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fossil fuels, gulf of mexico clean-up, Gulf restoration, marine pollution, natural resource management, ocean pollution, offshore oil

The Lens–LSU study: Damaged minnow shows BP oil seeping into coastal food chain & Huffington Post: Corexit, Oil Dispersant Used By BP, Is Destroying Gulf Marine Life, Scientists Say

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LSU study: Damaged minnow shows BP oil seeping into coastal food chain

The Lens–LSU study: Damaged minnow shows BP oil seeping into coastal food chain
By Bob Marshall, Staff writer April 30, 2013 11:45am

A minnow considered the canary in Louisiana’s coastal ecosystem can’t shake the hydrocarbon cough it picked up when BPs oil started washing ashore three years ago.

Recent studies on new generations of the Gulf killifish, a marsh minnow diagnosed with signs of oil poisoning in 2010, shortly after the Macondo blowout began, confirm that hydrocarbon toxins remain in marsh sediments and continue to cause biological impairments that were precursors for species-wide collapses in Alaska after the Exxon Valdez spill.

The results have no implication for seafood safety because the levels of toxins detected are well below those considered hazardous for seafood consumption, the researchers said.

While the killifish is best known locally as the “cocahoe minnow,” a bait fish favored by anglers, researchers consider it the equivalent of the proverbial canary in a coal mine, a keystone species in the food chain that can give early warnings of problems for the entire system.

Andrew Whitehead, who in 2010 led an LSU team studying adult killifish from heavily oiled areas of Barataria Bay, said at the time, “We were detecting cellular responses to toxins that are predictive of impairment of reproduction and embryo development.”

Now, follow-up lab research on killifish embryo have confirmed those fears.

“They had the same hallmark signature impacts of cardiovascular toxicity as the adults. There was an accumulation of fluid around the heart, depressed heart rates and decreased hatching success.” – Andrew Whitehead
The research team exposed one group of embryo to sediments collected from heavily oiled areas of the bay and another group to sediments from areas that were not impacted.

“We know that early life stages, especially in fish, are very sensitive to the effects of oil, and we know that many animals (in the Gulf ) use these estuaries for the early stages of life and will be exposed to these sediments,” Whitehead said. “So we wanted to bring the research into the lab with a control group to see what the results would be, especially more than a year later.”

The embryos exposed to uncontaminated sediments showed no abnormalities, but those exposed to the oil-impacted sediments displayed many of the same developmental impairments detected in the adult fish during the first project, researchers found.

“They had the same hallmark signature impacts of cardiovascular toxicity as the adults,” Whitehead said. “There was an accumulation of fluid around the heart, depressed heart rates and decreased hatching success.”

The researchers were looking for signs that the embryos were impacted by polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), components of oil that are known carcinogens and that can persist for more than 50 years in ecosystems hit by oil spills. As in the first study, the levels recorded in this project were either trace or “undetectable” – the term used when a toxin does not register in water samples but animals exhibit biological responses that are symptomatic of exposure.

The responses shown by killifish embryos to such low levels of PAHs reinforced concern that trouble could be waiting down the line for economically more valuable species.

Whitehead, now at the University of California at Davis, said the concern wasn’t about the toxins accumulating in predators such as speckled trout and redfish that consume killifish, but that long-lasting PAHs could have biological impacts that may show up in future generations of a whole range of creatures that live close to and on the marsh bottom, such as shrimp, crabs and oysters.

“A lot of the (PAHs) have sunk into sediments in the marshes in Barataria Bay and get redistributed into the water column every time it gets windy,” he said. “So all animals that use shallow water in these estuaries will be exposed.”

A cause for hope, he said, is that only a handful of places across the vast Louisiana coast were heavily hit by the oil. That could mean large populations of killifish and other species were unaffected.

“So the hope would be animals that inhabit areas that were not heavily hit will be able to provide unaffected populations that can buffer the harm done in the affected area,” Whitehead said.
“Of course, we don’t know that, and that’s why we need to continue to monitor this.”

