Investigation by Al Jazeera online correspondent finds toxic illnesses linked to BP oil dispersants along Gulf coast.

Dahr Jamail Last Modified: 29 Oct 2010 16:01 GMT

Two-year-old Gavin Tillman of Pass Christian, Mississippi, has been diagnosed with severe upper respiratory, sinus, and viral infections. His temperature has reached more than 39 degrees since September 15, yet his sicknesses continue to worsen.

His parents, some doctors, and environmental consultants believe the child’s ailments are linked to exposure to chemicals spilt by BP during its Gulf of Mexico oil disaster.

Gavin’s father, mother, and cousin, Shayleigh, are also facing serious health problems. Their symptoms are being experienced by many others living along the coast of the Gulf of Mexico.

Widely banned toxic dispersants

Injected with at least 4.9 million barrels of oil during the BP oil disaster of last summer, the Gulf has suffered the largest accidental marine oil spill in history. Compounding the problem, BP has admitted to using at least 1.9 million gallons of widely banned toxic dispersants (one that has been banned in the UK), which according to chemist Bob Naman, create an even more toxic substance when mixed with crude oil. And dispersed, weathered oil continues to flow ashore daily.

Naman, who works at the Analytical Chemical Testing Lab in Mobile, Alabama, has been carrying out studies to search for the chemical markers of the dispersants BP used to both sink and break up its oil.

According to Naman, poly-aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) from this toxic mix are making people sick. PAHs contain compounds that have been identified as carcinogenic, mutagenic, and teratogenic.

Fisherman across the four states most heavily affected by the oil disaster – Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida – have reported seeing BP spray dispersants from aircraft and boats offshore.

“The dispersants are being added to the water and are causing chemical compounds to become water soluble, which is then given off into the air, so it is coming down as rain, in addition to being in the water and beaches of these areas of the Gulf,” Naman added.

“I’m scared of what I’m finding. These cyclic compounds intermingle with the Corexit [dispersants] and generate other cyclic compounds that aren’t good. Many have double bonds, and many are on the EPA’s danger list. This is an unprecedented environmental catastrophe.”

Commercial fisherman Donny Matsler also lives in Alabama.

“I was with my friend Albert, and we were both slammed with exposure,” Matsler explained of his experience on August 5, referring to toxic chemicals he inhaled that he believes are associated with BP’s dispersants. “We both saw the clumps of white bubbles on the surface that we know come from the dispersed oil.”

Gruesome symptoms

“I started to vomit brown, and my pee was brown also,” Matsler, a Vietnam veteran who lives in Dauphin Island, said. “I kept that up all day. Then I had a night of sweating and non-stop diarrhea unlike anything I’ve ever experienced.”

He was also suffering from skin rashes, nausea, and a sore throat.

At roughly the same time Matsler was exposed, local television station WKRG News 5 took a water sample from his area to test for dispersants. The sample literally exploded when it was mixed with an organic solvent separating the oil from the water.

Naman, the chemist who analyzed the sample, said: “We think that it most likely happened due to the presence of either methanol or methane gas or the presence of the dispersant Corexit.”

“I’m still feeling terrible,” Matsler told Al Jazeera recently. “I’m about to go to the doctor again right now. I’m short of breathe, the diarrhea has been real bad, I still have discoloration in my urine, and the day before yesterday, I was coughing up white foam with brown spots in it.”

As for Matsler’s physical reaction to his exposure, Hugh Kaufman, an EPA whistleblower and analyst, has reported this of the effects of the toxic dispersants:

“We have dolphins that are hemorrhaging. People who work near it are hemorrhaging internally. And that’s what dispersants are supposed to do…”

By the middle of last summer, the Alabama Department of Public Health said that 56 people in Mobile and Baldwin counties had sought treatment for what they believed were oil disaster-related illnesses.

“The dispersants used in BP’s draconian experiment contain solvents such as petroleum distillates and 2-butoxyethanol,” Dr. Riki Ott, a toxicologist, marine biologist, and Exxon Valdez survivor, told Al Jazeera.

“Solvents dissolve oil, grease, and rubber,” she continued, “Spill responders have told me that the hard rubber impellors in their engines and the soft rubber bushings on their outboard motor pumps are falling apart and need frequent replacement.”

