{"id":25534,"date":"2010-05-31T11:23:18","date_gmt":"2010-05-31T16:23:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=25534"},"modified":"2010-05-31T13:37:05","modified_gmt":"2010-05-31T18:37:05","slug":"dispersants-bp-spill-astrology","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/daily-astrology\/dispersants-bp-spill-astrology\/","title":{"rendered":"Preventable Disasters"},"content":{"rendered":"

Five years ago, a National Academy of Sciences study concluded that the decision to use a dispersant requires making a choice: saving the beach at the expense of the ocean. By Carol van Strum, <\/strong>edited by Eric Francis.<\/em><\/p>\n

While BP tries one Rube Goldberg remedy after another to stop the oil gusher it unleashed in the Gulf, one of the most frightening aspects of the disaster is how totally clueless BP, the oil industry, and the government are about how to stop the gusher — misleadingly called a spill, leak or oil slick — or how to prevent or mitigate shoreline destruction.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Rube Goldberg's design for an automatic toothpaste applicator. Rube, who lived from 1883 to 1970, was an American cartoonist, sculptor, author, engineer, and inventor. Goldberg is best known for a series of popular cartoons he created depicting complex devices that perform simple tasks in indirect, convoluted ways \u2013 now known as Rube Goldberg machines. <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Worse yet, they seem to be violating all common sense and scientific knowledge on the effects of the dispersants being used to conceal the damage caused by the plume of petroleum.<\/p>\n

It’s not as if this disaster was actually unprecedented — though we’re being told over and over that it is. Way back in 1979, a drilling rig exploded, burned, sank, and gushed oil into the Bay of Campeche in the Gulf of Mexico<\/a>, sending 10,000 – 30,000 barrels of oil a day into the sea for more than nine months. Like the BP explosion, the catastrophic Ixtoc blowout was caused by a malfunctioning blowout preventer. Although the Ixtoc wellhead was located in only 170 feet of water and was accessible to dive teams and submersible vehicles, all efforts to stop the flow — including the top-kill lunacy repeated by BP last week — failed until the Mexican government-owned oil company drilled two relief wells. Oil continued to flow for three months after completion of the first relief well. Use of the same Corexit dispersants at Ixtoc failed to prevent some 3 million barrels of oil from crossing the Gulf and washing up on the Texas shoreline.<\/p>\n

Note that relief wells are considered to be the definitive solution in this kind of runaway well, and BP is currently digging two such wells, which will be used to plug the currently active well with concrete. Time estimates on that happening are for August, at best. This is a deep well, and it’s located beneath miles of solid rock. [See BP graphic of the process<\/strong><\/a>.] BP was originally going to drill one well — the Obama administration told them they had to drill two. This is a good thing, since they are trickier than anyone is letting on. [We’re working on coverage of this issue.]<\/p>\n

It was not the Ixtoc gusher, however, but the 1990 Exxon-Valdez<\/em> tanker spill in Alaska that goaded Congress into action more than a decade later. In that year, after the Congressional Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) alarmingly reported in damning detail that, “The country’s ability to recover oil from large spills is inadequate,” Congress passed the Oil Pollution Act (OPA) of 1990. The act required, among other things, oil spill emergency preparations, including an on-scene spill coordinator, more comprehensive contingency planning for massive spills, more federal oversight, and coordination with an newly formed industry oil spill cooperative. [OTA report, \u201cCoping With an Oiled Sea<\/a>\u201d].<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>
Actual BP advertisement from 1999.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Having fulfilled the first part of its mission, Congress then forgot to provide adequate funding<\/a> to meet the requirements of the act. This would have been easy. The petroleum industry is hugely profitable; a fee or tax could have created a substantial fund over the years, sufficient for both preventive measures and many remedial measures after a spill.<\/p>\n

Over the ensuing years, in the throes of anti-regulatory fever, both government and the oil industry grew complacent, assuming with no basis in reality that the day of big oil spills was over. The BP blowout, twenty years after passage of the Oil Pollution Act, caught both government and industry with their pants down. The panic, confusion, and incompetence that resulted are monuments to decades of deregulation and corporate profiteering, capping a decade of oil men in the White House.<\/p>\n

