http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/ap/top/all/7095131.html

Originally published Monday, July 5, 2010 at 4:03 AM

Tar balls from the Gulf oil spill found on a Texas beach were confirmed Monday as the first evidence that gushing crude from the Deepwater Horizon well has reached all the Gulf states.

By JUAN A. LOZANO
Associated Press Writer

TEXAS CITY, Texas –
Tar balls from the Gulf oil spill found on a Texas beach were confirmed Monday as the first evidence that gushing crude from the Deepwater Horizon well has reached all the Gulf states.

A Coast Guard official said it was possible that the oil hitched a ride on a ship and was not carried naturally by currents to the barrier islands of the eastern Texas coast, but there was no way to know for sure.

The amount discovered is tiny in comparison to what has coated beaches so far in the hardest-hit parts of the Gulf coast in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and the Florida Panhandle. It still provoked the quick dispatch of cleaning crews and a vow that BP will pay for the trouble.

“Any Texas shores impacted by the Deepwater spill will be cleaned up quickly and BP will be picking up the tab,” Texas Land Commissoner Jerry Patterson said in a news release.

The oil’s arrival in Texas was predicted Friday by an analysis from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which gave a 40 percent chance of crude reaching the area.

“It was just a matter of time that some of the oil would find its way to Texas,” said Hans Graber, a marine physicist at the University of Miami and co-director of the Center for Southeastern Tropical Advanced Remote Sensing.

About five gallons of tar balls were found Saturday on the Bolivar Peninsula, northeast of Galveston, said Capt. Marcus Woodring, the Coast Guard commander for the Houston/Galveston sector. Two gallons were found Sunday on the peninsula and Galveston Island, though tests have not yet confirmed its origin.

Woodring said the consistency of the tar balls indicates it’s possible they could have been spread to Texas water by ships that have worked out in the spill. But there’s no way to confirm the way they got there.

The largest tar balls found Saturday were the size of ping-pong balls, while the ones found Sunday were the size of nickels and dimes.

Galveston Mayor Joe Jaworski said he believed the tar balls were a fluke, rather than a sign of what’s to come.

“This is good news,” he said. “The water looks good. We’re cautiously optimistic this is an anomaly.”

The distance between the western reach of the tar balls in Texas and the most eastern reports of oil in Florida is about 550 miles. Oil was first spotted on land near the mouth of the Mississippi River on April 29.

The spill is reaching deeper into Louisiana. Strings of oil were seen Monday in the Rigolets, one of two waterways that connect the Gulf with Lake Pontchartrain, the large lake north of New Orleans.

“So far it’s scattered stuff showing up, mostly tar balls,” said Louisiana Office of Fisheries Assistant Secretary Randy Pausina. “It will pull out with the tide, and then show back up.”

Pausina said he expected the oil to clear the passes and move directly into the lake, taking a backdoor route to New Orleans.

The news of the spill’s reach comes at a time that most of the offshore skimming operations in the Gulf have been halted by choppy seas and high winds. A tropical system that had been lingering off Louisiana flared up Monday afternoon, bringing heavy rain and winds.

Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center said there was a 60 percent of the storm becoming a tropical cyclone.

Last week, the faraway Hurricane Alex idled the skimming fleet off Alabama, Florida and Mississippi with choppy seas and stiff winds. Now they’re stymied by a succession of smaller storms that could last well into this week.

Officials have plans for the worst-case scenario: a hurricane barreling up the Gulf toward the spill site. But the less-dramatic weather conditions have been met with a more makeshift response.

Skimming operations across the Gulf have scooped up about 23.5 million gallons of oil-fouled water so far, but officials say it’s impossible to know how much crude could have been skimmed in good weather because of the fluctuating number of vessels and other variables.

The British company has now seen its costs from the spill reach $3.12 billion, a figure that doesn’t include a $20 billion fund for damages the company created last month.

