Category Archives: oil pollution

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

Alabama13.com: Flesh Eating Bacteria Tied to BP Oil Spill Tar Balls

11/08/2013 admin Leave a comment

http://www.alabamas13.com/

Posted: Nov 07, 2013 12:02 PM EST Updated: Nov 07, 2013 2:25 PM EST
By Peter Albrecht – bio | email

The Alabama Gulf Coast attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors every year, and since the 2010 BP Oil Spill, tens of thousands of tar balls.

A couple hundred miles away at Auburn University, Dr. Cova Arias, a professor of aquatic microbiology, conducts research on the often-deadly and sometimes flesh-eating bacteria Vibrio Vulnificus. Arias’ research at Auburn, and through the school’s lab at Dauphin Island, has focused on Vibrio’s impact on the oyster industry which was brought to a standstill three years ago by the BP Oil Spill. In 2010, out of curiosity, Arias set out to discover if Vibrio were present in the post-spill tar balls washing up on the Alabama and Mississippi coasts. She was highly surprised by what she found.

“What was clear to us was that the tar balls contain a lot of Vibrio Vulnificus,” said Arias. Arias can show an observer Vibrio in the lab as it appears as a ring on the top of the solution in a test tube. Vibrio is not something, though, that a person can see in the water, sand, or tar balls. But, Arias’ research shows it there, especially in the tar balls, in big numbers. According to Dr. Arias’ studies, there were ten times more vibrio vulnificus bacteria in tar balls than in the surrounding sand, and 100 times more than in the surrounding water. “In general, (the tar balls) are like a magnet for bacteria,” said Arias. Arias’ theory is that Vibrio feeds on the microbes that are breaking down the tar.

She and researchers looked at tar balls that washed in to the same areas they had previously studied so they could therefore make valid comparisons to before the oil spill. “What we also found was in water, the numbers were about ten times higher than the numbers that have reported before from that area,” said Arias. So the water alone had ten times as much Vibrio as before the oil spill, and the tar balls themselves had 100-times more Vibrio than the water.

Dr. John Vande Waa , an infectious disease specialist at the University of South Alabama Medical Center in Mobile says a person can get Vibrio two ways, by eating infected seafood, usually raw oysters, or by being in infected waters, either salt water or brackish. In this form, Vibrio is a fast-acting flesh-eating bacteria.

“The destruction in arms and legs, the flesh eating component, it’s two parts ,” said Vande Waa. “One is that the organism itself can destroy the tissues. The other is sepsis. The bacteria is in their bloodstream, it affects all the organs. Within my own experience of cases, the mortality has been approaching 40-50 percent.”

When entering through the skin, Vibrio is contracted thru some sort of cut or abrasion. The young or old, or someone with a compromised immune system, is more likely to get Vibrio. Dr. Vande Waa says exposure to Vibrio should be taken seriously by everyone in marine environments, due to the random, but deadly, nature of bacteria. “It can be very little exposure,” he said. “Just the wrong place at the wrong time.” It’s not a way anyone would want to die.

“I hope and pray to God I never have to see something like that again in my life,” said David Cox. His stepfather Wayne Anderson of Irvington was killed by Vibrio in September. Anderson was a life-long fisherman. It was something in the water where he spent his life that took his life. Cox says it started as a small bump on Anderson’s leg. “It spread very quickly,” said Cox. “The pain was unbearable. You could just see the redness getting darker, the blisters getting bigger.” Anderson was dead in less than 48 hours. “He wasn’t one to complain about pain and to see him there begging for someone to do something, it was very helpless,” said Cox. “Honestly, it was the hardest thing I’ve done in my life.”

There have been almost two dozen cases of Vibrio in Alabama over the last five years, according the Alabama Department of Public health. Florida recorded 160 Vibrio cases from 2007-20012, with 54 of them being fatal. There have been more than 30 cases in Florida this year. An Escambia County man died in October. A 43-year-old Milton woman, Tracy Lynn Ray, died on November 1st. Relatives tell News-5 she was a frequent beach goer.