“Given this evidence, it should be no surprise that solvents are also notoriously toxic to people, something the medical community has long known,” Dr. Ott added.

“In ‘Generations at Risk’, medical doctor Ted Schettler and others warn that solvents can rapidly enter the human body. They evaporate in air and are easily inhaled, they penetrate skin easily, and they cross the placenta into fetuses. For example, 2- butoxyethanol (in Corexit) is a human health hazard substance; it is a fetal toxin and it breaks down blood cells, causing blood and kidney disorders.”

Pathways of exposure to the dispersants are inhalation, ingestion, skin, and eye contact. Health impacts include headaches, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pains, chest pains, respiratory system damage, skin sensitization, hypertension, central nervous system depression, neurotoxic effects, genetic mutations, cardiac arrhythmia, and cardiovascular damage.

Even the federal government has taken precautions for its employees. US military officials decided to reroute training flights in the Gulf region in order to avoid oil and dispersant tainted-areas.

Growing number of cases

And Al Jazeera is finding a growing number of illnesses across the Gulf Coast.

Denise Rednour of Long Beach, Mississippi, has been taking walks on Long Beach nearly every day since the disaster began on April 20, and she is dealing with constant health issues.

“I’ve had health problems since the middle of July,” she said. “At the end of August, I came home from walking on the beach and for four days had bloody, mucus-filled diarrhea, dry heaves, and blood running out of my ear.”

Karen Hopkins, in Grand Isle, Louisiana, has been sick since the middle of May. “I started feeling exhausted, disoriented, dizzy, nauseous, and my chest was burning and I can’t breath well at times,” she said.

Dean Blanchard, who runs a seafood distribution business in Grand Isle, is Hopkins’ boss. He too is experiencing similar symptoms.

“They [BP] are using us like lab rats,” he explained, “I’m thinking of moving to Costa Rica. When I leave here I feel better. When I come back I feel bad again. Feeling tired, coughing, sore throat, burning eyes, headaches, just like everyone around here feels.”

Lorrie Williams of Ocean Springs says her son’s asthma has “gotten exponentially worse since BP released all their oil and dispersants into the Gulf.”

“A plane flew over our house recently and sprayed what I believe are dispersants. A fine mist covered everything, and it smelled like pool chemicals. Noah is waking up unable to breath, and my husband has head and chest congestion and burning eyes,” Williams said.

Like others, when Lorrie’s family left the area for a vacation, they immediately felt better. But upon coming home, their symptoms returned.

Wilma Subra, a chemist in New Iberia, Louisiana, recently tested the blood of eight BP cleanup workers and residents in Alabama and Florida. “Ethylbenzene, m,p-Xylene and Hexane are volatile organic chemicals that are present in the BP Crude Oil,” Subra said,

“The blood of all three females and five males had chemicals that are found in the BP Crude Oil. The acute impacts of these chemicals include nose and throat irritation, coughing, wheezing, lung irritation, dizziness, light-headedness, nausea and vomiting.”

Indications of exposure

Subra explained that there has been long enough exposure so as to create chronic impacts, that include “liver damage, kidney damage, and damage to the nervous system. So the presence of these chemicals in the blood indicates exposure.”

Testing by Subra has also revealed PAHs present “in coastal soil sediment, wetlands, and in crab, oyster and mussel tissues.”

Trisha Springstead, is a registered nurse of 36 years who lives and works in Brooksville, Florida.

“What I’m seeing are toxified people who have been chemically poisoned,” she said, “They have sore throats, respiratory problems, neurological problems, lesions, sores, and ulcers. These people have been poisoned and they are dying. Drugs aren’t going to help these people. They need to be detoxed.”

Chemist Bob Naman described the brownish, rubbery tar balls that are a product of BP’s dispersed oil that continue to wash up on beaches across the Gulf:

“Those are the ones kids are picking up and playing with and breathing the fumes that come off them when you crush them in your hand. These will affect anyone who comes into contact with it. You could have an open wound and this goes straight in. Women have a lot more open mucus membranes and they are getting sicker than men. They are bleeding from their vagina and anus. Small kids are bleeding from their ears. This stuff is busting red blood cells.”

Dr Ott said: “People are already dying from thisŠ I’m dealing with three autopsies’ right now. I don’t think we’ll have to wait years to see the effects like we did in Alaska, people are dropping dead now. I know two people who are down to 4.75 per cent of their lung capacity, their heart has enlarged to make up for that, and their esophagus is disintegrating, and one of them is a 16-year-old boy who went swimming in the Gulf.”