Whitehead repeated a concern voiced in 2010 that enough research should be done on the biology of the species being examined rather than just their safety for human consumption.

“As these studies show, you can have levels of these toxins that are no threat to humans, but can cause serious problems for a whole range of animals living in the ecosystem with just a very small level of contamination,” Whitehead said. “I haven’t seen a whole lot of research published on the biology of animals post-spill. That concerns me.”

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ABOUT BOB MARSHALL
More from this author
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.

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http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/25/corexit-bp-oil-dispersant_n_3157080.html?utm_hp_ref=green

Huffington Post: Corexit, Oil Dispersant Used By BP, Is Destroying Gulf Marine Life, Scientists Say
Posted: 04/25/2013 5:02 pm EDT | Updated: 04/25/2013 5:20 pm EDT

From TakePart’s David Kirby:
Three years ago, when BP’s Deepwater Horizon began leaking some 210 million gallons of Louisiana Crude into the Gulf of Mexico, the U.S. government allowed the company to apply chemical “dispersants” to the blossoming oil slick to prevent toxic gunk from reaching the fragile bays, beaches, and mangroves of the coast, where so much marine life originates. But a number of recent studies show that BP and the feds may have made a huge mistake, for which everything from microscopic organisms to bottlenose dolphins are now paying the highest price.

After the spill, BP secured about a third of the world’s supply of dispersants, namely Corexit 9500 and 9527, according to The New York Times. Of the two, 9527 is more toxic. Corexit dispersants emulsify oil into tiny beads, causing them to sink toward the bottom. Wave action and wind turbulence degrade the oil further, and evaporation concentrates the toxins in the oil-Corexit mixture, including dangerous compounds called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), known to cause cancer and developmental disorders.

When BP began spraying the Gulf, critics cried foul. They said Corexit is not only toxic to marine life on its own, but when combined with crude oil, the mixture becomes several times more toxic than oil or dispersant alone.

Not surprisingly, BP Chief Executive Bob Dudley defended use of the dispersant. “The toxicity of Corexit is about the same as dish soap, which is effectively what it is and how it works,” he told stockholders. “In hindsight no one believes that that was the wrong thing and it would have been much worse without the use of it. I do not believe anybody-anybody with almost common sense-would say waves of black oil washing into the marshes and beaches would have been a better thing, under any circumstances.”

BP says that Corexit is harmless to marine life, while the Environmental Protection Agency has waffled, saying both that “long term effects [of dispersants] on aquatic life are unknown” and that data “do not indicate any significant effects on aquatic life. Moreover, decreased size of the oil droplets is a good indication that, so far, the dispersant is effective.”

But many scientists, such as Dr. William Sawyer, a Louisiana toxicologist, argue that Corexit can be deadly to people and sea creatures alike. “Corexit components are also known as deodorized kerosene,” Sawyer said in a written statement for the Gulf Oil Disaster Recovery Group, a legal consortium representing environmental groups and individuals affected by the Deepwater Horizon spill. “With respect to marine toxicity and potential human health risks, studies of kerosene exposures strongly indicate potential health risks to volunteers, workers, sea turtles, dolphins, breathing reptiles and all species which need to surface for air exchanges, as well as birds and all other mammals.” When Corexit mixes with and breaks down crude, it makes the oil far more “bioavailable” to plants and animals, critics allege, because it is more easily absorbed in its emulsified state.

Sawyer tested edible fish and shellfish from the Gulf for absorption of petroleum hydrocarbon (PHC), believed to have been facilitated by Corexit. Tissue samples taken prior to the accident had no measurable PHC. But after the oil spill, Sawyer found tissue concentrations up to 10,000 parts per million, or 1 percent of the total. The study, he said, “shows that the absorption [of the oil] was enhanced by the Corexit.”

In April 2012, Louisiana State University’s Department of Oceanography and Coastal Sciences was finding lesions and grotesque deformities in sea life-including millions of shrimp with no eyes and crabs without eyes or claws-possibly linked to oil and dispersants.