Arias recommends that people at the beach not touch the tar balls with their bare skin. “You may have micro-abrasions so you don’t even know you have a cut,” said Arias. “So, I would stay away from the tar balls.” But the results of Arias’ research have not been widely reported. As Tropical Storm Karen last month washed in a new batch of tar balls at Orange Beach, sunbathers and beach walkers were oblivious to the dangers. “No, not really, it doesn’t seem to be a concern,” said Mike Hadley of St. Louis Mo. “I don’t think that a tar ball that has sand and shells on it is going to impact my health or me enjoying the beach at all,” said another beach goer.

The bacteria-filled tar balls are an object of beach goer curiosity.”I was just looking for shells in the sand and came across it,” said Tara Hadley of St. Louis. “Just looking, I picked it up thinking it was a shell.” Martha Ellison of Prattville, walking the beach with her teenage daughter, admits to handling tar balls on a routine basis. “Yeah. I’ve gotten them all over our fingers, stepped on them, gotten them on our feet.”

So far, there has been no documented case of someone getting the flesh-eating disease from tar balls. Still, Arias urges caution.
“We don’t know if you can get infected with Vibrio Vulnificus by touching a tar ball, but the possibility is there,” she said.
BP stresses that there has been no human case of Vibrio attributed to contact with tar balls. A BP statement sent to News Five read: “The Arias study does not support a conclusion that tar balls may represent a new or important route of human exposure for Vibrio infection, or that the detection of Vibrio in tar balls would impact the overall public health risk, since there are other far more common sources of Vibrio, such as seawater and oysters.”

BP says it asked the Alabama Department of Public Health in 2012, if its beach clean-up workers were at risk. Dr. Thomas Miller, ADPH Deputy Director for Medical Affairs, replied in a letter that there was no evidence of increased cases of Vibrio since the oil spill. Miller indicated, however, that could have been a result of fewer tourists being at the beach.
Arias says the only other significant study of Vibrio and tar balls was conducted following a spill off the coast of Nigeria and showed similar results. Arias has not done any follow-up work since 2010, citing a lack of funds, but says she would like to do further research.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

energy policy, fossil fuels, fracking, oil pollution, tar sands

Common Dreams: First Nations to Resume Blockade in Canadian Fracking Fight

11/05/2013 admin Leave a comment

Published on Tuesday, November 5, 2013
Renewed protests follow announcement that energy company will re-start shale gas exploration
– Sarah Lazare, staff writer

A Royal Proclamation day feast brought out over 300 to the anti-fracking blockade in Rexton, New Brunswick in early October. [Photo: Miles Howe]Elsipogtog First Nations members are heading back to the streets in New Brunswick this week to defend their land from a gas drilling company seeking to re-start exploratory fracking operations in the region.

The new wave of local anti-drilling resistance will resume an ongoing battle between the community members who faced a paramilitary-style onslaught by law enforcement agencies last month that sparked international outcry and a wave of solidarity protests.

“This is an issue of human rights and access to clean drinking water, and it’s fundamentally about sovereignty and self-determination.” –Clayton Thomas-Muller, Idle No More

The renewed protest follows a recent announcement by New Brunswick’s premiere that SWN Resources Canada, a subsidiary of the Houston-based Southwestern Energy Company, will resume shale gas exploration in First Nations territory after it was halted by blockades and protests.

Elsipogtog members announced Monday they will join with local residents and other First Nations communities—including the Mi’kmaq people—to “light a sacred fire” and stage a protest to stop SWN from fracking.

“SWN is violating our treaty rights. We are here to save our water and land, and to protect our animals and people. There will be no fracking at all,” said Louis Jerome, a Mi’kmaq sun dancer, in a statement. “We are putting a sacred fire here, and it must be respected. We are still here, and we’re not backing down.”

“The people of Elsipogtog along with local people have a very strong resolve and will be there as long as they need to be to keep the threat of fracking from destroying their water,” said Clayton Thomas-Muller, a campaigner with Idle No More, in an interview with Common Dreams.

Community members previously blocked a road near the town of Rexton in rural New Brunswick to stop energy companies from conducting shale gas exploration on their land without their consent.

In early October, the government imposed a temporary injunction on the New Brunswick protest, bowing to pressure from SWN.

Claiming the authority of the injunction, over 100 Royal Canadian Mounted Police launched a paramilitary-style assault on the blockade in late October, bringing rifles and attack dogs and arresting 40 people.

First Nations communities and activists across Canada and the world launched a wave of actions in solidarity in response to the attack.

