Living on Earth: Toxic Tide - Discovering the Health Effects of the Deepwater Disaster, Part 2

[OKIsItJustMe]

http://www.loe.org/shows/segments.htm?programID=11-P13-00007&segmentID=3

Toxic Tide - Discovering the Health Effects of the Deepwater Disaster, Part 2

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KALTOFEN: When we took the dispersant and the crude oil into the laboratory to measure how they partition - how they divide up into the different parts in the environment. When we did that, and we looked at the air above our tanks of seawater, we were finding that the same volatile chemicals that were in the air around the fishermen were the ones that we found in the air above the dispersant-seawater mixtures.

YOUNG: Those volatile chemicals likely come from the petroleum distillates mixed with the Corexit brand dispersants. At least 1.8 million gallons of chemical dispersants were used during the spill.

The chemicals most prevalent in the lab tests can affect the cardiovascular and nervous systems, liver, and kidneys. Corexit maker Nalco declined comment, citing litigation. Kaltofen says he had another surprising finding: he found dispersants closer to shore than they should have been used.

KALTOFEN: It's confusing to us that we can go one mile off of Biloxi and find dispersant in the seawater - enough that it reeks because of the hydrocarbon odors. And when we got those samples into the lab, we found that we had multiple hits for dispersant compounds. So how could they get into the inshore waters and how could they still be there weeks after application supposedly ended? We need to get a better explanation.

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(Full transcript and audio at the link.)

[ananda]

1. Living on Earth has a great FB site too.

nt

[ensho]

2. kick

nt