The Big Lie: BP, Governments Downplay Public Health Risk From Oil
and Dispersants
- BP, Governments Downplay Public Health Risk From Oil and
Dispersants
By Riki Ott
Huffington Post, July 7, 2010
Straight to the Source
When Ryan Heffernan, a volunteer with Emerald Coastkeeper,
noticed a bag of oily debris floating off in Santa Rosa Sound,
she ran up to BP's HazMat-trained workers to ask if they would
retrieve it. "No, ma'am," one replied politely. "We can't go
in the ocean. It's contaminated."
Ryan waded in and retrieved the bag. That was Wednesday, June
23, the first day visible oil hit Pensacola Beach. Ryan had been
swimming off the beach the day before, as she said, "to get in
my last swim before the oil hit." The trouble is that not all of
the oil coming ashore is visible. Dispersed oil -
tiny bubbles of oil encased in chemical dispersants - are in
the water column. On Thursday Ryan was treated at a local
doctor's office for skin rash on her legs.
Three days later on Pensacola Beach, I watched BP's HazMat-trained
workers shovel surface oiled sand and oily debris into bags
early in the morning. The workers followed the waterline like
shorebirds, scurrying up the beach in front of breaking waves
and moving back down with receding waters.
The late morning sun retired the workers to the shade of
their tents and the job of "observing," while it brought out
throngs of beach-goers -- children, parents, grandparents -- who
happily plunged into the "contaminated" ocean without a second
thought.
I was astounded. Why did people think the ocean was safe for
swimming?
There were five HazMat tents, four front-loaders, and at
least two dozen HazMat workers on the beach. HazMat workers wore
yellow over-boots duct-taped to their long pants' legs to
minimize risk of contact with the water. The white surf popped
with visible black tar balls as it rolled towards the beach.
Waves left an oily signature of tar balls on the beach, melting
in the sun. The treads of my Chacos weighed down with oily sand
despite trying to avoid the mess. Most people were barefoot.
Hotels set up oil cleaning stations on their premises - and
signs saying the water advisory (put in place after Ryan's
incident) had been lifted.
What's wrong with this picture?
Skin rash and blisters after wading and walking in Mobile Bay,
Alabama, on May 11.
Lots. For starters, Ryan's story from Pensacola Beach is not an
isolated incident. I have received emails and heard personal stories
from Louisiana to Florida of people who have developed skin rashes and
blisters from going in the ocean. People describe stings by "invisible
jellyfish." Turtle patrol volunteers who walk beaches daily write of
blisters and bronchitis. And then there are individuals like Sheri Allen
who took her dog for a walk on a beach in Mobile Bay in May.
Sheri wrote me that her "arms and legs were burning, even after the
shower. The following morning ... (there were) ... small blood blisters.
By evening the blisters had begun to welt. By the fourth day, the areas
had got larger and swollen." She went to see a doctor but the sores
remain and they have begun to scar her arms and legs. For several days
after Sherri's incident, her husband found fish kills on the beach.
William Rea, MD, who founded the
Environmental Health
Center-Dallas, treated a number of sick Exxon Valdez cleanup
workers. He once told me, "When you have sick people and sick animals,
and they are sick because of the same chemical, that's the strongest
evidence possible that that chemical is a problem."
It's not just skin rashes and blisters. At community forums, I
commonly hear from adults and children with persistent coughs, stuffy
sinuses, headaches, burning eyes, sore throats, ear bleeds, and fatigue.
These symptoms are consistent across the four Gulf states that I have
visited. Further, the symptoms of respiratory problems, central nervous
system distress, and skin irritation are consistent with overexposure to
crude oil through the two primary routes of exposure: inhalation and
skin contact.
Most distressing to me are stories about sick children. "Dose plus
host makes the poison," I learned in toxicology. A small child is at
risk of breathing a higher dose of contaminants per body weight than an
adult. Children, pregnant women, people with compromised or stressed
immune systems like cancer survivors and asthma sufferers, and African
Americans are
more at risk from oil and chemical exposure - the latter because
they are prone to sickle cell anemia and 2-butoxyethanol can cause, or
worsen, blood disorders.
Public officials have failed to sound an alarm about the public
health threat because three federal agencies - DHHS, EPA, and OSHA -
cannot find any unsafe levels of oil in air or water. Perhaps the
federal air and water standards are not stringent enough to protect the
public from oil pollution.
Our
federal laws are outdated and do not protect us from the toxic
threat from oil - now widely recognized in the scientific and medical
community.
BP is still in the dark ages on oil toxicity. BP officials stress
that, by the time oil gets to shore, it is "weathered" and missing the
highly volatile compounds like the carcinogenic benzene, among others.
BP fails to mention the threat from dispersed oil, ultrafine particles (PAHs),
and chemical dispersants, which include industrial solvents and
proprietary compounds, many hazardous to humans.
If oil was so nontoxic, then why are the spill response workers
giving hazardous waste training? Our federal government should stop
pretending that everything is okay. What isn't safe for workers isn't
safe for the general public either.
Ryan's rash was getting better until she sat on Pensacola Beach to
watch fireworks on July 4. The next day her skin erupted in fiery red
burns. She is worried about her health. So are many other people along
the Gulf.
Perhaps it is time for the government to protect public health first
and BP's profit second.
Riki Ott, PhD, is a marine toxicologist from Alaska, volunteering
in the Gulf. She has written two books on surviving the Exxon Valdez oil
spill - Sound Truth and Corporate Myths on biological impact of
oil to people and wildlife, and Not One Drop on emotional
impact of disaster trauma and litigation to people and community.
www.rikiott.com.
Ott is working with Emerald Coastkeeper and others to
petition the EPA to delist toxic chemical products in oil spill
response.
Copyright © 2010 HuffingtonPost.com, Inc To subscribe or visit
go to:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com |