BP prepares to limit liability by disallowing the use of respirators and getting rid of the “corpse”
One thing the government is not getting right in the Gulf oil spill, is the protection of workers who are exposed to toxic chemicals, while working as members of the cleanup crews. It’s in BP’s interest to minimize the health risks that cleanup workers must confront. The National Academy of Sciences has reported that forty percent of the oil that comes to the surface evaporates and within that evaporated mix are toxic chemicals, including benzene, a known carcinogen, once commonly used as a solvent, which has long been implicated as a causative link to leukemia. Several weeks ago, the Coast Guard called the commercial ships involved in the cleanup operation into port, when seven crew members became ill and were hospitalized with nausea, headache, dizziness and chest pains. Amy Goodman on Democracy Now interviewed Clint Guidry, president of the Louisiana Shrimp Association, who turned out to have a lot of experience with oil cleanup methods, having worked in the oil industry in similar operations for many years, cleaning up shut-down oil refineries. However, the toxic environment to which workers get exposed is not through oil evaporation alone, but is also created by Corexit, the chemical dispersant used in the cleanup, which contains another toxin, 2-butoxyethanol (up to 60%: the exact formula for Corexit is kept secret as a proprietary formula by its manufacturer–Nalco)–so one thing the government needs to do is force Nalco (which is at least partially owned by BP) to reveal the chemical composition of Corexit, so we know exactly what the hazards of this set of reagents might be. Britain has banned the use of Corexit for cleanup purposes in that country, so why is it still being used in the United States? What is it we don’t know about this dispersant that the Brits know? According to some experts, the purpose of the dispersant, now widely used in the gulf, is to break-up and sink the oil, so no one can point to a “corpse.” The dispersant does not eliminate the oil, but breaks it up into small droplets that help hide the corpse beneath the surface (sort of like if you don’t have a body you can’t charge someone with murder). When the dispersant treated oil occupies mid-regions of the ocean, or sinks to the ocean floor, it can then more easily enter into the life cycle of other forms of ocean fauna, such as fish and bottom-dwelling organisms. The tuna that occupy the western side of the Atlantic breed in the Gulf and are now going through the cycle in which the eggs are hatching and fry are feeding. The dispersed oil makes it more likely that two toxic components, the oil and the dispersant, will get ingested by the fish swimming and breeding in the region. Apparently, BP is spraying Corexit broadly in the air over water regions, but close to some residential areas near the Gulf shore, raising the possibility of toxic air pollution for residents in the region. The fisherman who have lost their ability to fish are now working for BP for $3,000/day and, at the risk of losing the only employment they have, they are not going to speak out about the working conditions. Since Exxon Valdez, the routine of exposing cleanup workers to toxic chemicals, and forbidding the use of protective devices such as respirators, knowing that those employed for the cleanup operation will never expose the company for the poor working conditions, has become part of the gold standard for how an oil company responds to an oil spill, the first duty of which is to protect the company against long-term liability.
BP has denied there are any health hazards to which cleanup workers get exposed and claims to have taken measurements of the air quality to prove it. But, but those measurements have yet to appear in public. Mr Guidry, knowledgeable about air quality issues, brought respirators to the commercial fisherman who were employed by BP for the cleanup, but they were all informed that BP would fire anyone caught using a respirator. Guidry claims that this experience goes all the way back to the Exxon Valdez oil spill, when respirators were not allowed to be used so that the company limited its liability; the use of respirators is an indication that the oil company believes there is an environmental problem with air quality and, as such, exposes them to the liability for respiratory ailments, a situation that could lead to long-term legal problems for the company. BP has stated that nothing is wrong with the air quality in the cleanup areas. If so, what made the workers ill a few weeks ago? Guidry claims it was exposure to toxins in the air. As it turns out, EPA (Environmental Protection Agency), the Federal agency responsible for monitoring air quality has no jurisdiction for air quality over the water, but would have jurisdiction once the air moves onto land. It appears that the Coast Guard and MMS have jurisdiction over air quality issues in the water and so far these organizations have not made any decisions about air quality or cleanup worker safety. Measurements of air quality seem to be limited to those provided by BP. Mr Guidry reported that when he did work in cleaning up oil refineries, all workers had protective clothing and boots, as well as respirators as part of the normal routine worker protection. He has claimed that the lack of such protection exists solely so that BP limits its liability.
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