The storms have not affected drilling work on a relief well that BP says is the best chance for finally plugging the leak. The company expects drilling to be finished by mid-August.
—

Associated Press writers Tom Breen and Mary Foster in New Orleans contributed to this report. Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.truth-out.org/bp-used-oil-industry-tax-break-write-off-its-rent-deepwater-rig61062

Monday 05 July 2010

by: Pat Garofolo | ThinkProgress | Report

Transocean, the company that owns the failed Deepwater Horizon rig that caused the Gulf oil spill, used well-known tax havens in the Cayman Islands and Switzerland to lower its U.S. corporate tax rate by almost 15 points. And due to a break in the U.S. tax code, BP was also allowed to write off the rent it paid to Transocean on its own tax bill, saving it hundreds of thousands of dollars per day:

The owner, Transocean, moved its corporate headquarters from Houston to the Cayman Islands in 1999 and then to Switzerland in 2008, maneuvers that also helped it avoid taxes. At the same time, BP was reaping sizable tax benefits from leasing the rig. According to a letter sent in June to the Senate Finance Committee, the company used a tax break for the oil industry to write off 70 percent of the rent for Deepwater Horizon – a deduction of more than $225,000 a day since the lease began.

So, essentially, the U.S. taxpayer paid BP to lease a rig that was incorporated in a foreign country for the purpose of avoiding the U.S. corporate tax. And the U.S. tax code is actually riddled with breaks for the oil industry, despite that industry’s record profits in recent years. Center for American Progress Senior Policy Analyst Sima Gandhi has counted nine different subsidies that the U.S. government gives to the oil industry, including refunds for drilling costs and refunds to cover the cost of searching for oil. If this corporate welfare were cut, it would save $45 billion per year, and according to the Office of Economic Policy at the Department of Treasury, “affect domestic production by less than one-half of 1 percent.” “The flow of revenues to oil companies is like the gusher at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico: heavy and constant,” said Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ). “There is no reason for these corporations to shortchange the American taxpayer.”

Special thanks to Richard Charter

Business Insider
June 30, 2010

http://www.businessinsider.com/warning-to-gulf-cleanup-workers-almost-every-crew-member-from-the-1989-exxon-valdez-disaster-is-now-dead-2010-6

Michael Snyder

Are you sure that you want to help clean up the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico? In a previous article we documented a number of the health dangers from this oil spill that many scientists are warning us of, and now it has been reported on CNN that the vast majority of those who worked to clean up the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill in Alaska are now dead. Yes, you read that correctly. Almost all of them are dead.

In fact, the expert that CNN had on said that the life expectancy for those who worked to clean up the Exxon Valdez oil spill is only about 51 years. Considering the fact that the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico is now many times worse than the Exxon Valdez disaster, are you sure you want to volunteer to be on a cleanup crew down there? After all, the American Dream is not to make big bucks for a few months helping BP clean up their mess and then drop dead 20 or 30 years early.

This news clip from CNN is absolutely stunning. If this is even close to true, then why would anyone want to be involved in helping to clean up this oil?….

The truth is that what we have out in the Gulf of Mexico is a “toxic soup” of oil, methane, benzene, hydrogen sulfide, other toxic gases and very poisonous chemical dispersants such as Corexit 9500.

Breathing all of this stuff is not good for your health, but the reality is that the true health toll of this oil spill is not going to be known for decades.

However, the early reports are not encouraging….

*Already, a large number of workers cleaning up the BP oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico report that they are suffering from flu-like symptoms.

*According to another new report, exposure to the oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico has resulted in 162 cases of illnesses reported to the Louisiana state health department.

*In addition, according to one local Pensacola news source, “400 people have sought medical care for upper or lower respiratory problems, headaches, nausea, and eye irritation after trips to Escambia County beaches.”

This is going to be something that we all want to keep a very close eye on.

But it is not just oil spill cleanup workers and people who have gone to the beach who are reporting health issues. The following is a report from a reader named Dee….

My 2 friends and I have been sick with headaches and vomiting, also it feels like heartburn, just feeling lousy. We have not been to the Gulf but there is an inlet at the end of our street. We live on the West side of Pensacola FL. near the Bayou. At first I thought it was just me. My 2 friends are having the same symptoms, all at the same time. Right now I have a dull headache, and my stomach is queasy. I have been thinking maybe the chemicals from the oil cleanup or the oil itself is causing us to be ill. It has been raining all day off and on. I started feeling ill late last night. I was wondering if anyone else in Pensacola have the same symptoms.

So what can we conclude from all this?

Well, it is still very early, but when this crisis is all said and done the biggest tragedy of all might be the health devastation that this oil spill has caused.

If the Exxon Valdez oil spill is any indication, a lot of pe0ple are going to end up dying early deaths.

So once again, do you really want to go down there and clean up this oil?

Of course all of this oil is not just going to clean itself up.

But if we all refuse to participate, who will clean it up?

Perhaps BP CEO Tony Heyward and other high ranking BP executives could roll up their sleeves and go down there and start cleaning up all of that toxic sludge.