Source: Al Jazeera. Special thanks to Richard Charter

Wall Street Journal
October 29, 2010

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304879604575582623355582234.html

29, 2010, 5:11 P.M. ET.
Cement Mixture Used for BP Well Never Had Final Test
By BEN CASSELMAN

Halliburton Co. never fully tested the cement that was supposed to seal explosive natural gas out of the doomed oil well in the Gulf of Mexico, the company said late Thursday.

But the company continued to blame the well’s owner, BP PLC, for causing the explosion that killed 11 workers aboard the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, and said for the first time that BP had changed the cement formula shortly before it was used at the well. BP declined to comment Friday.

Federal investigators believe the failure of the cement was a key cause of the April 20 explosion aboard the rig, which set off the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history.

On Thursday, investigators said Halliburton, the biggest cement contractor in the world, went ahead with the cement job despite tests indicating it might fail.

The investigators, working on behalf of the presidential commission probing the Gulf disaster, said the cement failed three of Halliburton’s own tests and only passed the fourth after Halliburton changed the testing procedure.

In response, Halliburton, in a statement issued late Thursday evening, said its first two tests, performed in February, were irrelevant because they used a different cement formula and were done before the conditions at the bottom of the well were known.

The third test, from April, was performed incorrectly, Halliburton said, and BP was informed of the problem. The fourth test, which followed the proper procedure, indicated that the cement would form a good seal, the company said.

But Halliburton’s statement introduced a new twist: After the fourth test, Halliburton said, BP ordered further changes to the cement mixture. Halliburton never tested the final formula to see if it would be stable.

Halliburton wouldn’t comment on why a final test wasn’t performed.

In its internal investigation into the disaster, BP criticized Halliburton for not performing “all relevant lab tests on the final cement” formula before it was used, but also conceded that BP’s own engineers apparently never confirmed the tests had been done.

Halliburton said its contract with BP protects it from liability. Halliburton also criticized BP for not running tests after pumping the cement to make sure it had formed a good seal.

Stephen Power contributed to this article.
Write to Ben Casselman at ben.casselman@wsj.com

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http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304155604575582030213574078.html

OCTOBER 29, 2010, 2:03 P.M. ET.
Contractor Accused Of Flawed Job on Rig
Halliburton Shares Hit by Panel Report.
By BEN CASSELMAN And SIOBHAN HUGHES

Halliburton Co. found repeated problems with the cement it was planning to install in BP PLC’s doomed oil well but used it anywayperhaps without alerting BPaccording to federal investigators studying the Gulf of Mexico disaster.

The cement was supposed to seal the well and prevent explosive natural gas from flowing in. Why the seal failed has been a central question in the April 20 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, which killed 11 workers and set off the worst offshore oil spill in U.S. history.

The investigators’ findings brought new scrutiny to Halliburton, which until now has escaped most of the blame for the disaster. Halliburton’s stock price tumbled 8% on the news, closing at $31.68 on the New York Stock Exchange, despite the company’s assurance that it was indemnified by BP for damages. Friday afternoon, the shares rose 16 cents to $31.84.

BP declined to comment Thursday.

Halliburton late Thursday questioned the investigators’ cement tests, saying discrepancies between those results and the company’s “may be due to differences in the cement materials tested.”

The company said in a statement that the federal commission tested off-the-shelf cement and additives, whereas Halliburton tested the unique blend of cement and additives that existed on the rig at the time its tests were conducted. It added it has been unable to provide the commission with cement, additives and water from the rig because it is subject to a federal court preservation order, although the materials will soon be released to the Marine Board of Investigation.

Halliburton previously blamed BP for failing to heed its advice on the design of the well and failing to do all the necessary tests, while BP has said that Halliburton’s cement mixture itself was to blame.

Investigators cautioned that their findings don’t let BP off the hook, noting that cement failures are relatively common. It is up to the well’s ownerBP, in the case of this well, called Macondoto test the cement and fix any problems, they noted.

“The story of the blowout does not turn solely on the quality of the Macondo cement job,” investigators wrote in a letter to members of the presidential commission probing the disaster.

