http://keysnews.com/node/25304
Experts to air views on threats past and future
BY TIMOTHY O’HARA Citizen Staff
tohara@keysnews.com
The Deepwater Horizon oil rig may be capped, but the possibility the massive spill will have some type of impact on the Florida Keys is still very real, and the pollution threat is not just from the northern Gulf of Mexico, some experts are saying.

Marine biologists and research scientists with the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary, Mote Marine Laboratory and other research institutions will present their findings and views on the Deepwater Horizon spill on Wednesday in Key West.

The Natural Resources Defense Council and Oceana are hosting the forum at the Florida Keys Eco-Discovery Center to help answer the question: What likely are to be the chief impacts of the Gulf spill on the Keys’ marine and coastal habitats, fish and wildlife.

The forum comes after the Coast Guard and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued a press release Friday stating the threat of oil reaching the Keys “is not likely.” That is, if the cap continues to hold.

“The likelihood is minimal at this point,” said Billy Causey, regional administrator for the National Marine Sanctuaries Program. “What we don’t want to do at this point is put out misinformation. I think our economy has suffered enough. It’s time to move forward and start with the recovery and restoration of the Gulf of Mexico. … We need to focus on the fact that we are oil free and we will continue to be oil free in the future.”

Keeping the Keys oil free in the future may be a challenge, as a Spanish oil company has entered into negotiations with Cuba to drill just 60 miles south of Key West.

The plans sparked talks between Florida Sen. Bill Nelson and President Barack Obama. Nelson told the president he was “greatly concerned by reports that Spanish oil giant Repsol has contracted with a unit of Italian oil company Eni SpA to operate an exploratory rig off of Cuba’s northwest shores.”

Cuba’s state-run oil company, Cubapetroleo, also continues to lease individual exploration areas to foreign oil companies in both the Florida Straits and Gulf of Mexico, said Nelson, D-Fla. To date, Cuba has leased 17 of 59 areas to oil and gas companies based in Spain, Norway, India, Malaysia, Venezuela, Vietnam and Brazil, Nelson said.

There also are reports that Cuba is negotiating a lease with China National Petroleum to jointly explore as many as five offshore areas in the Gulf.

“It does not matter where it is coming from, we need to be protected,” said Paul Johnson, a marine policy consultant with the Key West-based Reef Relief. “It’s all connected.”

Johnson, who will speak at Wednesday’s meeting, also has concerns about underwater oil plumes from the Deepwater Horizon oil well reaching the Keys.

“There are still a lot of unknowns and unanswered questions that we will not have answers to for quite a while,” said Johnson, who is also a marine policy consultant with National Resource Defense Council.

The forum starts at 6 p.m. at the Florida Keys Eco-Discovery Center, 35 E. Quay Road, Key West. Scheduled speakers include Causey, Mote coral expert and researcher Dave Vaughan, Florida Institute of Technology marine biologist James Fourqurean, Florida Keys Community College Marine Science Director Patrick Rice and Monroe County Commissioner Mario Di Gennaro, who serves on the governor’s Gulf Oil Spill Economic Recovery Task Force.

tohara@keysnews.com

The Huffington Post,
July 29, 2010

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2010/07/29/scientists-find-evidence_n_664298.htm l

The Huffington Post, July 29, 2010-07-29

Scientists have found signs of an oil-and-dispersant mix under the shells of tiny blue crab larvae in the Gulf of Mexico, the first clear indication that the unprecedented use of dispersants in the BP oil spill has broken up the oil into toxic droplets so tiny that they can easily enter the foodchain.

Marine biologists started finding orange blobs under the translucent shells of crab larvae in May, and have continued to find them “in almost all” of the larvae they collect, all the way from Grand Isle, Louisiana, to Pensacola, Fla. — more than 300 miles of coastline — said Harriet Perry, a biologist with the University of Southern Mississippi’s Gulf Coast Research Laboratory.

And now, a team of researchers from Tulane University using infrared spectrometry to determine the chemical makeup of the blobs has detected the signature for Corexit, the dispersant BP used so widely in the Deepwater Horizon

“It does appear that there is a Corexit sort of fingerprint in the blob samples that we ran,” Erin Gray, a Tulane biologist, told the Huffington Post Thursday. Two independent tests are being run to confirm those findings, “so don’t say that we’re 100 percent sure yet,” Gray said.

“The chemistry test is still not completely conclusive,” said Tulane biology professor Caz Taylor, the team’s leader. “But that seems the most likely thing.”

With BP’s well possibly capped for good, and the surface slick shrinking, some observers of the Gulf disaster are starting to let down their guard, with some journalists even asking: Where is the oil?

But the answer is clear: In part due to the1.8 million gallons of dispersant that BP used, a lot of the estimated 200 million or more gallons of oil that spewed out of the blown well remains under the surface of the Gulf in plumes of tiny toxic droplets. And it’s short- and long-term effects could be profound.

BP sprayed dispersant onto the surface of the slick and into the jet of oil and gas as it erupted out of the wellhead a mile beneath the surface. As a result, less oil reached the surface and the Gulf’s fragile coastline. But more remained under the surface.

Fish, shrimp and crab larvae, which float around in the open seas, are considered the most likely to die on account of exposure to the subsea oil plumes. There are fears, for instance, that an entire year’s worth of bluefin tuna larvae may have perished.