“Within 24 hours of the paramilitary assault on the nonviolent blockade by the fed police, Idle No More and other networks organized over 100 solidarity actions in over half a dozen countries,” said Thomas-Muller.

Days later, a Canadian judge overruled the injunction on the protests. Yet the federal and provincial governments continue to allow SWN to move forward fracking plans on indigenous lands, in what First Nation campaigners say is a violation of federal laws protecting the sovereignty of their communities.

“This is an issue of human rights and access to clean drinking water, and it’s fundamentally about sovereignty and self-determination,” said Thomas-Muller. “Support for the Elsipogtog and their actions to reclaim lands in their territory is something that is powerful and united from coast to coast and around the world.”

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energy policy, fracking, oil pollution, tar sands

Common Dreams: Big Oil’s Bid to Crush Small Town Stand Against Tar Sands

10/29/2013 admin Leave a comment

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2013/10/28-2
Published on Monday, October 28, 2013 by Common Dreams

Industry cash and lobbyists pour into coastal Maine town in effort to defeat residents’ initiative to block dirty oil project
– Sarah Lazare, staff writer

Protect South Portland rallies in favor of the Waterfront Protection Ordinance (Photo: damp wood)Big Oil is sparing no expense in its bid to crush efforts by residents of South Portland, Maine who are taking the fossil fuel industry head-on to save their waterfront from tar sands.

Campaign finance reports revealed Friday that the oil industry has poured over $600,000 into a campaign to defeat the Waterfront Protection Ordinance—a land-use zoning ordinance up for referendum in the November election, that is backed by grassroots organizations and would block oil industry efforts to build a tar sands export facility.

“Clearly they have all the money. We are talking about some of the wealthiest corporations in the world. They do not want a community to stand up for itself. They are going to do everything they can to squash our initiative.”
–Robert Sellin, Protect South Portland

The oil industry is likely to break all records on campaign spending in this coastal town of 25,000 people, out-spending local environmental and community groups six-to-one.

“Oil industry spending is completely over the top,” said Robert Sellin, from the group Protect South Portland, in a phone interview with Common Dreams. “Clearly they have all the money. We are talking about some of the wealthiest corporations in the world. They do not want a community to stand up for itself. They are going to do everything they can to squash our initiative and discourage other jurisdictions.”

While the Keystone XL pipeline is still under review by the State Department, the fight in South Portland shows that oil and pipeline industries are pressing to expand routes across the U.S. and Canada.

The campaign to defeat the Waterfront Protection Ordinance is bankrolled by the Washington, D.C.-based lobbying group American Petroleum Institute, as well as the Portland Pipe Line Corporation. The hundreds of thousands of dollars are being used to run advertisements, hire consultants and strategists, and employ canvassers.

“They have been stuffing our mailboxes with shiny mailers and our phones have been ringing off the hook with robo calls, and we’re so sick of it,” said Cathy Chapman, a South Portland resident.

In contrast, local organizations in favor of the ordinance’s passage have collectively spent only $107,000. Protect South Portland says that the $31,000 they have spent in favor of the ordinance came from 192 people donating an average of $42.49 each.

“Our citizen group—Protect South Portland—is volunteer-powered by neighbors and is grassroots,” said Crystal Goodrich of Protect South Portland, who also questioned the tactics of the oil lobby.

The Portland Pipe Line Corporation applied four years ago for a permit to use South Portland as the potential location for an alternate tar sands pipeline. The plan was to use a 70-year-old, 236-mile pipeline, currently employed to transport crude oil from freighters in the South Portland harbor to Montreal, to instead transport tar sands oil from Alberta, Canada. This would be accomplished by reversing the flow of the pipeline, and the tar sands oil would be distributed to international markets via oil tankers and an upgraded terminal in South Portland.

The upgrade would include two 70-foot smokestacks erected on the South Portland waterfront that would spew pollution, including carcinogenic benzene, into the atmosphere. Freighter ships transporting crude oil from Casco Bay would increase the risk of spills, and tar sands storage tanks would be erected near area schools.

PPLC President and CEO Larry Wilson now claims that his company has no immediate plans to move forward on this project, though has said his company won’t rule it out. Meanwhile, PPLC is putting up a vigorous fight against community efforts to prevent tar sands distribution at the South Portland waterfront.