Other seals and valves higher up the well also should have stopped the flow of explosive natural gas. Workers from BP and Transocean Ltd., which owned the rig, failed to detect gas entering the well, and misinterpreted a key test that should have revealed problems. Another important test was never done.

By the time the workers realized something had gone wrong, gas had already risen past the blowout preventer, the huge stack of valves meant to shut down a well in an emergency. And the valves didn’t work after the initial explosion, allowing oil to pour into the Gulf.

The investigators’ letter provided new evidence that the cement, which included additives and nitrogen, may have been faulty. Halliburton performed four tests on the cement mixture it planned to use in the months before the blowout. The cement failed the first three tests, and only passed the fourth after engineers changed the testing procedure, commission staff members wrote. Halliburton made minor changes to the cement formula after the second failed test, investigators said. They also said the third test may have been performed incorrectly.

It isn’t clear what BP knew about the tests. Halliburton provided the results of an early test, along with other information, in a March 8 email to BP.

But according to the commission, “There is no indication that Halliburton highlighted to BP the significance” of the results. The results of the other three tests were apparently never reported to BP. The commission also asked engineers from Chevron Corp. to try to recreate the cement mixture used on the well. When they did so, they couldn’t get a good seal.

Those results “strongly suggest” that the cement mixture was unstable, the investigators wrote. Halliburton and perhaps BP “should have considered redesigning the [cement mixture] before pumping it at the Macondo well,” investigators wrote.

Robert Mackenzie, an energy analyst with FBR Capital Markets and a former oil industry cementing engineer, noted that Halliburton’s final test apparently showed that the cement would work. He said it isn’t unusual for engineers to tweak a formula several times to find one that satisfies them.

In September, Halliburton’s vice president of cementing, Thomas Roth, told a National Academy of Engineering panel that “all of the design work, all of the testing work that was done by Halliburton in advance of this job indicated that the foam system was stable.”

Halliburton’s contract makes it unlikely that Halliburton will face much liability for the disaster, said Matthew Conlan, an analyst for Wells Fargo Securities. But the latest revelations could hurt Halliburton’s reputation, he added. “The integrity of their product is being questioned and the integrity of their advice is being questioned.”

BP could benefit if investigators determine that Halliburton’s cement design was faulty, experts said.

Under federal pollution laws, BP will face much higher penalties if it is found to have been “grossly negligent” in the spill. Such a finding is less likely if several different companies share the blame.

Halliburton has long denied responsibility, saying BP ignored its warnings that the cement job would likely fail if BP didn’t use more “centralizers,” devices that keep steel pipe centered in the hole to ensure the even distribution of cement. Halliburton also said BP broke with industry best practices by failing to clean out the well fully before pumping cement and by failing to test the cement after the job was completed.

As the investigation has developed, however, Halliburton’s version of events has drawn more scrutiny. In testimony before a different federal panel, Halliburton engineers acknowledged that they never warned the well could blow out if the centralizers weren’t used and that they never explicitly recommended that the cement test be run.

Write to Ben Casselman at ben.casselman@wsj.com and Siobhan Hughes at siobhan.hughes@dowjones.com

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http://blogs.wsj.com/deals/2010/10/29/is-tony-hayward-temasek-bound/

October 29, 2010, 1:06 PM ET
.Does BP’s Tony Hayward Have a New Job?.
Mark Cobley, of Financial News, reports:

Tony Hayward, the former chief executive of BP, has received a fair share of brickbats over his response to the oil-spill disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.

So, is he still in demand? Well, according to Mark Kleinman, City editor of Sky News, Hayward is “in talks” to join Temasek, the Singaporean sovereign-wealth fund, in an advisory role.

Kleinman has written on his blog that the move would be to the advisory panel of Temasek. Kleinman, citing people close to the talks, cautioned that it isn’t a done deal and that talks are at a “delicate stage.” Sky News is part-owned by News Corp., the parent company of Financial News and The Wall Street Journal, publisher of this blog.

Temasek declined to comment this morning. BP, where Hayward remains a board member, also declined to comment.