But this latest discovery suggests that it’s not just larvae at risk from the subsurface droplets. It’s also the animals that feed on them.

“There are so many animals that eat those little larvae,” said Robert J. Diaz, a marine scientist at the College of William and Mary.

Oil itself is of course toxic, especially over long exposure. But some scientists worry that the mixture of oil with dispersants will actually prove more toxic, in part because of the still not entirely understood ingredients of Corexit, and in part because of the reduction in droplet size.

“Corexit is in the water column, just as we thought, and it is entering the bodies of animals. And it’s probably having a lethal impact there,” said Susan Shaw, director of the Marine Environmental Research Institute. The dispersant, she said, is like ” a delivery system” for the oil.

Although a large group of marine scientists meeting in late May reached a consensus that the application of dispersants was a legitimate element of the spill response, another group, organized by Shaw, more recently concluded “that Corexit dispersants, in combination with crude oil, pose grave health risks to marine life and human health and threaten to deplete critical niches in the Gulf food web that may never recover.”

One particular concern: “The properties that facilitate the movement of dispersants through oil also make it easier for them to move through cell walls, skin barriers, and membranes that protect vital organs, underlying layers of skin, the surfaces of eyes, mouths, and other structures.”

Perry told the Huffington Post that the small size of the droplets was clearly a factor in how the oil made its way under the crab larvae shells. Perry said the oil droplets in the water “are just the right size that probably in the process of swimming or respiring, they’re brought into that cavity.”

That would not happen if the droplets were larger, she said.

The oil droplet washes off when the larvae molt, she said — but that’s assuming they live that long. Larvae are a major food source for fish and other blue crabs — “their siblings are their favorite meal,” Perry explained. Fish are generally able to excrete ingested oil, but inverterbrates such as crabs don’t have that ability.

Perry said the discovery of the oil and dispersant blobs is very troubling — but not, she made clear, because it has any impact on the safety of seafood in the short run. “Unlike heavy metals that biomagnify as they go up the foodchain, oil doesn’t seem to do that,” she said. Rather, she said, “we’re looking at long-term ecological effects of having this oil in contact with marine organisms.”

Diaz, the marine scientist from William and Mary, spoke at a lunchtime briefing about dispersants on Capitol Hill on Thursday.

Dispersant, he explained, “doesn’t make the oil go away, it just puts it from one part of the ecosystem into another.”

In this case, he said, “the decision was to keep as much of the oil subsurface as possible.” As a result, the immediate impact on coastal wildlife was mitigated. But the effects on ocean life, he said, are less clear — in part because there’s less known about ocean ecosystems than coastal ones.

“As we go further offshore, as the oil industry has gone offshore, we find that we know less,” he said. “We haven’t really been using oceanic species to assess the risks, and this is a key issue.”

(Similar concerns have been expressed about the lack of important data that would allow scientists to accurately assess the effects of the spill on the Gulf’s sea turtles, whose plight is emerging as particularly poignant.)

Diaz warned of the danger posed to bluefin tuna — and also to “the signature resident species in the Gulf, the shrimp.” He noted that all three species of Gulf shrimp spawn offshore before moving back into shallow estuaries.

Diaz also expressed concern that dispersed oil droplets could end up doing great damage to the Gulf’s many undersea coral reefs. “If the droplets agglomerate with sediment,” he said, “they could even settle to the bottom.”

Nancy Kinner, co-director of the Coastal Response Center at the University of New Hampshire, said the use of dispersants in this spill raises many issues that scientists need to explore, starting with the effects of long-term exposure. She also noted that scientists have never studied the effects of dispersants when they’re injected directly into the turbulence of the plume, as they were here, or at such depth, or at such low temperatures, or under such pressure.

She also said it will be essential for the federal government to accurately determine how much oil made it out of the blown well. A key data point for scientists is the ratio of dispersant to oil, she said, and “if you don’t know the flow rate of the oil, you don’t know what you dispersant to oil ratio is.”

After a series of ludicrous estimates, the federal government settled last month on an official estimate of about 20,000 to 40,000 barrels a day, but BP is widely expected to contest that figure and some scientists think it is still a low-ball estimate.

There seems to be no doubt that history will record that the use of dispersants was good for BP, making it harder to tell how much oil was spilled, and reducing the short-term visible impact. But what’s less clear is whether it will turn out to have been good for the Gulf.
*************************

Dan Froomkin is senior Washington correspondent for the Huffington Post. You can send him an e-mail, bookmark his page; subscribe to his RSS feed, follow him on Twitter, friend him on Facebook, and/or become a fan and get e-mail alerts when he writes.

__________________________________________________________

MSNBC.Com
July 30, 2010

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38415786/ns/nightly_news-nbc_news_investigates/

Scientists: BP dispersants have made spill more toxic
Group working for law firms suing BP cites ‘compelling evidence”
by Amna Nawaz, Rich Gardella and Lisa Myers, NBC News
NBC News Investigative Unit

-Editor’s note: Lisa Myers’ report on oil dispersants will air Friday on NBC Nightly News..

Amid growing concern about the use of dispersants in the Gulf of Mexico, a group of scientists working for law firms suing BP says their testing indicates that the dispersants being used to break up the oil are making this spill even more toxic to marine life.

Dr. William Sawyer, a toxicologist, is part of a team of scientists hired by law firms led by Smith Stag of New Orleans that are representing Louisiana fishermen and environmentalists.

