Welcome to the Dead Zone

Posted: May 13, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: Gulf Oil Spill | Comments Off on Welcome to the Dead Zone

The more I read about the catastrophe that is spinning exponentially out of control in the gulf, the more I’m convinced that we’ve more to fear from corner cutting profiteers than from any Greek-style deficit debacle or Pakistani Taliban. I want to grab everything I own and my daughter and drive due North. Things are looking very bleak down here.

They’re throwing everything thing they’ve got at the spill now. Tires, golf balls, and dispersant. They’re opening up spillways to try to wash the stuff away from the shores with the freshwater of the Mississippi, fully knowing that the freshwater is toxic to the salt water ecosystem. It’s thought to be less permanently damaging, however, than the oil.

They’re not going to wash us ‘way this time. They’re poisoning us, the land, and the wildlife. It’s just a matter of which poison gets us first.

A relocated New Orleanian sent me this from Protect the Oceans. It’s about that dispersant and it’s damn scary.

It has been confirmed that the dispersal agent being used by BP and the government is Corexit 9500, a solvent originally developed by Exxon and now manufactured by Nalco Holding Company of Naperville, IL. Their stock took a sharp jump, up more than 18% at its highest point of the day today, after it was announced that their product is the one being used in the Gulf. Nalco’s CEO, Erik Frywald, expressed their commitment to “helping the people and environment of the Gulf Coast recover as rapidly as possible.” It may be that the best way to help would be to remove their product from the fray. Take a look at some of the facts about Corexit 9500:

A report written by Anita George-Ares and James R. Clark for Exxon Biomedical Sciences, Inc. entitled “Acute Aquatic Toxicity of Three Corexit Products: An Overview” states that “Corexit 9500, Corexit 9527, and Corexit 9580 have moderate toxicity to early life stages of fish, crustaceans and mollusks (LC50 or EC50 – 1.6 to 100 ppm*). It goes on to say that decreasing water temperatures in lab tests showed decreased toxicity, a lowered uptake of the dispersant. Unfortunately, we’re going to be seeing an increase in temperatures, not a decrease. Amongst the other caveats is that the study is species-specific, that other animals may be more severely affected, silver-sided fish amongst them.

Well, that’s just the basics. This is the bottom line.

Dispersal of the oil does not eliminate it, nor does it decrease the toxicity of the oil. It just breaks it up into small particles, where it becomes less visible. It’s still there, spewing toxicity at an even greater rate (due to higher surface area.) But now it’s pretty much impossible to skim or trap or vacuum or even soak up at the shoreline, because most of it will never make it to the shoreline. Instead, that toxic crude oil AND the dispersant will be spread all over the ocean’s waters. This is why introducing such a product into the crude oil as it comes out from the pipe is a very bad idea for the ocean.

It may not be pretty, but if the oil makes it to the shore, it can be soaked up, cleaned up. To “disperse” it means it will NEVER be cleaned up. It will just stay out there, polluting and poisoning the ocean, her inhabitants, and all the food we take from it.

Of course the talk is all about law suits now that every one’s had their chance before the camera at congressional hearings. The speculation now is of criminal charges.

While Attorney General Eric Holder has confirmed that Justice Department lawyers are helping the agencies involved in the oil spill inquiry with legal questions, department officials have refused to detail what their role entails.

But Uhlmann and other experts said it’s likely prosecutors are already poring over evidence from the spill because under the Clean Water and Air Acts and other federal laws aimed at protecting migratory birds, an accidental oil spill of this magnitude could at least result in misdemeanor negligence charges.

And under the migratory bird regulations, prosecutors have very broad discretion.

In 1999, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the misdemeanor conviction under the Clean Water Act of a supervisor at a rock quarry project that accidentally ruptured an oil pipeline, causing a spill.

For a felony, prosecutors have to demonstrate companies “knowingly” violated the regulations.

Tracy Hester, the director of the Environment, Energy and Natural Resources Center at the University of Houston, said prosecutors would be looking for “any possible concealment of the risks, a failure to respond to any known risks, and a failure to report a dangerous situation.”

“Knowing is a slippery term,” Hester said. “But knowing doesn’t necessarily mean that you knew it was a violation of the law. You just have to be aware that what you were doing fell into what is regulated.”

A Under a 1990 federal law, the primary leaseholder of the well, BP, is responsible for picking up the lion’s share of the cleanup costs. Anadarko Petroleum and Matsui Oil Exploration together own 35 percent of the lease, and they would pay that share of expenses.

The law requires BP and the other leaseholders to pay an unlimited amount in direct cleanup costs. Their liability for other damage, such as ruined fisheries and lost tourist revenue, is legally capped at $75 million, although the company says it is willing to pay claims beyond that. Above the cap, the Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, financed by a tax on oil companies, is supposed to pick up the tab, up to a total of $1 billion.

Craig Bennett, the director of the Coast Guard’s National Pollution Funds Center, said that as of Wednesday morning, BP had received 6,414 claims, mostly from fishermen for lost wages and damage to their boats. He said the company had paid out $2.5 million so far, and “they have not denied any claims yet.”

So, read that again. It talks about the CLEAN up costs and that’s it. The dispersant stops the crap from coming ashore so they don’t have to clean up. The water rushing out of the Bohemian Spillway or some other place, stops the crap from coming ashore so they don’t have to clean up. BUT, there is still tremendous damage to ecosystems either way. That doesn’t even take into account the impact on the people, the cities, the lost sales, the lost business, the lost tax revenues, and who knows what it does to the property and health of those who are vested down here?

Social and Ecosytems are fragile things. We’re on the verge of wiping out some huge ones. Who is REALLY going to pay for all of this and how do you measure the ultimate cost?

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