The shocking story was ignored by major U.S. media, but covered in depth by Al Jazeera. BP said such deformities were “common” in aquatic life in the Gulf and caused by bacteria or parasites. But further studies point back to the spill.

A just-released study from the University of South Florida found that underwater plumes of BP oil, dispersed by Corexit, had produced a “massive die-off” of foraminifera, microscopic organisms at the base of the food chain. Other studies show that, as a result of oil and dispersants, plankton have either been killed or have absorbed PAHs before being consumed by other sea creatures.

Hydrocarbon-laden, mutated seafood is not the only legacy left behind by Corexit, many scientists, physicians, environmentalists, fishermen, and Gulf Coast residents contend. Earlier this week, TakePart wrote about Steve Kolian, a researcher and founder of the nonprofit group EcoRigs, whose volunteer scientists and divers seek to preserve offshore oil and gas platforms after production stops, for use as artificial reefs and for alternative energy production.

EcoRigs divers took water and marine life samples at several locations in the months following the blowout. Now, they and countless other Gulf residents are sick, with symptoms resembling something from a sci-fi horror film, including bleeding from the nose, ears, breasts, and even anus. Others complain of cognitive damage, including what one man calls getting “stuck stupid,” when he temporarily cannot move or speak, but can still hear.

“If we are getting sick, then you know the marine life out in the Gulf is too,” Kolian said. The diver and researcher completed an affidavit on human and marine health used in GAP’s report.

Kolian’s team has done studies of their own to alarming results. “We recently submitted a paper showing levels of hydrocarbons in seafood were up to 3,000 times higher than safety thresholds for human consumption,” he said. “Concentrations in biota [i.e. all marine life] samples were even greater.”

Kolian’s friend and colleague, Scott Porter, described in his affidavit to GAP how Corexit had caused dispersed crude to coat the bottom of the sea in a sickening, deadly film. In July 2011, he and other divers traveled to a part of the Florida Panhandle, known as the Emerald Coast for its pristine seawater, to collect samples for the Surfrider Foundation.

“When we went diving, however, the water had a brownish white haze that resembled what we saw in offshore Louisiana at 30 feet below sea level,” Porter’s affidavit stated. “I have never witnessed anything like that since I began diving in the Emerald Coast 20 years ago. We witnessedŠa reddish brown substance on the seafloor that resembled tar and spanned a much larger area than is typical of natural runoff.”

In areas covered with the substance, “we noticed much less sea life,” Porter continued. “There were hardly any sand dollars or crabs and only some fish, whereas we would normally see an abundance of organisms. It was desolate.”

Special thanks to Richard Charter

energy policy, fossil fuels, national ocean politics, natural resource management

DC Bureau: Obama Administration Says No to Full Environmental Study of LNG Exports

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http://www.dcbureau.org/201304228396/natural-resources-news-service/obama-administration-says-no-to-full-environmental-study-of-lng-exports.html

By Peter Mantius, on April 22nd, 2013
Natural Resources News Service

The Obama Administration is blocking a comprehensive environmental study on the impact of exporting massive quantities of liquefied natural gas, or LNG, on the grounds that new gas drilling induced by the exports is not “reasonably foreseeable.”

Meanwhile, the U.S. Department of Energy is resisting calls by Dow Chemical and other manufacturers for a more clearly defined and transparent DOE process for determining whether proposed LNG export projects serve the “public interest.”

Both the DOE and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission face mounting pressure to evaluate the economic and environmental consequences of licensing LNG export facilities. Since the agencies licensed an LNG export terminal in Sabine Pass, La., in 2011, 19 other applicants have lined up with licensing requests.

Sensitive to the potentially huge cumulative impact those projects could have on the U.S. economy, the two agencies suspended approvals pending a two-part economic study by the Energy Information Agency and a private contractor, NERA Economic Consulting.

Both analyses are now finished, and Christopher Smith, a deputy assistant secretary of DOE for oil and gas, testified March 19 that LNG export applications would be considered on a “case-by-case basis” in light of their economic conclusions, which have been sharply criticized.