The scientists collected and analyzed globs of oil, sand, and water from more than a dozen sites in four states along the Gulf.

Sawyer told NBC News that the findings are troubling. “We now have compelling evidence that the dispersant has enhanced and increased the toxicity from the spill,” he said.

Last week, a group of independent scientists called for an “immediate halt” to the use of dispersants. In what was called a “consensus statement,”
http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/TODAY/Sections/aNEWS/2010/07-July%2010/ScientistsConsensusStatement.pdf

they warned that dispersants pose “grave risks to marine life and human health.”

Spreading the damage?

So far, the federal government has approved use of more than 1.8 million gallons of dispersant in the Gulf. Most of it is Corexit 9500.

One reason relatively little oil is now on the surface of the Gulf’s waters is the use of such a vast quantity of dispersants. The dispersant spreads the oil over a much larger area, which some scientists worry makes it hard for marine life to avoid it.

Studies also have shown that when the dispersant breaks up the oil, it can free the most toxic components certain hydrocarbons and spread them throughout the water, exposing marine animals to more toxic components than if the oil hadn’t been dispersed.

Sawyer said their tests show that is now happening in parts of the Gulf. “What we found is a pattern of highly toxic hydrocarbon components that are not normally soluble in seawater, and at levels that are toxic to the marine environment,” he said.

Sawyer said these toxic hydrocarbons can be especially harmful to early stages of marine life.

NBC News shared Sawyer’s findings with Dr. Moby Solangi, a biologist at the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies, who has studied how oil spills impact marine life.

Solangi called the findings “very concerning.” “The way he [Sawyer] has theorized that the toxicity of the combination of both [oil and dispersant] is of some concern that needs to be looked at very carefully,” Solangi said.

Other scientists told NBC that Sawyer’s theory appears valid, but can’t be proven conclusively without testing the mixture of oil and dispersant on marine life.

Story: Oil dispersants an environmental ‘crapshoot’
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37282611/ns/disaster_in_the_gulf

A toxic brew

Most recent scientific research has found that combining dispersants with oil makes the oil even more toxic. A review of more than 400 studies since 1997 showed that 75 percent of them found that the combination of oil and dispersant actually increased the toxic effects of the oil.

“I think we all agree that the dispersed oil is more likely to be toxic than the crude oil by itself,” says Dr. Joe Griffitt, a toxicologist at the University of Southern Mississippi.

However, so far, the scientific community has not reached any conclusion on whether oil mixed with dispersant is increasing the danger to marine creatures in the case of this particular spill. Part of the problem is that so little is known about use of dispersants in such great amounts or at this depth 5,000 feet.

BP points out that the federal government has approved its use of dispersants, and that they’ve been “very effective in keeping oil from reaching shore.” BP says it’s working closely with the government to monitor the environmental impact, and has committed to spend $500 million over 10 years to study the impact on the Gulf environment.

Nalco, which makes Corexit, says the EPA has concluded that use of Nalco’s dispersants “has not significantly affected the marine environment” and that federal officials have said they resulted in “no harm to aquatic life.”

.The EPA says “no federal agency has said these products cause no harm to aquatic life”,” but that its testing so far shows no “significant impact.”

Because of potential litigation, the EPA hasn’t seen all of Sawyer’s data. But the agency says it’s now conducting its own tests to determine just how toxic dispersants mixed with oil are to life in the Gulf.

To read statements to NBC News about the use of dispersants from BP, EPA and Nalco, as well as link to a statement from independent scientists opposed to the use of dispersants, click here .
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/38417141/ns/today

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/38417141

Statements from BP, EPA, Nalco
and scientists on dispersants
.TODAY
updated 7/30/2010 12:58:12 PM ET

Below are statements to NBC News from BP, EPA and Nalco regarding BP’s use of dispersants on oil spilled in the Gulf of Mexico, as well as a link to a recent statement on the subject from a group of independent scientists:

BP statement to NBC News:
With regard to the use of dispersants,

– We are working closely with EPA and the Coast Guard to monitor the effect of dispersants on the environment. Dispersants have never been used underwater in this way and we have been working with the agencies to gather as much data as possible to understand the current situation and for the future.

– They have been very effective in keeping oil from reaching the shore.

– Scientists say that given the light quality of the oil, the uses of dispersant, and the natural bioremediation effect of 5,000 feet of water, the oil is extremely weathered when it gets to shore, and the toxic components have greatly if not completely been reduced.

– BP has committed to spend $500 million over 10 years to study the impact of the oil spill on the Gulf environment and will be here for the long run.

EPA statement to NBC News:

There have been no “conclusions” reached about any of this EPA’s monitoring and research into dispersant is ongoing specifically because we want more information about this chemical’s impact on the environment. No federal agency has said these products cause no harm to aquatic life what our ongoing sampling tells us, is that to date they have not had a significant impact on aquatic life. And the issue is not the dispersant’s ingredients or constituents which Nalco only released after considerable prodding from EPA but the way those ingredients are mixed together to form dispersants.

Throughout this crisis, EPA scientists have consulted with all groups, including representatives from academia, non-governmental organizations, industry and other federal and state agencies to ensure we have access to the best available science. These independent scientists have been open and very willing to share their research and data, and it is very unfortunate that this scientist is unwilling to share his full report with EPA.