If the move does go ahead, it would be the latest step in the internationalization of the organization. Hayward wouldn’t be the only individual on Temasek’s panel who could advise the $137.4 billion fund on a bit of crisis management. Other familiar faces on the panel include:

* Chuck Prince, the former chief executive of Citigroup and early casualty of the credit crisis after stepping down in late 2007 following CDO-related losses at the bank;
* William McDonough, the respected former New York Fed governor and chairman of the Public Company Accounting Oversight Board, the US’ “auditors’ auditor”;
* David Bonderman, the billionaire chairman of TPG Capital.

As for the organization itself, its day-to-day staff are increasingly international. According to its latest annual report, 36% of its 380 employees come from overseas. In 2005 that was just 18%.

One of these new international employees is Greg Curl, who retired from Bank of America in March. He was brought in over the summer to oversee “Temasek’s interests in financial services and supporting its engagement in the Americas”.

The internationalization has had its bumps. Chip Goodyear, the former chief executive of mining group BHP Billiton, was installed as Temasek’s first-ever foreign-born chief, and successor to Ho Ching, wife of the country’s prime minister, in February, but by July, he and Temasek management had come to a “mutual agreement” not to proceed with the succession.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.science.psu.edu/news-and-events/2010-news/Fisher11-2010

5 November 2010—On a research ship in the Gulf of Mexico on Election Day this week, seven miles south-west of the site of the Deep Water Horizon oil-spill, a team of scientists discovered a community of corals that includes many recently dead colonies and others that clearly are dying. “We discovered a community of coral that has been impacted fairly recently by something very toxic,” said the chief scientist on the cruise, Charles Fisher, who is a professor of biology at Penn State University and a member of the research team that selected the site for study.

Fisher said the research team encountered a colony of the hard coral species Madrepora that appeared to be unhealthy on 2 November 2010 at a depth of 1400 meters. “Although some branches of the coral colony appeared normal, other branches clearly were covered in a brown material, apparently sloughing tissue, and were producing abundant mucous,” Fisher said. The scientists sampled pieces of this hard coral and of its immediate environment then, about 400 meters away, they found a seriously stricken community of soft corals.

“Within minutes of our arrival at this site, it was evident to the biologists on board that this site was unlike any others that we have seen over the course of hundreds of hours of studying the deep corals in the Gulf of Mexico over the last decade with remotely-operated-vehicles (ROVs) and submersibles,” Fisher said. “We found that extensive portions of most of the coral colonies were either recently dead or were dying. Most of the soft coral sea fans had extensive areas that were bare of tissue, covered with brown material, and/or had tissue falling off the skeleton. Many of the colonies appeared recently dead, with no living coral tissue, still covered with decaying material, and also with a notable lack of colonization by other marine life, as would be expected on coral skeletons that had been dead for long periods of time,” Fisher said.

View the photo album of all the high-resolution images available about this research.
http://www.science.psu.edu/alert/photos/research-photos/biology/fisher-photos

The scientists also found that many of the brittle stars that are the typical symbiotic partners of these types of corals also appeared to be very unhealthy. “Many of the dead and dying coral colonies had discolored and immobile brittle stars — a kind of starfish — still attached,” Fisher said.

The team took a variety of samples that will be analyzed for the presence of hydrocarbons and for molecular evidence of genetic damage and physiological stress that could give direct evidence of exposure to oil or dispersants from the Deep Water Horizon disaster. However, Fisher said it is possible that lab results might not be able to provide any new information. “For example, a plume of toxic dispersant or oil blowing through this community could have caused damage that resulted in the slow death of the corals without leaving any trace on the sea floor near the corals,” Fisher said. “No one yet knows if the signature of whatever toxin killed these corals can be found in their skeletons after the tissue sloughs off. No one even knows if dispersant accumulates in the tissues that it kills.”

However, “The compelling evidence that we collected constitutes a smoking gun,” Fisher said. “The circumstantial evidence is extremely strong and compelling because we have never seen anything like this — and we have seen a lot; the visual data for recent and ongoing death are crystal clear and consistent over at least 30 colonies; the site is close to the Deep Water Horizon; the research site is at the right depth and direction to have been impacted by a deep-water plume, based on NOAA models and empirical data; and the impact was detected only a few months after the spill was contained.”

“The proximity of the site to the disaster, the depth of the site, the clear evidence of recent impact, and the uniqueness of the observations all suggest that the impact we have found is linked to the exposure of this community to either oil, dispersant, extremely depleted oxygen, or some combination of these or other water-borne effects resulting from the spill,” Fisher said.

