Chemicals used in Gulf spill have not broken down. Scientific report differs from EPA findings.

[madfloridian]

I am increasingly alarmed at how little attention is being given to the fact that serious and lasting harm was done in many ways to the Gulf of Mexico by the BP oil spill. It gets covered occasionally in some local newspaper along the Gulf coast, but there is very little national coverage.

Talking Points Memo had a report a couple of days ago about the chemicals that were being used so freely to disperse the oil....to make the water "look" better.

Chemical Dispersants Linger in Gulf Long After Oil Flow Stopped

Chemical compounds from the oil dispersants applied to the Gulf of Mexico didn't break down as expected, according to a study released this week. Scientists found the compounds lingering for months in the deep waters of the Gulf, long after BP's oil had stopped spewing.

"The results indicate that an important component of the chemical dispersant injected into the oil in the deep ocean remained there, and resisted rapid biodegradation," said scientist David Valentine of U.C. Santa Barbara, one of the investigators in the study. Read the full report.

The findings contrast with what the Environmental Protection Agency has asserted about the dispersants, which the agency allowed BP to use in unprecedented quantities.

Guess who provided the information about the dispersant to the EPA? The manufacturer.

The information about the components in the dispersant, it's worth noting, was provided to the agency by the dispersant manufacturer. As we've pointed out, the EPA also relied on the manufacturer to provide data on the dispersant's toxicity and approved it for use in the Gulf without doing independent testing.

Here is more about the study from UC Santa Barbara.

First Study of Dispersants in Gulf Spill Suggests a Prolonged Deepwater Fate

To combat last year’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill, nearly 800,000 gallons of chemical dispersant were injected directly into the oil and gas flow coming out of the wellhead nearly one mile deep in the Gulf of Mexico. Now, as scientists begin to assess how well the strategy worked at breaking up oil droplets, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution (WHOI) chemist Elizabeth B. Kujawinski and her colleagues report that a major component of the dispersant itself was contained within an oil-gas-laden plume in the deep ocean and had still not degraded some three months after it was applied.

While the results suggest the dispersant did mingle with the oil and gas flowing from the mile-deep wellhead, they also raise questions about what impact the deep-water residue of oil and dispersant—which some say has its own toxic effects—might have had on environment and marine life in the Gulf.

“This study gives our colleagues the first environmental data on the fate of dispersants in the spill,” said Kujawinski, who led a team that also included scientists from UC Santa Barbara. “These data will form the basis of toxicity studies and modeling studies that can assess the efficacy and impact of the dispersants.

“We don’t know if the dispersant broke up the oil,” she added. “We found that it didn’t go away, and that was somewhat surprising.”

I found this powerful letter from a Louisiana state senator to President Obama. It expresses the fears that many feel...fears that are NOT being addressed at all.

Sen. A.G. Crowe fired off this heated letter to President Obama.

Here are a few excerpts:

Last week state Sen. A.G. Crowe fired off this heated letter to President Obama. The letter takes the president to task for allowing the use of the controversial dispersant Corexit in the Gulf of Mexico and expresses his deep and detailed unease with the possible toxic ramifications to those present and future residents living along the Gulf. Crowe even goes so far as to voice the suspicion, which is shared by many along the Gulf, that Corexit is still being used to disperse remaining oil leftover from the spill even though BP and the Obama administration claim to have discontinued its use.

Yes, many do fear it is still being used, and that we are being lied to about it. I guess it is okay to use the word lie in that context, because it is surely would be a lie, and a very dangerous one.

More from the letter:

Please have your administration provide answers to the following questions.

1.Have acutely toxic chemical compounds been formed by the mixing of Gulf crude with toxic dispersants (Corexit 9500 and 9527A) applied individually or in a mixed ratio? If such chemicals have been mixed, please provide the ratios and provide the names of the other chemicals with which Corexit was mixed.