Still, we hope to have an opportunity to review his full study and discuss the results. EPA continues to conduct its own independent testing into dispersants, and the Agency released data from the first round of testing on June 30 to ensure outside scientists and the public have access to the same data EPA has. The next phase of EPA’s testing is focused on the acute toxicity of multiple concentrations of Louisiana Sweet Crude Oil alone and combinations of Louisiana Sweet Crude Oil with each of the eight dispersants for two test species.

Nalco statment to NBC News:

1. As the EPA said last week, it’s important to remember that oil is enemy number one in this crisis.

2. The EPA has concluded that the use of Nalco’s dispersants to break apart the oil has been effective and has not significantly affected the marine environment.

3. Federal officials have repeatedly stated, based on continual air and water sampling and other tests:

a. No harm to aquatic life

b. No indication of any impact in the atmosphere

c. No evidence of worker illness due to dispersant use

4. All of the ingredients contained in the Nalco dispersants are found in common household products, such as food, packaging, cosmetics, and household cleaners. It has been compared to dishwashing detergent by Federal officials.

5. Soon after oil began leaking on April 20, the government requested dispersants from the approved NCP list to help minimize the effects of the accident. Not a drop of Corexit dispersant has been used without the express approval of the federal government.

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hV64upZTXqPz9oNOH0ftwIl3RdgwD9HA26GO1

By MATTHEW DALY (AP) – 5 hours ago July 31, 2010
ON THE GULF OF MEXICO – The helicopter passes over the blue waters of the Gulf of Mexico – with surprisingly little oil visible on its surface – when out of the sea rises a skyscraper-like structure nearly 350 feet above the waves. The $600 million rig, nearly 100 miles off Louisiana’s coast, has a hull larger than a football field and can drill more than 5 miles beneath the ocean floor.

But the gleaming new rig sits idle, shut down by the government’s freeze on drilling at 33 ocean wells.

Interior Secretary Ken Salazar visited the colossal structure this past week while on a tour of three offshore oil rigs. It was his most extensive tour since the April 20 explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig led to one of the largest environmental disasters in U.S. history and the unprecedented shutdown of offshore drilling.

Salazar told The Associated Press, which accompanied him on the trip, that he’s gathering information to decide whether to revise or even lift the ban, which is scheduled to last until Nov. 30.

Business groups and Gulf Coast political leaders say the shutdown is crippling the oil and gas industry and costing thousands of jobs, even aboard rigs not operated by BP PLC, which is responsible for the Gulf disaster. The freeze “is like punishing the whole class” when a student does something wrong, oil executive John Breed told Salazar during a tour of the Noble Danny Adkins, one of the rigs Salazar visited Wednesday.

Salazar told the AP he believes the industry-wide moratorium imposed after BP’s Gulf oil spill was the correct call.

“I think we’re in the right direction,” he said, adding that the ultimate goal is to allow deepwater operations to resume safely. “We’re not there yet,” he said.

“I’ve got a lot of questions about drilling safety,” Salazar said. “I learned a lot about the different kinds of rigs out there – the different limitations in terms of (water) depth and equipment and the different zones of risk. It’s a complex question.”

Texas-based Noble Drilling Services Inc., which owns the idle rig, said the company and rig operator Shell have top-notch safety records, unlike BP. Congressional investigators revealed last month that BP had 760 safety violations in the past five years, while no other major oil company had more than eight.

Salazar acknowledged that the freeze was causing hardship, but he said his job was to protect the public and the environment even as he supports domestic energy production.
“We’re here because we take what you’re doing very seriously, and we will do the right thing” he told oil executives at his first stop, a deepwater production rig run by Arkansas-based Murphy Exploration & Production Co.

The Front Runner rig, owned by Houston-based Nabors Offshore Corp., operates in 3,300 feet of water 92 miles off the Louisiana coast.

At a briefing with Salazar, executives made an impassioned plea, citing the rig’s safety record. The Front Runner has been producing oil since December 2004 with no major incidents, said Nabors president Jerry Shanklin and David Harris, Murphy’s general manager of worldwide drilling.

One reason: The rig’s blowout preventer – the device that failed spectacularly in the Deepwater Horizon explosion – is above the surface, accessible to workers and easier to inspect and repair. The blowout preventer on the Deepwater Horizon_ the safety device of last-resort – was on the sea-floor, a mile below the surface, a common practice on exploratory wells.

While production continues on the Front Runner, two wells the company had been digging have been suspended because of the moratorium. Resuming operations on the wells could double the rig’s production with little safety risk because the wells are being drilled into producing reservoirs where important geological information is already known, Harris said.

Harris asked Salazar to lift the moratorium for rigs such as his, which have blowout preventers on the surface.

“So you can guarantee me there will be no blowouts?” Salazar countered. “We are not going to have another oil spill like the one we are still dealing with out here at the Macondo well” operated by BP.

Harris and other officials stressed the redundancies built into the rig’s design – a series of backup systems meant to ensure the blowout preventer works in case of disaster. Yet pressed by Salazar, James Hunter, Murphy’s general manager for field development and facilities engineering, finally conceded that, no, he could not make such a guarantee. Salazar beamed.

At the next site, the Noble Danny Adkins, Salazar was more like a talk-show host, asking rig officials dozens of questions.

“Tell us a story,” he said at one point.