It’s their mess, so let them clean it.
Special thanks to Richard Charter

by Lauren Schenkman on June 29, 2010 3:25 PM

For the tens of thousands of sea turtle eggs incubating in the sands of the
northern Gulf of Mexico-and dangerously near the oil-it’s come to this:
Officials are planning to dig up the approximately 700 nests on Alabama and
the Florida panhandle beaches, pack the eggs in Styrofoam boxes, and fly
them to a facility in eastern Florida where they can mature. Once the eggs
have hatched, the young turtles will be released in darkness on Florida’s
Atlantic beaches into oil-free water. Translocation of nests on this scale
has never been attempted before.

“This is really a worst-case scenario,” says Michael Ziccardi, a University
of California, Davis, veterinarian and oil-spill veteran who is leading the
government’s response efforts for marine mammals and sea turtles. “We hoped
we wouldn’t get to this point.”

Sea turtles that hatch in the Northern Gulf of Mexico typically spend a few
months near the coast, and many eventually enter the Loop Current to make
their way into the Atlantic. This year, that path would put them right in
the oil spill. Federal officials in charge of response “believe that most,
if not all, of the 2010 Northern Gulf hatchling cohort would be at high risk
of encountering oil during this period,” according to the written
translocation plan, developed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries
Service, and the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission. They
estimate that 50,000 hatchlings could be lost to the oil.

Nests are already being marked so that cleanup crews can skirt them, and
officials hope to begin moving them within weeks, says Ziccardi. The
operations will continue well past laying season, which ends in August,
because eggs incubate for about 60 days. The logistics of finding
contractors to train and lead collection teams, a facility where the eggs
can come to term, and an air-freight company that can transport them three
times a week for the next 3 months are daunting.

Officials plan to dig up the eggs at about day 50 of their incubation-well
after the hatchling’s sex, which is determined by the nest’s temperature, is
set. Workers moving the eggs have to be careful not to turn them over or
roll them so as not to disturb membranes that connect the embryo to the
shell and cushion it, says Philip Allman, a marine biologist at Florida Gulf
Coast University in Fort Myers. “If the orientation of the egg is turned
significantly from the position in the nest, the rotation can break the
membranes and cause the embryos to die,” he says. “Even in flight,
turbulence and a bumpy landing could be enough” to break the membranes.

Moving the eggs could also affect where the turtles go to nest once they’re
adults, Allman says, because “a lot of evidence indicates that sea turtles
return to the same region where they hatch from to nest.” Some researchers
believe embryos somehow learn the location of their home beach while still
in the egg; others think that “imprinting” process happens as hatchlings
make their way to the water. The plan could mean the hatchlings imprint on
the east coast of Florida, which “may impact which breeding population they
join once maturing,” Allman says. Although this could change the genetic
makeup of east coast populations, which aren’t identical to those in the
northern Gulf of Mexico populations, he thinks the risks of negative effects
are minimal. “I think it is a chance worth taking,” he says.

Individual nests are sometimes moved above high tide or brought into
captivity to protect eggs from predators or poaching. Although an operation
of this scale is unprecedented, it’s the best option right now, says Thane
Wibbels, a herpetologist at the University of Alabama, Birmingham. “You’re
either reactive or proactive, and if you’re reactive, it’s too late.”

Smaller-scale translocations have been successful, Wibbels points out; Each
year from 1978 until 1988, about 2000 Kemp’s ridley sea turtle eggs were
moved from the species’ sole nesting beach in Rancho Nuevo, Mexico, to Padre
Island National Seashore near Corpus Christi, Texas, in a bid to start a
second nesting beach. Today, he says, about 200 turtles nest there.

After the Ixtoc I well blew out in the Gulf of Mexico in 1979, 9000 Kemp’s
ridley hatchlings were kept on their nesting beach and then transported to
cleaner waters, says Allman. “Multiple authors reported a few years later
that the oil spill did not have a significant impact to the Kemp’s ridley
sea turtles,” he says.

“In a normal year you’d think, ‘That’s crazy,’ ” Wibbels says. “We want
these turtles to do what’s natural, … but if you have to prevent a large
amount of mortality, you have to make tough decisions.”

Allen Salzberg

Publisher/Editor of HerpDigest. The Only Free Weekly E-Zine That Reports on
The Latest News on Herpetological Conservation, Husbandry, and Science
www.herpdigest.org.
HerpDigest is a registered (in NYS) not-for profit organization/publication.

