submerged oil may continue to pose long term risk to nearshore ecosystems”.

“New impacts to the Gulf’s ecosystem and creatures also continue to emerge,” Henderson told Al Jazeera. “This year alone, the National Marine Fisheries Service has recorded 212 dolphins and other marine mammal standings in the northern Gulf. A new scientific study conducted by NOAA, BP and university researchers also shows significant negative impacts on tiny organisms that live on the sea floor in a 57 square mile area around the Deepwater Horizon well site.”

Numerous other impacts have been documented since the disaster began, including genetic disruptions for Gulf killifish, harm to deepwater corals,, and the die-off of tiny foraminifera that are an important part of the Gulf’s food chain.

Ongoing studies continue to reveal toxins from BP’s spill in water, soil, and seafood samples.

Meanwhile, fishermen in BP’s impact zone wonder if things will ever return to normal. “Our future is very, very dim, and there are no sponge crabs out there, which is the future,” Robin concluded. “I’ve never seen this in my lifespan. I’m not seeing a future, because everything out there is dead.”

Special thanks to Richard Charter