A portion of one of the impacted corals and two attached brittle starfish. Living tissue is orange and most of the skeleton is bare or covered by brown flocculent material. The brittle starfish are normal symbiotic partners of this type of coral. The brittle star on the left shows a more normal coloration for this species and the individual on the right is bleached white and much more tightly wrapped around the branch than normal. Both starfish were uncharacteristically immobile.

Credit: Lophelia II 2010; NOAA OER and BOEMRE

The research is funded jointly by NOAA’s Office of Ocean Exploration and Research and the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement through TDI Brooks International. The research team, which includes scientists from Penn State University, Temple University, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, the U.S. Geological Survey, Louisiana State University, Florida State University, the Past Foundation, and C&C Technologies, has been using the NOAA Ship Ronald H. Brown and the National Deep Submergence Facility ROV Jason II in its studies of the coral ecosystems of the deep Gulf of Mexico. The scientists have carefully mapped and imaged the entire coral community with high-definition video and still cameras so it can be revisited during a scheduled cruise with the submersible Alvin in December, and so that it also can be monitored into the future.

[ Barbara K. Kennedy ]

CONTACTS at Penn State:
Charles Fisher, Expedition Chief Scientist, deep-sea biologist: cfisher@psu.edu, 814-883-8869 (cell)
Barbara Kennedy (PIO): 814-863-4682, science@psu.edu

CONTACT at Temple University:
Erik Cordes, chief scientist from the first leg of the expedition and co-PI, assistant professor, deep-sea biologist, ecordes@temple.edu

CONTACT at the U.S. Geological Survey:
Cheryl Morrison, cmorrison@usgs.gov, 304-839-3066 (cell)

CONTACT at the U.S. National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration:
Keeley Belva, Keeley.Belva@noaa.gov

CONTACT at U. S. Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, Regulation, and Enforcement: Leanne Bullin, Leann.Bullin@boemre.gov

MORE INFORMATION

•NOAA’s Office of Ocean Exploration and Research:
oceanexplorer.noaa.gov
•Lophelia II 2010: Oil Seeps and Deep Reefs Mission:
oceanexplorer.noaa.gov/explorations/10lophelia/welcome.html

http://washingtonindependent.com/102166/why-the-oil-spill-hasnt-been-a-major-midterm-election-issue

Washington Indpendent: Why the Oil Spill Hasn’t Been a Major Midterm Election Issue

By ANDREW RESTUCCIA 11/1/10 12:03 PM
Fred Grimm at The Miami Herald has a great column today on how the oil spill has not been a driving factor in the midterm elections in Florida and around the country.
He traces the oil spill narrative roughly like this: Outcry about the environmental effects of the spill turned into concerns about the moratorium on drilling, which, when the moratorium was lifted, turned into everybody moving on to something else.

At first, it seemed like an inevitability that the oil spill would become a major issue in the midterm elections. And in some cases it was – Grimm points to Florida Gov. Charlie Crist’s early Senate campaign rhetoric on the environmental impacts of the spill, and I’ve written before about how Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) and Rep. Charlie Melancon (D-La.) zeroed in on the drilling moratorium.

But oil spill rhetoric has faded significantly for a number of reasons. The first is time. It’s been more than six months since the spill, and the incident rarely gets front-page billing these days. The second, as Grimm points out, is the administration’s decision to overturn the moratorium. The decision took some of the wind out of arguments that the administration was destroying the Gulf economy, though Sens. Vitter and Mary Landrieu (D-La.) have both raised concerns that new drilling rules will slow the pace of new drilling.

The third is a little more complicated. On the one hand, many Democrats seem reluctant to make the oil spill an election issue, because in doing so, they would have to acknowledge one embarrassing little detail: The Senate has failed to pass an oil spill response bill. On the other hand, many Republicans would have to reconcile their support for expanded offshore drilling with the obvious safety concerns. At the end of the day, it’s a thorny issue for both sides of the aisle.

After the midterms, once our elected officials trek back to D.C. to do the less glamorous job of legislating, the big question is this: How will Congress deal with offshore drilling? Right now, it’s unclear. The momentum to pass an oil spill response bill is gone, and with it go the prospects that we’ll see stand-alone legislation on the issue. While it could come up in the lame-duck session, it seems more likely that oil spill response provisions will make their way into a broader energy bill next year that will focus on low-hanging fruit issues like electric vehicles and efficiency, possibly paired with a renewable energy standard. Of course, the outcome of the midterm elections will likely determine the lame-duck agenda.