2. Other acutely toxic compounds have been found in the air, water, and sediments in the Gulf. Have they evaporated off with the aid of dispersants? Have your scientist reported that these compounds have come ashore, contaminating our coastal communities?

3. Is the oil spilled truly cleaned up, or has it been transformed through the evaporation and loss of lighter-chain hydrocarbons, leaving the heavier, longer-chain hydrocarbons in the water and sediments to continue delivering toxins to those exposed to them through time, which includes all the aquatic life within the Gulf waters?

4. What levels of toxins can humans safely tolerate if these toxins are taken in either by ingestion or by direct exposure from the air or water?

5. Are the Gulf waters safe? If so, define “safe.” Please define the test methods used to determine water quality and safety to assist independent scientists to verify these results.

6. Is Gulf seafood safe? If so, define “safe.”

Yes, define "safe". When they say the seafood from the Gulf is safe they need to be very sure and clear.

Read those questions carefully, many of us have them. Be sure to read the rest of the letter.

The man appointed by Obama to handle the claims against BP has not done a very good job. There are so many angry people in many areas along the coast, yet I will guarantee you don't see them on national TV very much if at all. Kenneth Feinberg's law firm gets $850,000 a year from BP.

He is handling claims that affect people's lives for decades, and he is getting that much money from BP.

Feinberg at a meeting in Chalmette, Louisiana this week inadvertently showed his mindset.

But Feinberg accidentally showed up at the council chambers shortly after Taffaro left, and people quickly realized who he was and began demanding answers.

One woman was very vocal, sharing her name and claim details with Feinberg and asking why her claim hadn't been paid. Feinberg told her, "I'll look into it," but the woman questioned how he would do that when he hadn't written down her name.

"Here's your shot, make it right," fisherman Robert Campo said to Feinberg. "You gotta help the people on the front lines that do this for a living. I'm a front line fisherman. I do this for a living. I'm immediately affected."

Many of the fishermen and business owners asked Feinberg to stay and answer their questions, but he quickly left in his vehicle and traveled to a different location to meet with Taffaro.

Let's see, Feinberg showed up at a public meeting "accidentally", forgot to get a woman's name, and left in a hurry.

[fascisthunter]

1. Just Heard an Ad on the Radio for BP

by a man claiming to be a shrimper, thanking BP for helping the locals... then announced that shrimping was doing well, and everything is just peachy.

[madfloridian]

2. Yes, I have seen that ad.

All prettied up. There is one on TV like that...shows a man on a boat.

[glowing]

3. Has anyone living on the gulf noticed the horrid smell after it rains?

Or the spots that appears on cars after the rain has stopped and has dried?

[madfloridian]

8. Something about that was on the bay area news once.

It was like they mentioned that smell once, and then never again. I thought it was my imagination.

[madfloridian]

4. Noami Klein references USF research in an article at The Nation.

http://www.thenation.com/article/157723/search-bps-oil

"It didn't help that the government seemed determined to help move us along. Just three weeks after the wellhead was capped, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) came out with its notorious "oil budget," which prompted White House energy czar Carol Browner to erroneously claim that "the vast majority of the oil is gone." The White House corrected the error (the fate of much of that oil is simply unknown), but the budget nonetheless inspired a flood of stories about how "doom-mongers" had exaggerated the spill's danger and, as the British Daily Mail tabloid indignantly put it, unfairly wronged "one of Britain's greatest companies."

More recently, in mid-December, Unified Area Command, the joint government-BP body formed to oversee the spill response, came out with a fat report that seemed expressly designed to close the book on the disaster. Mike Utsler, BP's Unified Area Commander, summed up its findings like this: "The beaches are safe, the water is safe, and the seafood is safe." Never mind that just four days earlier, more than 8,000 pounds of tar balls were collected on Florida's beaches—and that was an average day. Or that gulf residents and cleanup workers continue to report serious health problems that many scientists believe are linked to dispersant and crude oil exposure.