Member of the of IUCN/SSC Tortoise and Freshwater Turtle Specialist Group
Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.dailyfinance.com/story/health-effects-of-oil-spills-on-humans-more-questions-than-an/19530364/

An AOL Money & Finance Site
Tuesday, June 29, 2010

By MELLY ALAZRAKI
Posted 9:00 PM 06/26/10 Health Care, BP

When BP’s (BP) Deepwater Horizon drilling rig exploded on April 20, killing 11 of its crew and causing a massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, few imagined that more than two months later it would still be spewing an estimated 35,000 to 60,000 barrels of oil a day, causing the U.S.’s worst-ever environmental disaster.

With the undersea well still gushing oil and cleanup efforts barely making a dent, questions abound about the spill’s short- and long-term effects on the environment and human health. In fact, very little is known about the health effects of oil spills as only seven spills have been studied of the hundreds around the world.

Cleanup Crews Experiencing Acute Symptoms

From the few studies of past spills, one of them by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) after the Exxon Valdez spill, certain acute symptoms were expected, and already Gulf residents and cleanup workers are experiencing them: headaches, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, throat irritation, eye pain, coughing or choking and dizziness.

Of greater concern is a more recent study of those exposed in Spain after the 2002 Prestige oil tanker spill, which found an increase in DNA damage. Other potential long-term risks include lung, kidney and liver damage.

With the temperature in the Gulf of Mexico hovering around 110 degrees Fahrenheit during the summer, one of the main short-term health concerns is heat exhaustion, especially among workers on the open sea.

Because so little is known about the long-term health effects of direct exposure to petroleum, the Department of Health and Human Service has set aside $10 million to track oil spill-related illnesses in states along the Gulf Coast and study cleanup workers. It asked the Institute of Medicine to host a workshop last week in New Orleans on the issue.

Crews Exposed to Fumes and Direct Contact

As of Friday, 453 oil exposure complaints had been reported to the American Association of Poison Control Centers. Of the total, 174 calls came from Louisiana, 111 from Florida, 95 from Alabama, and 38 from Mississippi. The reports so far were mostly related to odors or fumes, and mainly among those involved in the cleanup, because they have the most direct exposure to the oil.

Most exposure of Gulf residents and cleanup workers has been via inhalation, though skin contact is also common.

Volunteers among the cleanup workers are at the highest risk, because many lack extensive training in these types of hazards. The U.S. National Guard deployed 17,000 members to help with the cleanup effort. In total, nearly 35,000 cleanup workers are involved, some of whom agreed to be tracked by NIOSH.

Dispersants Inhaled Deep into the Lungs

Some of the spilled oil evaporates into the air and creates a heavy vapor that stays near the ground — in the human breathing zone, writes Gina Solomon, a senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “When winds whip up oily sea water, the spray contains tiny droplets of oil, which are small enough to be inhaled deep into the lungs.” Aah — oil-scented rain.

The EPA is monitoring the air on the Gulf coastline. It “has observed odor-causing pollutants associated with oil on the shore in the Gulf region at low levels. Some of these chemicals may cause short-lived effects like headache; eye, nose and throat irritation; or nausea.” The EPA lists the odors in the air of the Gulf.

It appears that so far benzene and naphthalene aren’t a major cause for concern, Solomon adds, but “the levels of hydrogen sulfide EPA is reporting in some areas could cause short-term symptoms in sensitive people and could potentially pose a long-term risk if the elevated levels continue.”

“As for dispersants,” Linda Greer, director of the Health and Environment program at the NRDC writes, “the questions that linger include how dangerous the dispersants are and whether exposure to the chemicals could cause cancer.”

Toll on Emotional Health as Well

Another concern has come to the nation’s attention with the suicide of William Allen Kruse, the 55-year-old fishing boat captain who helped in the Gulf cleanup effort after losing his livelihood. Doctors say that the short-term effects of the devastation of the Gulf environment and economy will include depression and psychological stress, raising suicide risk among those affected. Social workers in the Gulf region say that they are seeing a rising number of mental health problems.

And because the spill will continue for weeks or months to come and many of its effects haven’t yet manifest, experts say it’s impossible to tell what the overall health impact will be.

There are far more questions than answers at this stage, and the unknowns are great — especially health-cost estimates. The full scale of the impact of the largest U.S. oil spill on our environment and health is yet to be grasped, much less measured.

Special thanks to Richard Charter.