Sellin said that the same tactics the oil industry is using against local residents are used in a bid to force the tar sands industry on communities all over the world. “I hope that people would think about their local situation and how they can use what powers they have to defend their communities,” he said. “We encourage all communities nationally and internationally to look at what’s available and stand up.”

fossil fuels, fracking, oil pollution, tar sands

Common Dreams: New Neighbors to Millions of Americans: Fracking Wells

10/29/2013 admin Leave a comment

Published on Monday, October 28, 2013 by Common Dreams

New analysis reveals over 15 million homeowners now have a fracking well in their ‘backyard’
– Lauren McCauley, staff writer

(Screenshot from Gasland Part II)Over 15 million homeowners have a natural gas or oil well within a mile of their home—according to a Wall Street Journal analysis published Saturday—thanks to the fracking gold rush that has pushed the fossil fuel industry into Americans’ backyards.

“At least 15.3 million Americans live within a mile of a well that has been drilled since 2000,” said the WSJ analysis, which looked at well location and population data for more than 700 counties in 11 major energy-producing states. “That is more people than live in Michigan or New York City.”

The story credits the toxic process of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, for spurring the expansion of the fossil fuel industry into the small towns and neighborhoods over the Niobrara Shale in Colorado, the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania and the Barnett Shale in Texas, among others.

“The change can be dramatic,” the WSJ writes.

In Johnson County, Texas, in 2000, there were fewer than 20 oil and gas wells. Only a fraction of the residents of this mostly suburban county, south of Fort Worth, lived anywhere near a well or could tell you where to find one.

Today, more than 3,900 wells dot the county and some 99.5% of its 150,000 residents live within a mile of a well. Similar transformations took place in parts of Pennsylvania, Colorado and Wyoming, according to Journal data.

According to DrillingInfo, a data provider to the oil industry, in 2010 some 23 counties, with more than four million residents, each had more than three new wells per square mile.

The WSJ quotes a number of homeowners who have either permitted by lease onto their own property or watched the oil industry move in to adjacent land. Describing the new wells as little more than an “irritation” focusing particularly on the noise and “influx of truck traffic,” the report fails to emphasize the long-term impact of these new neighbors.

Documented in environmental journals and films such as director Josh Fox’s Gasland and Gasland Part II, communities which have already been ravaged by the fracking boom report widespread water contamination—resulting in sickness, dead livestock and flammable tap water.

In late July, environmental groups uncovered a leaked EPA report that said fracking caused methane to leak into drinking-water aquifers in Dimock, Penn. Dimock, which is featured in Gasland, has become the exemplar of a community casualty of the toxic fracking boom.

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

Waking Times: Setting the Record Straight About BP’s Failed Gulf of Mexico Cleanup

10/24/2013 admin Leave a comment

http://www.wakingtimes.com/2013/10/23/setting-record-straight-bps-failed-gulf-mexico-cleanup/

October 23, 2013 | By WakingTimes |

Julie Dermansky, DeSmogBlog
Waking Times

The second phase of hearings in the legal battle over the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico ended on October 17th. Following two weeks of testimony by the U.S. Department of Justice and BP, U.S. District Court Judge Carl Barbier will determine what quantity of oil was spilled into the Gulf. He will also decide whether BP was simply negligent or grossly negligent.

The Justice Department claims 176 million gallons of oil were spilled; BP argues that it only spilled 103 million gallons. Under the Clean Water Act and the Oil Pollution Control Act, Judge Barbier can fine BP and its partners $1,100 per barrel should he find they were negligent in their actions leading up to the spill and in the cleanup afterwards. The fine would rise to $4,300 per barrel if he finds the companies were grossly negligent or acted with willful misconduct, as the State Department alleges.Using the State Department’s numbers, the fine could be $18 billion; if BP’s numbers are accepted, the fine could be $10.5 billion.

The outcome of the case will play a role in all subsequent litigation around the BP disaster, including the case of Dean Blanchard, owner of Dean Blanchard Seafood, the largest shrimp buyer and wholesaler in the Gulf region. Blanchard’s company in Grand Isle, Louisiana is all but shut down now. Blanchard keeps a small fraction of his staff employed – more of them than he needs to keep his dwindling operation going. He doesn’t have the heart to make further cuts.