A flat-screen TV in the rig’s galley shows a continuous loop of family photos submitted by the crew – a reminder of why safety is so important, said Breed, the Noble spokesman. A crew of 156 remains on the rig, although their work is limited to maintenance and preparations, since the moratorium prevents them from drilling.

David Loeb, Shell’s top manager of floating operations in the Gulf, told Salazar his commitment to safety is personal. “I’ve got a family. I like the beach. I like to fish,” he said. “I’ll be danged if I do anything to mess that up.”

___
Online:
Salazar’s memo on freeze: http://tinyurl.com/2et448d
Noble Drilling Services Inc.: http://tinyurl.com/2eouhjx
Murphy Exploration & Production Co.: http://tinyurl.com/22ke66o
Nabors Offshore Corp.: http://www.nabors.com

Special thanks to Richard Charter

July, 29 2010

Special thanks to Richard Charter

http://msnbcmedia.msn.com/i/TODAY/Sections/aNEWS/2010/07-July%2010/ScientistsConsensusStatement.pdf

July 16, 2010

We oppose the use of chemical dispersants in the Gulf, and demand an immediate halt to their application. We believe that Corexit dispersants, particularly in combination with crude oil, pose grave health risks to marine life and human health, and threaten to deplete critical niches in the ocean food web.

We urge federal and state agencies to fund independent research NOW to produce transparent, timely information that will protect the health of Gulf response workers, residents, and wildlife.

Background
Since the Deepwater Horizon drilling platform exploded in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20, 2010, BP has applied almost two million gallons of dispersants, both on the surface and beneath Gulf waters. Government officials acknowledge that the quantity and manner in which dispersants have been applied in the Gulf are unprecedented. The application of dispersant at the source of the discharge, 5,000 feet under the surface of the water, is also unprecedented.

By enhancing the amount of oil that physically mixes into the water column, dispersants reduce the amount of oil that reaches shoreline habitats. Although called for in the Oil Pollution Act of 1990 as a tool for minimizing the impact of oil spills, chemical dispersants are controversial (NRC, 2005) because of the toxicity of dispersed mixtures and their potential negative impacts on ocean life. Another point of controversy is that once oil is dispersed in deep water, it cannot be recovered. Oil, when combined with dispersants in the water column is more toxic to marine species than either oil or dispersant alone.

At a Senate hearing on June 15, 2010, EPA Administrator, Lisa Jackson stated, ―In the use of dispersants we are faced with environmental tradeoffs.‖ In fact, the use of dispersants does not represent a science-based, quantifiable ―tradeoff‖ but rather amounts to a large-scale experiment on the Gulf of Mexico ecosystem that runs contrary to a precautionary approach, an experiment where the costs may ultimately outweigh the benefits.

Moreover, this ―trade-off‖ has been confounded by the lack of a vigorous, technologically adequate effort to collect crude oil from the surface. Berms and booms quickly proved to be ineffective in this deepwater system. As a result, crude oil has penetrated 30 miles into the coastal wetlands of Louisiana and has reached the shores of other Gulf states.

Dispersants applied by BP have resulted in widely disseminated undersea plumes of oil, confirmed by NOAA on June 8. (http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2010/06/government-confirms-undersea-oil-in-gulf-of-mexico.html). Samples were collected by scientists from University of South Florida on the MV Weatherbird II and tested by NOAA’s lab. Subsequently, the plumes have migrated outward from the discharge source and over time are likely to travel with prevailing currents to the Florida Keys, Cuba, Mexico, and the eastern seaboard of the US. The vast quantities of dispersed oil in these plumes can enter the marine food chain and bioaccumulate in animal tissue, potentially impacting marine ecosystems over many years and over a broad geographical area.
2
Corexit Dispersants Used in the Gulf
Two dispersants, Corexit 9500 and 9527A, produced by Nalco of Naperville, Illinois, have been used in the Gulf (http://www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com/go/site/2931/). Although listed among EPA-approved dispersants, Corexits are oil industry-insider products, and are ranked by the EPA as more toxic and less effective than other approved dispersants, which has raised questions about their use in the Gulf (Scarlett et al 2005). A comprehensive report on the health hazards of crude oil and the known ingredients of Corexits is available at: http://www.sciencecorps.org/crudeoilhazards.htm.
Corexit 9527A contains 2-BTE (2-butoxyethanol), a toxic solvent that ruptures red blood cells, causing hemolysis (bleeding) and liver and kidney damage (Johanson and Bowman, 1991, Nalco, 2010). Both Corexit dispersants contain petroleum solvents that mix with the crude oil mass and move through it, thus increasing the uptake of oil by organisms (NRC, 2005, Nalco, 2010).

The properties that facilitate the movement of dispersants through oil also make it easier for them to move through cell walls, skin barriers, and membranes that protect vital organs, underlying layers of skin, the surfaces of eyes, mouths, and other structures.

Crude Oil & Corexit Combined Are More Toxic Than Either Alone
The combination of Corexit and crude oil can be more toxic than either alone, since they contain many ingredients that target the same organs in the body. In addition, Corexit dispersants facilitate the entry of oil into the body, into cells, which can result in damage to every organ system (Burns and Harbut, 2010).

Exposure to chemicals in crude oil and dispersants can occur through skin contact, inhalation of contaminated air or soil/sand, and ingestion of contaminated water or food. These can occur simultaneously.

