(Sept. 30) — Researchers testing the waters off Louisiana in June found hugely elevated levels of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, some of which are known carcinogens.
The researchers from Oregon State University say that a device taking samples just off the shore of Louisiana’s Grande Isle registered a 40-fold increase in PAHs between May and June.
What’s worse is that the sampling device was specifically designed to measure the fraction of PAHs in the environment that could make their way through a biological membrane.
“This is a measure of what would enter into an organism,” said Kim Anderson, an OSU professor of environmental and molecular toxicology.
“There was a huge increase of PAHs that are bio-available to the organisms — and that means they can essentially be uptaken by organisms throughout the food chain.”
Anderson said that water samples taken off the Mississippi, Alabama and Florida coasts — as well as air samples taken along the coast — also showed elevated levels of PAHs, but not nearly of the same magnitude.
Samples from July were lost; Anderson is now testing samples taken in August. The operative question is how many of the PAHs have biodegraded in the interim. BP’s blowout sent somewhere between 4 and 5 million barrels of oil into the Gulf’s waters between April 20 and July 15.
PAHs are a class of more than 100 hydrocarbon pollutants; 17 get particular attention because exposure can have harmful health effects.
Anderson said that almost every one of those 17 particularly toxic compounds experienced the 40-fold increase that the entire class did.
“This would be the largest PAH change I’ve seen in over a decade of doing this,” she told HuffPost.
Anderson said different organisms — be they plankton, fish, shellfish or humans — have different exposure risks to PAHs in the water; and they also have different capacities to metabolize the PAHs.
So just how many of these toxic compounds actually ended up in the food chain was beyond her area of research, she said.
She did not issue any warning to consumers, noting: “The USDA is testing the seafood and I would presume that they’ve ensured that what’s on the market is safe to eat.”
Anderson said that based on the findings of other researchers, she suspects that the abundant use of dispersants by BP increased the bioavailability of the PAHs in this case.
Back in late July, I reported that scientists had tentatively found signs of an oil-and-dispersant mix under the shells of tiny blue crab larvae in the Gulf. At that point it appeared to be an indication that dispersants had broken up the oil into toxic droplets so tiny that they can easily enter the food chain. But two months later, those researchers have yet to finalize their conclusions. So the question remains an open one.
First Posted: 09-30-10 04:55 PM | Updated: 09-30-10 05:14 PM
Source: The Huffington Post
Related information:
– Blood Tests on Gulf Residents Show Benzene And Other Hydrocarbons
– Scientist Rick Steiner Got Gulf Disaster Right From The Beginning, Warns Crisis Is Far From Over
– FDA admits NOT testing for MERCURY, ARSENIC, or any other TOXIC HEAVY METALS in Sea Food
– Gulf claims chief Ken Feinberg says BP no-sue rule was his idea, takes control of BP’s $20bn fund
– Matt Simmons Dies In An ‘Accidental Drowning’ At His Home
– Matthew Simmons: ‘We’ve Now Killed The Gulf Of Mexico’ (Flashback)
– Gulf Oil Blowout: Matt Simmons Was Right!
– Loop Current in the Gulf of Mexico Has Stalled From BP Oil Disaster! (!)
– Scientists: Evidence Of Gulf Oil And Dispersant Mix Making Its Way Into The Foodchain
– The Growing Health Crisis in the Gulf of Mexico:
Corexit also contain arsenic, cadmium, chromium, mercury, cyanide, and other heavy metals. Dispersing oil with it increases toxicity 11-fold ….
People who work near it are hemorrhaging internally. And that’s what dispersants are supposed to do.EPA now is taking the position that they really don’t know how dangerous it is, even though if you read the label, it tells you how dangerous it is. And, for example, in the Exxon Valdez case, people who worked with dispersants, most of them are dead now. The average death age is around fifty. It’s very dangerous, and it’s an economic-it’s an economic protector of BP, not an environmental protector of the public.