By the end of the year, investors were celebrating BP's stock rebound, and the company was feeling so emboldened that it revealed plans to challenge the official estimates of how much oil gushed out of its broken wellhead, claiming that the figures are as much as 50 percent too high. If BP succeeds, it could save the company as much as $10.5 billion in damages. The Obama administration, meanwhile, has just given the go-ahead for sixteen deepwater projects to resume in the gulf, well before the Oil Spill Commission's safety recommendations have a hope of being implemented."

And I will be eagerly awaiting more research results from the University of South Florida's Weatherbird II. Klein mentions it.

For the scientists aboard the WeatherBird II, the recasting of the Deepwater Horizon spill as a good-news story about a disaster averted has not been easy to watch. Over the past seven months, they, along with a small group of similarly focused oceanographers from other universities, have logged dozens of weeks at sea in cramped research vessels, carefully measuring and monitoring the spill's impact on the delicate and little-understood ecology of the deep ocean. And these veteran scientists have seen things that they describe as unprecedented. Among their most striking findings are graveyards of recently deceased coral, oiled crab larvae, evidence of bizarre sickness in the phytoplankton and bacterial communities, and a mysterious brown liquid coating large swaths of the ocean floor, snuffing out life underneath. All are worrying signs that the toxins that invaded these waters are not finished wreaking havoc and could, in the months and years to come, lead to consequences as severe as commercial fishery collapses and even species extinction.

[juajen]

5. Everything is not "Peachy"

Was in a store last week, where they were giving out samples of boiled shrimp. I asked the person giving out the shrimp where it came from. She said "I really can't say." I said, "Well, you just told me." I decided to taste it anyway. I swear, though it was heavenly to put a shrimp in my mouth, there was a chemical aftertaste. I guess it could be in my head, this mistrust maybe coloring my perception, but either way, I won't buy the shrimp. I do not trust this administration to be any better than the prior administration. I wish I could say differently.

I wanted to be wrong about Obama. How would he feel if his two year old grandson lived this close to the coast. We are only about 30 miles away in Lafayette. Everyone is concerned about the air quality, the seafood many of us won't eat, and I certainly do not want to go to any beach right now. Our way of life has been shadowed by fear, made worse because we cannot trust our own government. I'm not sure there is much alive down there now, as more and more rumors persist that we cannot even imagine how really bad it is. As more facts emerge from the depths of secrecy, it gets scarier and scarier. Heaven forbid what the next hurricane will dredge up. God was merciful last hurricane season; I'm not sure what the next season will bring.

[soryang]

17. I ate some shimp, I could taste oil

I live on the east coast of Florida. The funny thing is that I recall reading one article that said just because you don't get the chemical aftertaste, doesn't mean it isn't contaminated. I love seafood but I don't eat it anymore and advise my family members not to eat it.

[Generic Other]

6. Thanks for posting these

I don't believe they have stopped releasing the chemicals.

[AlabamaLibrul]

7. Remember the Gulf of Mexico

It's not always winter, and a lot of people flow through the area. We're still here.

[BrklynLiberal]

9. We have been lied to...over and over over and over again..

[madfloridian]

25. Yes, sadly we have.

[intheflow]

10. K&R n/t

[bluestate10]

11. I had Gulf shrimp for dinner. I am careful. I did not detect problems. nt.

[madfloridian]

12. My neighbors say the Gulf is all clean and safe.

Because they heard it on TV.

It may be clean and safe. I can not prove it is not.

But there is too much about it I don't trust. That much oil doesn't just disappear. That many chemicals which should never have been used may not be disintegrating.

We don't eat shrimp right now. We only eat fish we know don't come from the Gulf.

[Fuddnik]

14. A choice I thought I'd never make.

I was shopping, and had a choice between Gulf Grouper or Chinese Tilapia. A year ago, there would have been no doubt. This time, Chinese Tilapia.

And shrimp is out of my vocabulary now.

