Oil Spill in the Gulf

Gulf Still Loaded with Chemicals, But FDA Says Seafood Safe to Eat

November 4, 2010

Natural News - Not even six months after the first reports about the massive BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico made headlines, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) joined together with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) to announce that virtually all Gulf seafood is now safe to eat. Independent tests, however, continue to show that Gulf waters are still highly contaminated, and that many sea creatures are still dying from exposure to both oil and toxic oil dispersant chemicals.

The FDA and NOAA recently made the shocking announcement because of results from federal tests that allegedly found “no detectable residue” of toxic chemicals in the majority of seafood tested. But fishery experts are questioning the legitimacy of the testing methods used, citing the fact that the tests only looked for one chemical component of the Corexit dispersant — dioctyl sodium sulfosuccinate (DOSS) — while ignoring the presence of numerous other toxic chemicals and chemical combinations like polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), propanols, and 2-butoxyethanol, that are also highly toxic.

Reuters recently covered a report published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters that highlighted the widespread damage caused by PAHs and other dispersant chemicals, and how these chemicals are still harming and killing fish today. Back in May, researchers observed chemical contamination at thousands of feet below sea level — and as far as eight miles from the spill site — and since that time, they say it has most likely spread even further.

“From the time that these observations were made (back in May), there was an extensive release of additional oil and dispersants at the site,” the researchers wrote in their paper. “Therefore, the effects on the deep sea ecosystem may be considerably more severe than supported by the observations reported here.”

According to Bob Naman, a chemist cited in a recent Al Jazeera piece on the dangers of oil dispersants, chemical components of oil dispersants tend to mix with other chemicals to form entirely new chemicals. These new chemicals often escape into the air and come down as rain, harming people, animals, and the environment.And they can also combine in water to create new toxic compounds that contaminate sea life.

Add to that the fact that people living along the Gulf shore are still getting sick from chemical exposure, and it is safe to assume that the creatures living in Gulf waters are also highly contaminated as well..

But neither the FDA nor the NOAA seem all that concerned about any outside information or independent testing that contradicts their own. According to Dr. John Stein from the NOAA, “absolutely none of the samples (taken as part of the federal tests) pose a threat to human health.” And Margaret A. Hamburg, commissioner of the FDA, said in a statement that “there is no question Gulf seafood coming to market is safe from oil or dispersant residue.” So apparently the public is expected to just take the agencies’ word for it without question.

Interestingly, the initial testing method the agencies used to assess the safety of Gulf seafood was, get this, a smell test. Stein explained to Reuters that the first round of “sensory testing” involved “trained experts sniff[ing] seafood for evidence of chemical contamination.” So by getting a good whiff of some shrimp and oysters, experts can allegedly determine in full certainty whether or not the creatures are safe for human consumption.

But when the public failed to buy into this “testing” method, the agencies resorted to their “back-up” plan of actually testing the seafood for contaminants. And while the agencies obtained the results that reinforced their findings, such testing methods, as previously mentioned, were flawed to begin with.

Numerous investigations by mainstream media outlets remain skeptical of the recent announcement. And because there is still debate among credible experts over whether Gulf seafood is safe, it is probably best to join the skepticism and simply avoid eating it for now.

Scientists Find Damage to Coral Near BP Well

November 5, 2010

Associated Press – For the first time, federal scientists have found damage to deep sea coral and other marine life on the ocean floor several miles from the blown-out BP well — a strong indication that damage from the spill could be significantly greater than officials had previously acknowledged.

Tests are needed to verify that the coral died from oil that spewed into the Gulf of Mexico after the Deepwater Horizon rig explosion, but the chief scientist who led the government-funded expedition said Friday he was convinced it was related.

"What we have at this point is the smoking gun," said Charles Fisher, a biologist with Penn State University who led the expedition aboard the Ronald Brown, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration research vessel.

"There is an abundance of circumstantial data that suggests that what happened is related to the recent oil spill," Fisher said.

For the government, the findings were a departure from earlier statements. Until now, federal teams have painted relatively rosy pictures about the spill's effect on the sea and its ecosystem, saying they had not found any damage on the ocean floor.

In early August, a federal report said that nearly 70 percent of the 170 million gallons of oil that gushed from the well into the sea had dissolved naturally, or was burned, skimmed, dispersed or captured, with almost nothing left to see — at least on top of the water. The report was blasted by scientists.

Most of the Gulf's bottom is muddy, but coral colonies that pop up every once in a while are vital oases for marine life in the chilly ocean depths.

Coral is essential to the Gulf because it provides a habitat for fish and other organisms such as snails and crabs, making any large-scale death of coral a problem for many species. It might need years, or even decades, to grow back.

"It's cold on the bottom, and things don't grow as quickly," said Paul Montagna, a marine scientist at the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies at Texas A&M University in Corpus Christi. He was not on the expedition.

Montagna said the affected area is so large, and scientists' ability to explore it with underwater robots so limited that "we'll never be able to see everything that happened down there."

Using a robot called Jason II, researchers found the dead coral in an area measuring up to 130 feet by 50 feet, about 4,600 feet under the surface.

"These kinds of coral are normally beautiful, brightly colored," Fisher said. "What you saw was a field of brown corals with exposed skeleton — white, brittle stars tightly wound around the skeleton, not waving their arms like they usually do."

Fisher described the soft and hard coral they found seven miles southwest of the well as an underwater graveyard. He said oil probably passed over the coral and killed it.

The coral has "been dying for months," he said. "What we are looking at is a combination of dead gooey tissues and sediment. Gunk is a good word for what it is."

Eric Cordes, a Temple University marine scientist on the expedition, said his colleagues have identified about 25 other sites in the vicinity of the well where similar damage may have occurred. An expedition is planned for next month to explore those sites.

When coral is threatened, its first reaction is to release large amounts of mucus, "and anything drifting by in the water column would get bound up in this mucus," Cordes said. "And that is what this (brown) substance would be: A variety of things bound up in the mucus."

About 90 percent of the large coral was damaged, Fisher said.

The expedition was funded by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The mission was part of a four-year study of the Gulf's depths, but it was expanded this year to look at oil spill damage.

In a statement released Thursday night, NOAA Administrator Jane Lubchenco said the expedition underscored that the damage to marine life from the oil spill is "not easily seen." She added that more research was needed to gain a "comprehensive understanding of impacts to the Gulf."

"Given the toxic nature of oil, and the unprecedented amount of oil spilled, it would be surprising if we did not find damage," she said.

NOAA did not provide any officials or scientists of its own who went on the expedition. The Bureau of Ocean Energy Management said its researcher on the expedition was unavailable.

Cordes said that the expedition did not find dramatic visual evidence of coral damage in other sites north of the well. But he said it was premature to say coral elsewhere in the Gulf was not damaged.

The new findings, though, could mean long-term trouble for the coral southwest of the well, where computer models and research cruises mapped much of the deepwater oil.

Referring to one type of coral known as "gorgonians," Cordes said he had never seen them "come back from having lost so much tissue. It would have to be re-colonization from scratch."