Blanchard estimates his company’s loss at over $100 million. He estimates that his business is now 15 percent of what it was before the spill. He keeps his doors open only because he can’t bring himself to close down. He recently moved part of his business to a different area where some shrimpers are still able to harvest product, but he faces an uphill battle against BP, and an uncertain future, along with many other Gulf fishermen.
Dean Blanchard talks about the use of the chemical dispersant Corexit during the BP oil spill:

This fall, BP launched a new PR campaign depicting itself as a victim of fraud. The BP ads accuse people of filing fraudulent claims, and asks upstanding citizens to turn them in. Blanchard doesn’t doubt there are fraudulent claims, but holds BP responsible for allowing that to happen.

He and others in the fishing industry offered to help BP figure out who the real fishermen were since they know their community well, but BP turned them down. Blanchard suggests that BP may have wanted to create chaos, initially giving a token payment to anyone who wore a pair of white boots into the claims offices so they could play victim later, just as they are doing now. On Facebook, activists encourage those affected by the spill to call the BP fraud hotline set up for this campaign and choke the company’s line with calls accusing BP of fraud.

BP’s other commercials claim that all fishing areas have reopened, although the waters near Grand Isle are not. Blanchard wonders why the government continues to allow the company to lie in its advertising.

BP’s “Make it Right” campaign, which asserts that things are back to normal, is a source of rage for many along the Gulf Coast. And Dean Blanchard doesn’t pull punches about it:

Some of the shrimpers who sell to Blanchard periodically monitor the areas they used to work in. They have caught deformed shrimp with no eyes and oil in their gills, and other fish with lesions.

Recently, a fisherman gave him a fish with a hole in the middle of its body that Blanchard has kept on ice to show people as an example of the abnormalities in the seafood he has seen since the spill.

Image Source
Fish with mysterious hole in its side caught by a fisherman and given to Blanchard.

Despite the government and company assurances that the seafood is safe, Blanchard’s insurance company dropped his product liability insurance. Blanchard wont be covered if the product he is selling turns out to be unsafe.

Besides the fiscal strain, Blanchard worries about the health of his family. He says everyone he knows on the island now has sinus and breathing problems.

Many have moved, including longtime resident Betty Doud, her daughter and grandchildren. She and Blanchard both tell me they can breathe better when they travel away from Grand Isle. Doud and her daughter are renting homes near New Orleans.

Over lunch, they rule out places to resettle that are sites for potential environmental disasters, crossing off all the states that have fracking activity, for instance. Doud recently sold off her Grand Isle home and won’t ever move back. Like Blanchard, she’d rather sue BP than accept the meager settlement it offered for her loss.

BP has been forced to take some responsibility for the health issues faced by residents and cleanup workers. In May 2012, as part of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill settlement, $36 million in grant money was earmarked for behavioral and mental healthcare needs, making it possible for residents and cleanup workers to file claims in a class action suit against BP for their health issues.

Meanwhile, more tar mats containing BP oil were discovered by the Coast Guard after the recent tropical storm Karen.

The amount of oil recovered in the cleanup process in Louisiana has grown this year. Garret Graves, chairman of the Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, suggested in an interview with Reuters that the initial cleanup had clearly been insufficient since the amount of recovered oil increased this year.

Oil turning up on these beaches is no surprise to residents like Betty Doud, who witnessed activities in 2010 that suggested to her that cleanup workers were burying the oil rather than taking it away.

Dean Blanchard isn’t surprised either. He has no doubt that the reason there are no shrimp left in the area rests on the fact that Corexit was used to chemically disperse the oil, letting it sink to the sea floor where the shrimp reproduce.

The use of dispersant by BP irks Blanchard the most. He believes that if the government hadn’t allowed BP to disperse the oil, it could have been cleaned up.

“I never knew you could buy a branch of the government, but BP bought the Coast Guard,” he says. “They were complicit in letting BP do what they wanted.”

Blanchard is irked by the fact that BP was making tons of money and still cutting corners – putting the health of Gulf Coast residents and the economy at risk. And the fact that BP was allowed to do so by the government also riles him.

“Someone at the top needs to go to jail,” Blanchard says.

Graveyard erected to those who died in the BP blowout.

Message to BP on Main Street
Special thanks to Richard Charter

Offshore Oil Drilling