[bluestate10]

18. Regulated foodstuffs for foodstuffs that could have anything in it. Smart choice :-(. nt.

[lunasun]

31. what would make you think that would be safer ? Their fish farms use a lot of crap drugs

[spanone]

13. where did the oil go? disappear or did the media just tire of reporting on it

[madfloridian]

15. USF said they found some on the bottom of the Gulf, but it was denied

by the powers that be. I will see if I can find that article.

[madfloridian]

16. Here are a couple of items about how USF findings were squelched.

http://www.tampabay.com/news/environment/usf-says-government-tried-to-squelch-their-oil-plume-findings/1114225

"A month after the Deepwater Horizon disaster began, scientists from the University of South Florida made a startling announcement. They had found signs that the oil spewing from the well had formed a 6-mile-wide plume snaking along in the deepest recesses of the gulf.

The reaction that USF announcement received from the Coast Guard and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the federal agencies that sponsored their research:

Shut up.

"I got lambasted by the Coast Guard and NOAA when we said there was undersea oil," USF marine sciences dean William Hogarth said. Some officials even told him to retract USF's public announcement, he said, comparing it to being "beat up" by federal officials.

The USF scientists weren't alone. Vernon Asper, an oceanographer at the University of Southern Mississippi, was part of a similar effort that met with a similar reaction. "We expected that NOAA would be pleased because we found something very, very interesting," Asper said. "NOAA instead responded by trying to discredit us. It was just a shock to us."

http://www.wusf.usf.edu/news/2010/05/27/underwater_oil_plume_discovered_near_mobile_bay

"TAMPA (2010-5-27) -

New tests show what appears to be a massive, second underwater plume in previously untested waters northeast of the leaking BP wellhead in the Gulf of Mexico.

Marine scientists have discovered a new, wide area of “dissolved hydrocarbons” in that Gulf. It is six miles wide and goes as deep as 3,300 feet.

More tests are being run, but researchers from the University of South Florida suspect the plume may be from chemical dispersants used to break up the gushing oil leak a mile below the surface. USF chemical oceanographer David Hollander says the underwater plume is significantly different than the surface oil washing ashore.

"This is insidious. This is sort of an invisible component we really don’t know the short term or the long term impact," he said."

[blindpig]

19. In Capitalist society the profits of the ruling class are the priority.

To expect anything else is to entertain delusion.

They don't give a fuck about the people, the environment or anything but their bottom line.

Could it not be plainer?

[xchrom]

20. recommend

[Vinca]

21. Gulf? What gulf?

I can't believe one of the worst environmental disasters ever has completely disappeared from the MSM. Guess that's what happens when news is controlled by the corporations.

[madfloridian]

23. Not even much locally any more.

It's so important, but it's getting no coverage. It is a whitewash, I fear. I read that one place Feinberg was appearing they had to hire extra security...so much anger.

[Altoid_Cyclist]

22. This is just another corporate run whitewash with our government holding the bucket for them.

I've posted this link before, but as long as this crime is still continuing, I think that it is still relevant.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/06/100624104806.htm

Excerpt:

"It has been reported that the size of the Gulf oil spill is unprecedented, much greater than that of the the (land mass) of New England area combined. You have to wonder about the fate of the crude oil that has not come ashore and recovered and what long term effects such toxins will have on the food chain," Cho said. "The pollutants from these toxins are going to be there for a long time."

Cho is worried about another phenomena from the spill-- the orange sheen seen on the surface of the gulf.

"That orange sheen is a result of a chemical reaction involving the sun, the crude oil and the oil dispersants," Cho said. "But nobody knows what's in that color and how toxic the chemicals are. Companies keep the chemical makeup of the dispersants secret.


http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/06/100624104806.htm

[madfloridian]

24. Dahr Jamail covers the Gulf for Al-Jazeera

Residents and fishermen outraged as BP’s compensation fund administrator denies ‘loss of income’ claims.

“I just got off the phone with Feinberg’s people and I’m really upset,” says seafood merchant Michelle Chauncey from Barataria, Louisiana. Her business, which sells wholesale and retail crabs, has not provided her with an income since the end of May, and her home is being foreclosed.

