Reply #6: "It’s death in the ocean from the top to the bottom.”

[mhatrw]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/environment/article7134581.ece

“This is terrible, just terrible,” says Dr Shaw, back on the boat. “The situation in the water column is horrible all the way down. Combined with the dispersants, the toxic effects of the oil will be far worse for sea life. It’s death in the ocean from the top to the bottom.”

Dispersants can contain particular evils. Corexit 9527 — used extensively by BP despite it being toxic enough to be banned in British waters — contains 2-butoxyethanol, a compound that ruptures red blood cells in whatever eats it. Its replacement, COREXIT 9500, contains petroleum solvents and other components that can damage membranes, and cause chemical pneumonia if aspirated into the lungs following ingestion.

But what worries Dr Shaw most is the long-term potential for toxic chemicals to build up in the food chain. “There are hundreds of organic compounds in oil, including toxic solvents and PAHs (polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons), that can cause cancer in animals and people. In this respect light, sweet crude is more toxic than the heavy stuff. It’s not only the acute effects, the loss of whole niches in the food web, it’s also the problems we will see with future generations, especially in top predators.”

http://www.easybourse.com/bourse/international/news/837381/us-rep-markey-no-good-choices-on-dispersant-for-gulf-oil-spill.html

U.S. Rep. Edward Markey (D., Mass.) said in a statement that the government has "no silver bullets" with which to clean up the spill caused by BP PLC's (BP) "failure to assure the safety of its drilling operations."

Markey asserted that the dispersant--Corexit--that BP is currently using is "more toxic" to marine life than other options, but he stressed that officials know "almost nothing" about the potential impact of any of the chemicals on the Gulf's marine environment.
Officials know even less about the potential for these chemicals to enter the food chain and harm humans, he added. Markey, who chairs the House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, said he met with independent scientists Friday for a briefing on the spill's potential impact on the Gulf.

"What is most frightening about the long-term effects of the oil and the dispersant chemicals isn't what we know, it is what we just don't know," said Markey.

http://www.pnj.com/article/20100524/OPINION/5240301/1006/NEWS01/Editorial--Fight-oil-spill-with-less-toxic-chemicals

What we don't need is anything that makes the situation worse, which from all expert opinions, the oil dispersant is doing just that. The EPA first allowed BP to spray the dispersant over oil slicks on the surface of the Gulf — during good weather and water conditions. On May 15, the agency allowed BP to inject the chemicals deep underwater, directly at the site of the gushing oil. Several scientists have said that they were surprised that the EPA gave BP permission to use the dispersants at all on the Gulf floor because their use in deep water had never been attempted.

Experts contend that the chemical dispersants used following the explosion of the offshore oil rig have the potential to cause just as much, if not more harm, to the environment and humans coming into contact wit it than oil possibly would left untreated. Like household detergents that break up grease in the wash, dispersants can clear an oil slick by breaking the crude into tiny droplets that fall beneath the water's surface. Oil treated with these chemicals spreads through the water more easily and threatens delicate fish eggs and other fragile sea life.

The long-term effect of dispersants on the marine ecosystem has not been definitively determined, but the EPA's decision to err on the side of caution is the right move to protect aquatic life under these troubling circumstances.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37282611/ns/gulf_oil_spill

But the chemicals, which are being used in unprecedented volumes and in previously untested ways, may come with a big tradeoff, scientists say. That’s because no one can accurately predict how large the impact will be on the mammals, fish and turtles that inhabit the open ocean. “It’s a whole new ball game,” said Ted Van Vleet, a professor of chemical oceanography in the college of Marine Science at the University of South Florida. “People are totally unsure as to how it is going to affect the ecosystems."

Dispersants themselves are toxic. But a bigger concern in the scientific community is what happens in dispersing the oil, which is far more hazardous to living creatures. ... “The fact that (dispersants) remove oil from the surface doesn’t mean it’s not toxic,” said Van Vleet. “It moves oil down into the water column, where other marine animals are exposed to it. ... It trades one ecosystem for another.” ...

“There are a bunch of things in the deep sea that we don’t know very much about,” said Ed Overton, professor in the Marine Sciences Department at Louisiana State University. “What happens if those resources are damaged? How does that affect the ecology of the Gulf? It’s a crapshoot … an educated crapshoot.” ... If the oil on the ocean floor is not degraded by bacteria, the danger is that it will remain toxic for much longer than it would near the surface — potentially lingering for years instead of weeks or months — during which time it could be carried to deep coral reefs that provide shelter and nurseries to many species of fish. ... The final third of the ingredients are not publicly disclosed because the information is considered proprietary.

The same day, however, The New York Times reported that a group of scientists aboard the research vessel Pelican had identified massive plumes of subsea oil — some as big as 10 miles long and 3 miles wide. The article said that scientists on the ship speculated that heavy use of dispersants had contributed to creation of the plumes.