Consideration of the toll LNG exports have on the environment is still up in the air. “I will be unable to comment today on Š the appropriate scope of environmental review,” Smith added.

Independent studies predict that unfettered LNG exports will drive up the domestic price of natural gas, spur a boom in fracking shale formations and cause a major transfer or wealth from consumers and energy-dependent industries to the natural gas industry and its investors.

While NERA, the DOE’s private contractor, has not disputed those points, its December 2012 report asserts that aggressive LNG exporting would be a net positive for the U.S. economy. “Moreover, for every one of the market scenarios examined, net economic benefits increased as the level of LNG exports increased,” NERA wrote in its policy-driving report.

Response to NERA’s conclusions have been broad and intense. Potential LNG exporters applaud it, but many of the 188,000 comments it triggered were negative.

For example, John Detwiler, an engineer from Pittsburgh, wrote that none of NERA’s scenarios “take a realistic view of the swings in gas supply, demand and pricing in the real world.” Detwiler also charged that NERA has a “consistent public record of advocacy against environmental protections and promoting denial of climate change” and that its lead author, W. David Montgomery, has publicly opposed carbon emission controls and DOE investments in green energy.

While NERA concluded that LNG exports would slightly boost gross domestic product, researchers from Purdue University found the exports would slightly depress GDP. But the two conclusions on GDP were not far apart and were not nearly as important, the Purdue team said, as the wealth-shifting and environmental effects of LNG exports.
“Using the natural gas in the U.S. is more advantageous than exports, both economically and environmentally,” the Purdue report concluded.

While the DOE has listed the environment as one factor it may consider when evaluating the “public interest” of a proposed LNG export project, FERC takes the lead in applying the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). In February, FERC granted Cheniere Energy authority to build the Creole Trail Pipeline to connect to its already-approved LNG export terminal in Sabine Pass, La.

The Sierra Club is suing to block the project, alleging that FERC’s failure to require a comprehensive environmental impact statement, or EIS, violates the NEPA law. It argues that FERC’s stance that LNG export-induced gas drilling is not “reasonably foreseeable” collapses in the face of detailed models prepared by the Energy Information Agency. The EIA predicts that an average of 63 percent of exported LNG will come from new gas drilling. Deloitte and other private analysts agree that LNG exports and new gas drilling go hand in hand.

The NEPA law requires a formal EIS whenever there is a “substantial question” about a project’s potential to harm the environment. Since export-induced gas drilling is a given and the preferred modern method of drilling – high-volume hydrofracking – has a controversial environmental record, the FERC staff had no authority to waive a formal EIS, the Sierra Club argument goes.

In fact, the environmental advocacy group claims an LNG-export induced fracking boom would be a calamity for the nation’s water and air quality, and it would exacerbate climate change.

Cheniere responded to the Sierra Club legal challenge April 9, writing: FERC “has previously explained that ‘projections of the locations and amount of future (gas drilling) production would be very speculative if attempted on the basis of’ the Creole Trail Expansion Project. Sierra Club’s mere disagreement with the commission does not entitle it to a stay.”

Cheniere is in favored position. It is the only company recently licensed by FERC and the DOE to export LNG to countries that do not have a free trade agreement with the United States (aside from a small facility in Alaska that has been exporting to Japan for decades). Virtually all of the world’s leading LNG importers are non-free trade agreement countries, including Japan, China, India and most of Europe. (Licenses to export to countries with a free trade agreement with the U.S. are routinely granted and are far less valuable.)

Cheniere, which plans to complete export terminal construction at its Sabine Pass facility by early 2017, recently signed a contract to deliver LNG to the United Kingdom.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

fossil fuels, Keystone XL, natural resource management, tar sands

Fracktracker,org: US Pipelines Incidents Are a Daily Occurrence

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Matt Kelso, Fracktracker.org, Apr 15 2013
Recently, there has been a lot of attention focused on the Mayflower, Arkansas pipeline failure that resulted in a massive oil spill, particularly as it comes at a time when discussions of the controversial Keystone XL Pipeline project are once again heating up. However, the situation is far from unusual.