Attorney Kenneth Feinberg’s Washington-based firm, Feinberg Rozen, has been paid $850,000 a month by BP to administer a $20bn compensation fund and claims process for Gulf residents and fishermen affected by the Deepwater Horizon explosion last April.

The Gulf Coast Claims Facility (GCCF), which Feinberg manages, was set up after negotiations between BP and the Obama administration, but over recent months there has been growing concern among the Coast’s residents that Feinberg is limiting compensation funds to claimants in order to decrease BP’s liability.

Late last month, Feinberg told Bloomberg Television that he anticipates that about half of the $20bn fund should be enough to cover claims for economic losses.

[KoKo]

26. Ken Feinberg..The Fixer: "Agent Orange, Dalkon Shield, 9/11 Victims Compensation, ETC....

Best not to trust Feinberg "The Fixer" ...His past record speaks for itself

Who is Kenneth Feinberg?
By Tom Eley
2 July 2010

The career of “claims czar” Kenneth Feinberg leaves little doubt that the escrow account set up by the Obama administration to compensate victims of BP’s Gulf of Mexico oil blowout will have as its overriding aim the defense of the oil giant’s profitability.

The selection of Feinberg to head the $20 billion Independent Claims Facility was approved by BP executives, and with good reason. He has been repeatedly called upon to protect the interests of the wealthy and the powerful. Most notably, he was selected to chair a similar escrow account set up to compensate victims of the September, 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the US. Later he was chosen as the Obama administration’s “pay czar” for bailed out banks and corporations.

Feinberg’s task has been to present the image of objectivity and concern while pursuing the interests of the state and big corporations.

An attorney by training, Feinberg emerged as a political figure in the late 1970s, when Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy made him chief of his Senate staff. From there, Feinberg joined or helped establish two politically connected Washington law firms. His specialization was mediation and “alternative dispute resolution.”

In a number of high-profile disputes since the 1980s, Feinberg has repeatedly proven himself a reliable “fixer” for the ruling class:

Agent Orange Product Liability Litigation

The massive use of the chemical defoliant Agent Orange by the US military in Southeast Asia during the Vietnam War had, by the 1980s, become a major source of embarrassment for the US. In addition to devastating the Vietnamese population—some 400,000 people died from the chemical and 500,000 children were born with birth defects—tens of thousands of US soldiers had experienced direct exposure. They reported a wide array of symptoms, from various cancers to birth defects among their children.

A class action lawsuit was gaining steam against Agent Orange’s manufacturers when Feinberg was brought in to resolve the case. Within six weeks, he had ended the eight-year-old lawsuit by establishing a $180 million fund, a small amount for Agent Orange’s producers, the chemical giants Dow and Monsanto. For his labors Feinberg was paid $800,000. Affected veterans were given $1,200 in exchange for disavowing their right to litigate.

The Dalkon Shield case

Feinberg was appointed Trustee of the victim compensation fund for Dalkon Shield, a notorious birth control device that manufacturer A. H. Robins sold in the 1970s in spite of evidence that it caused serious injury among women.

According to the May 1996 journal HealthFacts, “235,000 American women suffered injuries, most of which involved life-threatening pelvic infections. Many cases were severe enough to cause hospitalization, permanent infertility, complete hysterectomy, and/or chronic pelvic pain. There were over 200 documented cases of a rare, potentially lethal type of infected miscarriage called spontaneous septic abortion. Ultimately, 20 women died of complications associated with the Dalkon Shield.”

It was established that A. H. Robins knew of the dangers to women’s health, but suppressed the information, even destroying evidence. In 1985 A. H. Robins filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in order to protect itself from Dalkon Shield litigation. A trust fund was established, overseen by Feinberg, by which injured women forfeited their right to go to court and a cap was set on company liability.