Preventable dispersant poisoning<\/strong><\/p>\n

In 2002, the U.S. Coast Guard proposed changes to oil spill contingency planning regulations under OPA that would increase use of dispersants on oil spills, prompting the National Academy of Sciences to prepare a 2005 report on the efficacy and effects of such dispersants. [Link to full text of NAS 2005 report<\/strong><\/a>] The NAS team found that use of dispersants was in effect a trade-off between shoreline protection and seabed\/deep-water protection:<\/p>\n

Oil spill dispersants do not actually reduce the total amount of oil entering the environment. Rather, they change the inherent chemical and physical properties of oil, thereby changing the oil\u2019s transport, fate, and potential effects. Small amounts of spilled oil naturally disperse into the water column, through the action of waves and other environmental processes. The objective of dispersant use is to enhance the amount of oil that physically mixes into the water column, reducing the potential that a surface slick will contaminate shoreline habitats or come into contact with birds, marine mammals, or other organisms that exist on the water surface or shoreline. Conversely, by promoting dispersion of oil into the water column, dispersants increase the potential exposure of water-column and benthic biota to spilled oil. Dispersant application thus represents a conscious decision to increase the hydrocarbon load (resulting from a spill) on one component of the ecosystem (e.g., the water column) while reducing the load on another (e.g., coastal wetland). Decisions to use dispersants, therefore, involve trade-offs between decreasing the risk to water surface and shoreline habitats while increasing the potential risk to organisms in the water column and on the seafloor. This trade-off reflects the complex interplay of many variables, including the type of oil spilled, the volume of the spill, sea state and weather, water depth, degree of turbulence (thus mixing and dilution of the oil), and relative abundance and life stages of resident organisms.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The 2005 NAS report summarized uses of dispersants on a limited number of spills, including a few in the Gulf of Mexico, but because actual water-column testing was done in only a very few cases, could not confirm the effectiveness of the chemicals and strongly recommended stringent effectiveness testing — including \u201cdeveloping a definition of field effectiveness\u201d — as well as monitoring for toxicity:<\/p>\n

In addition, current information is insufficient to evaluate dissolved components (e.g., toxic compounds) or concentrations of dispersed droplets for their impacts on nearshore environments. Ironically, as the effectiveness of dispersant increases, so does the potential threat to organisms exposed to the dispersed plume, due to the increased concentration of dissolved compounds and dispersed droplets in the water column.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The NAS report assumed dispersant use would be in relatively shallow water, and nowhere did the NAS authors consider the possible injection of dispersants a mile below the surface in near-freezing waters. Needless to say, few if any of its recommendations were followed.<\/p>\n

BP’s desperate use of Corexit dispersants — particularly its deep-water injections at the seabed — was not supported by any research or logic, save the frantic need to do something visible and reassuring. Corext dispersants, banned in the UK, were not even allowed in U.S. waters during the 1979 Ixtoc blowout; the manufacturer’s MSDS records state no toxicity studies have been done on the products, but the warnings are dire enough, stating that the compounds can cause vomiting, reproductive problems, headaches, and nervous system, blood, and respiratory disorders.<\/p>\n

Corexit should be called Mexitwurs<\/strong><\/p>\n

Research Corexit for about 10 minutes and you figure out that the only people who like it work for BP. Everyone else agrees that it’s toxic, ineffective, it will make the problem worse and that there are better, less toxic solvents.<\/p>\n

Every chemical that is produced for the market has what is called an MSDS, or material safety data sheet, that tells you how toxic it is, and what to do in case of a spill.<\/p>\n

This site includes MSDS sheets for all three Corexit products<\/a>. We haven’t found any breakdown of which specific ones BP is using in the Gulf. The MSDS for Corexit 9527, a dispersant developed by Nalco<\/a><\/strong> Energy Services in the 1980s, and widely used in the Gulf, includes 2-butoxyethanol and 38% 2-butoxyethanol. A question remains about whether the proprietary formula also includes ethylene oxide (a carcinogen), reported by valdezlink.com to have been in a 1989 version:<\/p>\n