In fact, according to data downloaded from the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA), there were 1,887 incidents in the nation’s gathering and transmission, distribution, and hazardous liquids pipelines between January 1, 2010 and March 29, 2013, or an average of 1.6 incidents per day.

graph
Pipeline incidents from 1/1/2010 through 3/29/2013. Data Source: PHMSA.

Obviously, not all of these failures are on par with the massive spill in Mayflower, and it should be noted that there are a variety of reasons for these lines to fail. Some of these reasons, such as excavation activity in the vicinity of a pipeline, are not necessarily the fault of the pipeline’s operator. The fact that these incidents are commonplace, however, is not one that can be dismissed.

map

Pipeline incidents in the United States from 1/1/2010 through 3/29/2013. Source: PHMSA. Red Triangles represent incidents leading to fatalities, and yellow triangles represent those leading to injuries. To access the active map, legend and other controls, click the map, or here.

It is clear from the map that there a few data entry errors, as a few of the data points draw in locations that aren’t even in the jurisdiction of the United States. However, each entry also contains a city and state that the incident is associated with, and for the most part, the data seem to be fairly reliable.
Source

fossil fuels, marine pollution, national ocean politics, natural resource management, ocean pollution, offshore oil

Common Dreams: ‘People’s History’ of Gulf Oil Disaster Reveals Deadly Truth Behind Dispersant Corexit; Sign petition to end use of Corexit

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http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/04/19-4

I encourage everyone to sign this petition now! Read the full report and sign the petition at: http://www.whistleblower.org/program-areas/public-health/corexit DeeVon

Published on Friday, April 19, 2013 by Common Dreams

Report released on eve of Deepwater Horizon anniversary tells of BP lies and government collusion in oil ‘clean-up’
– Jacob Chamberlain, staff writer

A dispersant plane passed over an oil skimmer in the Gulf of Mexico ten days after Deepwater Horizon explosion (Patrick Semansky / AP)

Not only is the chemical dispersant that was used to “clean up” the Deepwater Horizon oil disaster of 2010 extremely dangerous, it was knowingly used to make the gushing oil merely “appear invisible” all the while exacerbating levels of toxicity in the Gulf waters, according to a report released Friday, the eve of the third anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon disaster, by the Government Accountability Project.

According to the report, Deadly Dispersants in the Gulf: Are Public Health and Environmental Tragedies the New Norm for Oil Spill Cleanups?, Corexit-the dispersant chemical dumped into the Gulf of Mexico by oil giant BP and the U.S. government in the spill’s aftermath-was widely applied “because it caused the false impression that the oil disappeared.”

“This report is a people’s history to rebut a false advertising blitz by BP, enabled by government collusion.”
-Tom Devine
Government Accountability Project

As GAP states: “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 Corexit/oil combination is highly toxic and will continue to cause “devastating long-term effects on human health and the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem” for a long time into the future, the report warns.

GAP spent 20 months collecting evidence from “over two dozen employee and citizen whistleblowers who experienced the cleanup’s effects firsthand,” and from extensive Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) requests.

“This report is a people’s history to rebut a false advertising blitz by BP, enabled by government collusion,” stated GAP Legal Director Tom Devine, co-author of the report. “Gulf workers and residents who are still suffering deserve justice, and the public deserves the truth.”

“The price for making the spill appear invisible has been deadly,” he said. “It is time to stop covering up the truth about the deadly effects of the chemical cover-up Corexit.”
“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,” the group stated Friday.

The report includes first hand accounts from cleanup workers, divers, local doctors, and residents.

The findings also include “higher than normal frequency of seafood mutations,” and “pockets of ‘dead’ ocean areas where life was previously abundant.”
“Through their testimony and emerging science, the truth about the spill response’s toxic legacy is beginning to surface as the third anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon explosion approaches,” GAP stated.

Below is a small selection of some of the voices included in the report:
As an environmental scientist, I look at the way the government and BP are handling, describing and discussing the spill Š [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 Š 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 Š 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
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 Š 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] Š 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

Special thanks to Richard Charter