Chemicals in crude oil and dispersants can cause a wide range of health effects in people and wildlife. Crude oil has many highly toxic chemical ingredients, including polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), that can damage every system in the body. These include:
respiratory system nervous system, including the brain
liver reproductive/urogenital system
kidneys endocrine system
circulatory system gastrointestinal system
immune system sensory systems
musculoskeletal system hematopoietic system (blood forming)
skin and integumentary system disruption of normal metabolism

Damage to these systems can cause a wide range of diseases and conditions. Some may be immediately evident, and others can appear months or years later. The chemicals can impair normal growth and development through a variety of mechanisms, including endocrine disruption and direct fetal damage. Some of the chemicals, such as the PAHs, cause mutations that may lead to cancer and multi-generational birth defects (Burns and Harbut, 2010). Of note, benzene, a human carcinogen, is a VOC that is released by crude oil (CDC, 1999). It is not known what additional VOCs (if any) are added to the crude oil mix by dispersants, due to a lack of disclosure about dispersant ingredients.

Potential human health effects include burning skin, difficulty breathing, headaches, heart palpitations, dizziness, confusion, and nausea — which have already been reported by some workers — as well as chemical pneumonia and internal bleeding (Burns and Harbut, 2010, US EPA 2010). These are more often noticed than more serious effects that don’t have obvious signs and symptoms – lung, liver and kidney
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damage, infertility, immune system suppression, disruption of hormone levels, blood disorders, mutations, and cancer. Coastal communities could also experience more extreme health consequences, including long-term neurological effects on children and developing fetuses, and hereditary mutations. As of June 21, the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals reported 143 cases of illness “believed to be related to oil exposure”, including 108 response workers (mostly men) and 35 coastal residents (two-thirds women) (http://www.dhh.louisiana.gov/). The most common symptoms were headache, nausea, throat irritation, vomiting, cough and difficulty breathing.

Corexit Dispersant Ingredients Have Not Been Fully Disclosed
On June 8th, US EPA provided a list of chemicals they stated were in the two Corexit products used to date. Companies are not required to list all ingredients in their products, or to provide detailed information on those that they do list. They can claim ingredients are “proprietary” to avoid disclosure. Ingredients in a product may be listed as a group rather than a single chemical.

For example, the group “petroleum distillates, hydrotreated light” is listed on the MSDS for Corexit 9500. There are hundreds of chemicals within this group. Similarly, “organic sulfonic acid salts” are listed as an ingredient, but these may include many potential organic components. Without specific information, it isn’t possible to fully assess short or long-term human health hazards or ecological effects.

Toxic Impacts on Marine Life
Oil spill impacts can occur by 1) physical contact (oiling), 2) toxicity, and 3) loss of food web niches. Some of the effects of this spill are visible – 1866 dead oiled birds, 463 sea turtles, 59 dolphins, one sperm whale (DH Response Report July 14). Many scientists suspect that the worst of the impacts on the Gulf are yet to come and will not be apparent without deliberate tracking and scientific assessment.

Since the 1970s, it has been known that application of dispersants to oil spills increases toxicity by increasing oil and hydrocarbon exposure to water column species. A review of the literature by Dye et al (1980) reported that “virtually every author who has investigated the toxicity of oil-dispersant mixtures reports dramatic increases in mortality compared to oil or dispersant alone, indicating the existence of supra-additive synergy.” Today, many scientists are concerned about the likelihood of severe, acute impacts on a wide range of Gulf species that are now being exposed to Corexit and oil in the water column. For vulnerable species such as seagrass, corals, plankton, shrimp, crabs, and small fish, acute effects can be lethal, particularly during the spring spawning season (Ibemesim et al, 2008, Barron et al, 2003, Rhoton et al, 1998, Bhattacharyya et al 2003, Chapman et al 2007, Anderson et al, 2009, Couillard et al, 2005, Ramachandran et al, 2004, Fisher et al, 1993, Gulec et al, 1997). Coral larvae are extremely sensitive to the combined effects, with 0% fertilization rates in the presence of dispersant and dispersed oil, compared with 98% fertilization in the presence of oil alone (Negri and Heyward, 2000, Shafir et al, 2007, Epstein et al 2000).

As plumes of dispersed oil form in the water column, globules of oil and dispersant envelop and kill floating plankton, fish eggs and larvae – and everything else at sensitive life stages. Planktivorous species like herring and whale sharks indiscriminately feed on these globules and may break the oil down to more toxic by-products. Already, vast numbers of bottom-feeders and filter-feeders have been decimated in heavily oiled areas such as Louisiana’s Barataria Bay (Shaw, CNN 2010). Depletion of these critical niches in the food web can set the stage for “trophic cascades,” causing the collapse of higher organisms (Peterson et al. 2003).

At the top of the food web, large fish (amberjacks, tuna, grouper) and marine mammals are exposed to oil and dispersant through feeding on contaminated fish. Air-breathing animals like dolphins and sperm whales are exposed to volatile petroleum fumes every time they surface for air – and taking oil into the blowhole can cause chemical pneumonia and liver and kidney damage. Skin contact with Corexit and oil can cause ulcers
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and burns to membranes of the eyes and mouth. Corexit 9527, which was used in the Gulf until supplies ran out in May, contains the toxic solvent, 2-butoxyethanol, that ruptures red blood cells, causing animals to undergo hemolysis (internal bleeding) (Burns and Harbut, 2010, Nalco 2010). Fishermen in the Gulf have reported that dolphins spouting oil from the blowhole have approached their boats (Shaw, TEDXOilSpill, 2010). These dolphins are likely suffocating from petrochemical solvent-related burning of lung membranes (―chemical pneumonia‖) and thus are dying before our eyes. As scientists, the question is, how will we know?