Just how stringent oil spill response provisions will be depends largely on the outcome of behind-the-scenes liability negotiations between, among others, Sens. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), who would prefer unlimited liability on any company responsible for a spill, and Sens. Landrieu and Mark Begich (D-Alaska), who are trying to devise a mechanism by which companies can pool their liability in the event of a large disaster.

________________________________

http://www.miamiherald.com/2010/10/24/1888736/oil-spill-fades-from-political.html

Miami Herald

Column, Fred Grimm

So much for the oil spill’s impact

BY FRED GRIMM
FGRIMM@MIAMIHERALD.COM
Not only did that giant horrible plume of oil seem to disperse in the Gulf, it disappeared from politics.

Six months ago, the gusher in the Gulf of Mexico was seen as both the worst natural disaster in American history and the most vexing problem in American politics. “This is what I wake up to in the morning, and this is what I go to bed at night thinking about,” President Obama said.

The ruinous effect of 4.1 million barrels of red, gooey crude washing onto the Gulf Coast would surely affect the November elections.

Thanks to the spill, Gov. Charlie Crist, commanding a flotilla of plastic booms off the Florida Panhandle beaches, was able to resurrect his candidacy in the U.S. Senate race. In early summer, Crist was transformed into the environmental governor with lots of media attention and a lead in the polls.

But in the final weeks of the campaign, the spill — along with Crist’s allure — has receded from public consciousness.

The gusher was capped three months ago. Worried talk of an environmental catastrophe was soon drowned out by an angry harangue from oil-state politicians demanding an end to the moratorium on new deep-water wells. Elected officials formerly concerned for shrimpers, fishermen and the Gulf Coast tourist industry talked incessantly about the loss of drilling jobs.

On Oct. 12, the Obama administration lifted the moratorium. And the worst natural disaster in American history became no more relevant to American voters than those vaguely remembered wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Over in Louisiana, Gov. Bobby Jindal has stubbornly persevered with his $360 million chain of earthen berms 40 miles offshore, despite protests from environmentalists and marine scientists.

So far, his sand barriers have intercepted only about 1,000 barrels of oil. That works out to $36,000 a barrel — not such a cost effective way to protect the coast. But Jindal’s berm project, also known as Jindal’s folly, was a political conception, a monument to himself when it was proposed in May, a time political leaders were still obsessed with the Gulf disaster.

Lately, not only has the oil spill faded from the public narrative, so have other environmental concerns — except as the stuff of derision from tea party insurgents.

The new right-wing activists, poised to chase Democrats out of their majority positions in Congress, regard talk of global warming as biblical heresy. As former House Majority Leader Dick Armey, reincarnated as a tea party intellectual, put it, “The Lord God Almighty made the heavens and the Earth to his satisfaction. It is quite pretentious of we little weaklings here on earth to think that we are going to destroy God’s creation.”

A New York Times/CBS poll this month found only 14 percent of the tea partiers called global warming an imminent problem. More than half doubted that global warming posed a future problem.

After Nov. 2, the new political establishment will ignore all those secular worries about melting polar caps, massive wildfires, dust storms, ocean dead zones and a rising sea that could inundate much of the Florida peninsula.

So much for worries about preventing future deep-water spills. So much for carbon-cutting measures that might slow global warming. If climate scientists are right about rising sea levels, and the tea partiers are wrong, so much for Florida.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2010/11/01-4

Published on Monday, November 1, 2010 by Inter Press Service
by Dahr Jamail

BATON ROUGE, Louisiana – Gulf coast fishers, conservationists, seafood distributors and oil workers rallied here at Louisiana’s capital over the weekend to demand that oil giant BP be held accountable for the “ongoing” use of toxic dispersants in the Gulf of Mexico.

“We don’t have the open sores and blisters caused by BP’s toxic dispersants that the people in Plaquemine’s Parish have,” Karen Hopkins from Grand Isle, Louisiana told IPS. “We are being poisoned by BP’s same dispersants, but our symptoms are more lethargy and depression symptoms caused by chemical poisoning.”