– Gulf of Mexico BP Oil Rig Blast: Safety Alarm Was Off
– And Now: BP Plans Deep-Water Drilling Off Libya
– Rachel Maddow: The Gulf Of Mexico Déjà Vu (Must See!)
– Matt Simmons: BP Cap Is A Fraud – ‘It’s The Biggest Cover-Up We have Ever Seen’
– Gulf Of Mexico Water Sample EXPLODES! Other Samples Prove To Be Toxic
– BP Oil Blowout: All States Along Gulf Of Mexico Affected By Slick
– U.S. Senate Traitors Block Investigative Power for Oil Spill Commission
– And Now: BP admits failing to use industry risk test at any of its deepwater wells in the US
– CNN: 1st Amendment, Free Press Suspended Near Gulf Disaster Area
– Gulf of Mexico Disaster: BP Slick Covers Dolphins and Whales
– BP burns rare sea turtles alive, blocks efforts to save them
– Matt Simmons: ‘We’re going to have to evacuate the gulf states.’
– US Scientist: Methane In Gulf ‘Astonishingly High’, As Much As 1 Million Times The Normal Level
– BP Plans To Dump All North Sea Assets In Dramatic Attempt To Cut Costs
– BP Blocking Media Access To Workers (Video)
– BP Official Admits to Damage BENEATH THE SEA FLOOR
– BP Buys Search Term ‘Oil Spill’ From Google
– BP CEO Tony Hayward sold £1.4 million of his shares weeks before Gulf blowout
– Goldman Sachs Sold 44% Of Its BP Stock 3 Weeks Before Gulf Blowout
– Feds and BP Withheld Videos Showing Massive Scope of Oil Spill
– Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill Solution Restores Environment in Just Six Weeks
– BP’s ‘brilliant’ CEO Tony Hayward clashes with scientists over deep sea oil pollution
– BP’s top kill effort fails to plug Gulf oil leak
– Gulf of Mexico Oil Apocalypse Creates Underwater Nightmare
– Gulf of Mexico clean-up boats recalled after crews suffer health problems
– SPECIAL REPORT: Civil fine in Gulf spill could be $4,300 a barrel
– Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill Health Hazards
– Fishermen get severly ill from clean-up work in Gulf
– NASA Images Show Oil Entering Loop Current
– New NASA Image of Gulf Oil Moving Towards Atlantic Ocean
– Worry That Gulf Oil Spreading Into Major Ocean Current
– AP IMPACT: Fed’l Inspections on Rig Not as Claimed:
The federal agency responsible for ensuring that an oil rig in the Gulf of Mexico was operating safely before it exploded last month fell well short of its own policy that inspections be done at least once per month, an Associated Press investigation shows.
Since January 2005, the federal Minerals Management Service conducted at least 16 fewer inspections aboard the Deepwater Horizon than it should have under the policy, a dramatic fall from the frequency of prior years, according to the agency’s records.
Scientists studying video of the gushing oil well have tentatively calculated that it could be flowing at a rate of 25,000 to 80,000 barrels of oil a day. The latter figure would be 3.4 million gallons a day.
– Beyond Stupid: BP CEO Tony Hayward:
“The Gulf of Mexico is a very big ocean. The amount of volume of oil and dispersant we are putting into it is tiny in relation to the total water volume.”
– US Oil Spill: Scientists and Fishermen Alarmed Over Chemical Dispersants:
Approximately 325,000 gallons of dispersant have been deployed so far in BP’s effort to break up the spreading oil slick before it hits the fragile Gulf coast, and over 500,000 gallons more are available.
– Rig firm makes $270m profit from Gulf of Mexico oil spill
– US not accepting foreign help on oil spill
– Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill: New NOAA Projection Map; BP’s High-Stakes Mission; And More News
– Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill: The Halliburton Connection:
The company acknowledged Friday that it had completed the final cementing of the oil well and pipe just 20 hours before the blowout last week.