Finally, dispersing oil at depth means that a significant volume of oil is not able to be recovered at the surface. This dispersed oil can enter the marine food chain at many points and bioaccumulate in animal tissue, potentially impacting marine ecosystems over many years and over a broad geographical area.

Scientists Express Concerns
On July 10, 2010 the journal Nature reported concerns expressed by scientists about the implications of the use of dispersants (Nature News, July 10, 2010). David Valentine, a geomicrobiologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara, described BP’s use of dispersants as ―an experiment that’s never been performed before – to dump that much of an industrial chemical into the ocean.‖

Susan Shaw, a marine toxicologist and director of the Marine Environmental Research Institute, responded to the EPA’s announcement on 30 June that its initial round of toxicity testing on eight dispersants, including Corexit 9500 found no “biologically significant” endocrine-disrupting effects on the small estuarine fish and mysid shrimp tested. “We already know that dispersants are less toxic than oil if you compare the two,” says Shaw. “But because Corexit contains a petroleum solvent, we’re actually putting petroleum solvent on top of a petroleum spill. So it’s increasing the hydrocarbons in the water column.” Furthermore, says Shaw, the dispersant can increase the toxicity of the oil for those marine organisms that encounter it. “It’s like a delivery system,” says Shaw. “The [dispersed] oil enters the body more readily and it goes into the organs faster.”

Dispersion is thought to speed up oil degradation because tiny droplets can be more readily metabolized by oil-eating microbes. Samantha Joye, a biogeochemist at the University of Georgia in Athens disagrees: “It assumes that the dispersant doesn’t impact the microbial community, and we have no idea if that’s true or not. There’s just as good a chance that this dispersant is killing off a critical portion of the microbial community as it is that it’s stimulating the breakdown of oil.”

Federal Agencies Need to Fully Disclose Test Results
Although EPA has listed extensive sampling and analysis plans on the federal spill website, they have not provided most of the results that they have. They do not describe the chemicals that people are inhaling, nor do they warn people that many volatile organic chemicals from crude oil can have serious long term health consequences, including cancer.

Similarly, NOAA has been accused of ―hoarding‖ its Natural Resources Damage Assessment (NRDA) data on the extent and effect of undersea oil plumes. Despite early urgent warnings from independent scientists that oil suspended in the water column is likely killing wide swaths of sea life, NOAA was slow to send out research vessels to probe the extent of the problem. To date, very little of the NRDA data has been released to researchers, presumably because of pending litigation. However, the raw data is being immediately turned over to the Joint Incident Command, and thus to the lead defendant, BP.

The Need to Know
Beyond the 11 men who were killed in the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion, the human toll of the Gulf oil spill is unknown. In past disasters, inadequate public information and protections have caused serious health problems among responders and local communities that were poorly informed about hazards.
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To mitigate past and future damage to human and wildlife populations as well as the ocean ecosystem, it is critical that the federal government and state agencies provide the results of their air, water, seafood, and other testing to the public as soon as the information becomes available.

Withholding information, however well-intentioned, is dangerous and should be avoided at all costs. Testing results must be made available as quickly as possible to enable Gulf officials, response workers, and individual citizens to make informed decisions regarding potential health risks and the best courses of action.

We urge federal agencies to provide the following to ensure the best possible health for people and wildlife in the Gulf Region:
1. An immediate halt to the use of chemical dispersants in the Gulf of Mexico, particularly the application of dispersants at depth.
2. Full disclosure of all the chemical ingredients in the Corexit formulations and full toxicity data on these chemicals in combination with oil – this information should be posted on a website and should include studies submitted by the manufacturers to EPA, not meaningless summaries.
3. A federal site that provides adverse effects information from the previous uses of Corexit dispersants. This should cover environmental media, wildlife, and human populations. This information was collected after Corexit 9527 was used in the Exxon Valdez spill in Alaska.
4. Access to the extensive monitoring data that EPA and NOAA have collected documenting what chemicals are in the air and water and their observed adverse impacts. Only limited summary data have been provided to the public.
5. Funding for independent research on short-term and long-term impacts; money that is available to qualified researchers NOW, not months later (as in the Exxon Valdez spill) when exposure has lessened and impacts will be difficult, if not impossible, to document.