Trade secrets keep the exact ingredients from being revealed, and safety [2] sheets [3] show that Corexit contains compounds that can cause vomiting, reproductive problems, and headaches at high doses. No toxicity studies have been performed on the compounds, but an environmental group called Protect the Ocean claims [4] that Corexit is four times as toxic as the oil. And an earlier form of Corexit used in the Exxon Valdez cleanup reportedly caused workers to develop nervous system, blood, and respiratory disorders<\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

The number one benefit of a product like Corexit for a company like BP is to push the most plainly visible pollutants to the sea floor and away from coastal areas, where the true ecological damage will remain out of sight. While much of the company’s use of the substance involves surface spraying, they are also injecting large volumes of Corexit into deep waters, where already massive oil plumes have spread over hundreds of square miles, their thickness and perimeter growing by the hour. Some of the plumes are hidden from visible sight, including the ones that are a mix of Corexit and crude.<\/p>\n

The accumulation of oil at the bottom of the ocean presents a more startling threat to the Gulf’s ecology than shallow-water spills. Paul Montagna, a marine ecologist at the Harte Research Institute for Gulf of Mexico Studies, explained to AFP: “What that means is that basically life in the entire water column is now being exposed.”<\/p>\n

“Clearly you’d expect a huge die off in the water column as well as in the (affected) sediments,” said Wilma Subra, a chemist and consultant who works with the Louisiana Environmental Action Network.<\/p>\n

Another major concern is that the subsea oil and dispersants can be carried by currents in an entirely different direction from where the wind and waves send the surface slick, creating a “much larger area of impact,” she added.<\/p>\n

Five years ago, a 400-page National Academy of Sciences<\/a> <\/strong>study concluded that the decision to use a dispersant requires making a choice: saving the beach at the expense of the ocean.<\/p>\n

“It’s all about trade-offs,” said Beth McGee, senior water quality scientist with the Chesapeake Bay Foundation and one of the authors of the 2005 study. “You look at the resources at risk and you make a choice.” While there may be some sickness and fatalities among the fish population, she said, “you hope you’re saving some beaches or marshes.”<\/p>\n

“You’re making a decision to save your birds at the expense of your larval fish and shellfish population,” agreed Henderson. But marine life should be able to bounce back more rapidly, he said.<\/p>\n

That’s the case when the dispersants are sprayed on the surface, as their manufacturer recommends. Over the past few weeks, BP has been testing a radical approach, shooting the dispersants at the source of the leaks a mile beneath the surface, even though EPA officials say the effects of underwater use “are still widely unknown<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

Though all dispersants are potentially dangerous when applied in such volumes, Corexit is particularly toxic<\/a>. It contains petroleum solvents and a chemical that, when ingested, ruptures red blood cells and causes internal bleeding. It is also bioaccumulative, meaning its concentration intensifies as it moves up the food chain.<\/p>\n

But now the US regulator has admitted that the ecological consequences of this are unknown. The EPA has said that \u201cthe effects of underwater dispersant use on the environment are still widely unknown, which is why we are testing to determine its effectiveness first and foremost.\u201d<\/p>\n

Larry Schweiger, the head of the US National Wildlife Federation, has also said the method of using underwater dispersant at the source of the leak was untested and could have devastating effects. \u201cThe problem with putting the underwater dispersant where they\u2019re putting them is that they\u2019ve never done that before<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency acknowledged in a statement that the ramifications of the underwater dispersant were unclear and said it had only authorized two tests of the method for that reason.<\/p>\n

“The tests were done to determine if the dispersant would be effective in breaking up the oil and helping to control the leaks,” the EPA said. “No further use of dispersants underwater is planned until BP provides the results of these tests for our review<\/a>.”<\/p>\n

BP has ignored the order.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Five years ago, a National Academy of Sciences study concluded that the decision to use a dispersant requires making a choice: saving the beach at the expense of the ocean. By Carol van Strum, edited by Eric Francis. While BP tries one Rube Goldberg remedy after another to stop the oil gusher it unleashed in … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25534"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25534\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}