Hopkins, who works for Dean Blanchard Seafood, a large and well-known seafood distributor, was a member of the Oct. 30 Rally for Gulf Change, whose organizers said they were working towards “preserving our God-given rights to clean air and water for future generations.”

Drew Landry, who describes himself as “a songwriter who works for a commercial craw-fisherman”, told IPS that he first grew concerned about BP’s mishandling of the oil disaster, which began on Apr. 20 when the Deepwater Horizon rig exploded in the Gulf of Mexico, by what he saw the oil giant do the following day.

“I played a concert in New Orleans on Apr. 20, and the next morning went to take one of the classes on how to clean oil,” Landry told IPS. “I realized it was not about cleaning oil, but rather BP’s effort to get a roster of names of commercial fishermen from whom they’d have to defend themselves against in the future.”

The organizers and speakers at the rally that was held on the steps of the state capitol building on a sunny Saturday were most concerned with BP’s massive use of toxic dispersants to sink the oil. The dispersants were also injected at the wellhead to keep most of the oil from reaching the surface.

BP used Corexit 9500 and Corexit 9527, both of which are banned in Britain and at least 19 other countries. Chemicals released from the combination of crude oil and dispersants can cause health problems that include central nervous system depression, respiratory problems, neurotoxic effects, genetic mutations, leukemia, birth defects, cardiac arrhythmia, and cardiovascular damage, among many others.

“I’ve had lung problems, auto-immune problems, nausea, headaches, and bronchitis because of BP’s disaster,” Beverly Armand from Grand Isle told IPS. “When I leave the area it clears up, and when I go back, I get sick again.”

Armand said her doctor has placed her on three different antibiotics, none of which has been very effective, and had her blood tested for hydrocarbons.

“My creatine level is high, and they found creosote in my blood,” she explained. “And we still have fresh oil coming in, and BP is still spraying Corexit. The stuff they are calling algae is foam caused by the dispersants.”

Protesters held signs that read “Hell No It’s Not Over”, “Ban Corexit Now”, and a drawing of a pelican with the words “I want my life back” – the last also a reference to comments by the former chief executive of BP, Tony Hayward, which were widely deemed insensitive to struggling Gulf residents.

Organizers told IPS that several people were unable to attend the rally because the interstate 10 highway from Lafayette was closed due to a chemical spill.

Susan Price, a small business owner from Chauvin, Louisiana, told IPS that she has been suffering from health problems since she was exposed in August to chemicals she believes are from the oil disaster.

“I’m worried for my grandchildren,” Price said at the rally. “The seafood is woefully under-tested for toxins, while the government and BP are patting themselves on the back for a job well done. We will not be lulled, be silenced, or stand down. We will fight to protect our people and our land.”

James Miller, a commercial fisherman from Mississippi, told onlookers that he found oil and dispersants in the water while fishing recently.

“I’ve had diarrhea, vomiting, the sweats, and been hospitalized for three days,” said Miller, who worked 73 days for BP as an oil spill responder. “I’ve seen the dead turtles, dead birds, dead dolphins and dead fish, and I’ve taken people out on my boat to show them the oil. It’s still there, and I can tell you the seafood is not safe to eat.”

Later that afternoon, the group convened a meeting at the Manship Theater in downtown Baton Rouge.

Rob Coulan, a businessman from Harvey, Louisiana, spoke of neuro-toxic side effects of the dispersants that have been well documented since at least 1987. “BP knew what this stuff would do long before they ever used it in the Gulf,” he said.

“BP used a world record amount of dispersants in our Gulf,” Marylee Orr, the executive director of Louisiana Environmental Action Network, said. “And we are doing petroleum hydrocarbon tests on soils, waters, and seafood and finding extremely high levels.”

“We still have oil, and all the problems associated with it,” Orr added. “And all the fishermen in this room will tell you that they [BP] are still using Corexit. The dead and dying birds and wildlife are merely a reflection of what is happening to us.”

Cherri Foytlin, whose husband works in the Gulf oil industry, announced that every Louisiana state representative and senator had been invited to both events. While she said that two had responded to her invitation by agreeing to meet with them, no one showed up at either event.

“In five to 10 years from now, people all along the Gulf Coast are going to be dropping dead from cancer, and that includes children,” Foytlin said, before directing her next comments towards BP. “I’m not your experiment. This is my life. Our Gulf is not your experiment.”