References
Anderson, B.S., Arenella-Parkerson, D., Phillips, B.M., Tjeerdema, R.S., Crane, D., 2009. Preliminary investigation of the effects of dispersed Prudhoe Bay Crude Oil on developing topsmelt embryos, Atherinops affinis. Environmental Pollution 157, 1058-1061.
Barron, M.G., Carls, M.G., Short, J.W., Rice, S.D., 2003. Photoenhanced toxicity of aqueous phase and chemically dispersed weathered Alaska North Slope crude oil to Pacific herring eggs and larvae. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry 22, 650-660.
Bhattacharyya, S., Klerks, P.L., Nyman, J.A., 2003. Toxicity to freshwater organisms from oils and oil spill chemical treatments in laboratory microcosms. Environmental Pollution 122, , 205-215.
Burns, K. and Harbut, M.R., 2010. Gulf Oil Spill Hazards, Sciencecorps, Lexington, MA, June 14, 2010. Available at http://www.sciencecorps.org/crudeoilhazards.htm
Chapman, H., Purnell, K., Law, R.J., Kirby, M.F., 2007. The use of chemical dispersants to combat oil spills at sea: A review of practice and research needs in Europe. Marine Pollution Bulletin 54, 827-838.
Couillard, C.M., Lee, K., Légaré, B., King, T.L., 2005. Effect of dispersant on the composition of the water-accommodated fraction of crude oil and its toxicity to larval marine fish. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry 24, 1496-1504.
Deepwater Horizon Response Consolidated Fish & Wildlife Report July 14, 2010. Available at: http://www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com/go/site/2931/.
Dye, C.W., Frydenborg, R.B., 1980. Oil dispersants and the environmental consequences of their usage: A literature review.
Technical Series. State of Florida – Department of Environmental Regulation.
Epstein, N., R. P. M. Bak, et al. 2000. Toxicity of third generation dispersants and dispersed Egyptian crude oil on Red Sea coral larvae. Marine Pollution Bulletin 40(6), 497-503.
Fisher, W.S., Foss, S.S., 1993. A simple test for toxicity of Number 2 fuel oil and oil dispersants to embryos of grass shrimp, Palaemonetes pugio. Marine Pollution Bulletin 26, 385-391.
Gulec, I., Holdway, D.A., 1997. Toxicity of dispersant, oil, and dispersed oil to two marine organisms. 1997 International Oil Spill Conference, pp. 1010-1011. 6
Ibemesim, R.I., Bamidele, J.F., 2008. Comparative toxicity of two oil types and two dispersants on the growth of a seashore grass, Paspalum vaginatum (swartz). International Oil Spill Conference – IOSC 2008, Proceedings, pp. 875-880.
Johanson, G., Boman, A., 1991. Percutaneous absorption of 2-butoxyethanol vapour in human subjects. British Journal of Industrial Medicine 48, 788-792.
Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, Office of Public Health, 2010. Oil Spill Health Effect Summary: MS Canyon 252
Oil Spill Surveillance Report Week 24 06/13/2010 to 06/19/2010. Available at http://www.dhh.louisiana.gov/.
NALCO 2010. Material Safety Data Sheet Corexit EC9500A. http://www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com/posted/2931/Corexit_EC9500A_MSDS.539287.pdf NALCO 2010. Material Safety Data Sheet Corexit EC9527A. http://www.deepwaterhorizonresponse.com/posted/2931/Corexit_EC9527A_MSDS.539295.pdf
National Research Council, National Academy of Sciences, 2005. Oil Spill Dispersants: Efficacy and Effects. Available at: http://www.hap.edu/catalog/11283.html
Negri, A.P., Heyward, A.J., 2000. Inhibition of fertilization and larval metamorphosis of the coral Acropora millepora (Ehrenberg, 1834) by petroleum products. Marine Pollution Bulletin 41, 420-427.
Peterson, C.H., Rice, S.D., Short, J.W., Esler, D., Bodkin, J.L., Ballachey, B.E., Irons, D.B., 2003. Long-term ecosystem response to the Exxon Valdez oil spill. Science 302, 2082-2986.
Ramachandran, S. D., Hodson, P.V. Khan, C.W. Lee, K. 2004. Oil dispersant increases PAH uptake by fish exposed to crude oil. Ecotoxicology and Environmental Safety 59(3), 300-308.
Rhoton, S.L., Perkins, R.A., Richter, Z.D., Behr-Andres, C., Lindstrom, J.E., Braddock, J.F., 1998?. Toxicity of dispersants and dispersed oil to an Alaskan marine organism. International Oil Spill Conference, pp. 8485-8488
Scarlett, A., Galloway, T.S., Canty, M., Smith, E.L., Nilsson, J., Rowland, S.J., 2005. Comparative toxicity of two oil dispersants, Superdispersant-25 and Corexit 9527, to a range of coastal species. Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry 24, 1219- 1227
Shafir, S., Van Rijn, J., Rinkevich, B., 2007. Short and long term toxicity of crude oil and oil dispersants to two representative coral species. Environmental Science and Technology 41, 5571-5574.
Shaw, S.D. 2010. Imperiled Gulf: A Marine Toxicologist’s Perspective. TEDXOIlSpill, Washington, DC, June 28. http://www.tedxoilspill.com/
Shaw, S.D. 2010. CNN Live Rick’s List, New Orleans, July 9
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Public Health Service: Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry 1999 Toxicological profile for total petroleum hydrocarbons (TPH). Atlanda GA. Available at:
U.S Environmental Protection Agency 2010. Toxicological Review of Ethylene Glycol Monobutyl Ether (EGBE) (CAS No. 111-76- 2) Washington DC Available at
Signatories
1. Sylvia A. Earle, PhD, Oceanographer, Ocean Explorer-in-Residence, National Geographic Society, Washington DC.
2. David E. Guggenheim, PhD, Marine Biologist/Conservationist, President, 1planet1ocean – a project of The Ocean Foundation, Washington DC
3. Susan D. Shaw, DrPH, Marine Toxicologist, Founder, Marine Environmental Research Institute, Blue Hill, ME
4. David Gallo, PhD, Oceanographer, Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Woods Hole, MA
Many others to be added during the next few days….