While Feinberg’s trust gave most women $725 or less, A.H. Robins was saved. “

otential buyers were no longer scared by Robins, which made other lucrative products like Chapstick and Robitussin,” HealthFacts explains. “In 1987, while the company was in bankruptcy, Robins stock had the highest rate of appreciation of any security on the New York Stock Exchange. In 1989, Robins was purchased by American Home Products; the company’s stock, much of it owned by the Robins family, quadrupled in value.”

September 11th Victim Compensation Fund

After mediating a series of high profile cases such as Dalkon, Agent Orange, as well as several asbestos class action lawsuits, Feinberg’s credentials were well-established to head up the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund, which aimed to stop lawsuits by family members of those killed in the attack on the World Trade Center.

Appointed by Bush administration Attorney General John Ashcroft, Feinberg’s assignment was only secondarily to limit damages to the federal government and the airlines. This time the primary purpose was political—to avoid lawsuits that might bring to light uncomfortable truths about the Bush administration’s role in the lead-up to the 9/11 attacks and what the preponderance of evidence suggests was an ordered stand down of the US military-intelligence apparatus.

Signing up for the fund meant that families would forgo the right to sue. It was also paired with a scarcely veiled threat. “In making their election (to forego monetary compensation), plaintiffs should be fully informed of the risks accompanying litigation,” the Bush administration asserted in a 2001 court document. “TSA’s vigorous enforcing of the rules governing non-disclosure of sensitive security information may present significant litigation consequences for all plaintiffs, and the government respectfully requests that the court include a statement to this effect in any finalized protocol.”

Mary Sciavo, an attorney who represented several 9/11 families, warned the families not to be “bulldozed into taking a cheap payout from the government.”

Obama administration “Pay Czar”

Feinberg’s most prominent job came with his selection by Obama to “oversee” executive pay at financial institutions and corporations that had received a large portion of the $750 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program (TARP). The appointment was largely a public relations stunt designed to defuse popular anger over Wall Street pay.

Feinberg did nothing to curb executive compensation at the firms, personally approving multi-million dollar pay packages for numerous executives. In 2009, Feinberg declared he was limiting cash salaries for top executives to $500,000. This figure—ten times the median pay for US workers—was in fact no limit. Firms could simply increase stock options and other forms of compensation. In the end, the top 138 executives at the TARP bailed out firms averaged $2.5 million in compensation in 2009.

At the financial wing of General Motors, GMAC, Feinberg approved a $7.7 million salary for senior risk officer Samuel Ramsey and $4.9 million in compensation for Chief Financial Officer Robert Hull in 2009. CEO Fritz Henderson saw his 2009 compensation more than double from 2008, to $5.5 million. This while the Obama administration’s Auto Task Force gutted the wages and benefits of autoworkers and retirees.

In his last act as “pay czar,” Feinberg approved a $4 million raise for the CEO of the three-times bailed-out out insurance giant AIG, Robert Benmosche, for 2010. “In light of the fact that the specified employee will remain in the employ of AIG,” Feinberg wrote to AIG, “it is appropriate to provide… long-term incentives to ensure that the employee contributes to AIG’s long-term success and, ultimately, AIG’s ability to repay taxpayers.”

This author also recommends:
BP ‘claims czar’: No compensation for most victims of oil spill


http://www.wsws.org/tools/index.php?page=print& ;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.wsws.org%2Farticles%2F2010%2Fjul2010%2Ffein-j02.shtml

[saras]

27. After 100 years of lies, why stop now?

http://www.oup.com/us/catalog/general/subject/EarthSciences/EnergyEnvironmentalScience/?view=usa&ci=9780199739950

100 years of solid evidence that the chemical industry cannot be trusted with environmental or health issues any farther than you can throw the Gulf of Mexico.

Someone who claims that industry will do honest science is either ignorant, malicious, or both.

[defendandprotect]

28. k/r - - back later to actually read-!

[sarcasmo]

29. Kick.

[Jefferson23]

30. K&R