Gulf Coast
egrossman | December 13, 2010by Elizabeth Grossman
On November 30th, the Louisiana Bucket Brigade (LABB) released a bulletin reporting on the accidental release of sulfur dioxide at the Murphy Oil refinery in Meraux, Louisiana. The Bucket Brigade tracks these releases as part of its work to reduce refinery accidents, and they explain that the November 30th release is "just one of several refinery-related incidents in St. Bernard's Parish" reported around Thanksgiving weekend. On November 24th, the Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality recorded "spikes" of sulfur dioxide in Chalmette, LA and on the 25th, there was…
egrossman | August 23, 2010By Elizabeth Grossman
On August 17th the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) held the first public discussion of plans for its Gulf Worker Study - also called the Gulf Long Term Follow-up Study - designed to assess short and long-term health effects associated with BP/Deepwater Horizon oil disaster clean-up work. "Since the spill," said NIEHS director Linda Birnbaum opening the meeting, "NIEHS has assisted with safety training for more than 100,000 workers with courses taught in English, Spanish and Vietnamese. But now it's time to turn our attention to the potential…
egrossman | August 12, 2010by Elizabeth Grossman
"After three long months of oil geysering continuously from the depths of the Gulf, a temporary cap has stemmed the flow and it appears that the well is on its way to being killed. But we are by no means through this disaster," said Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) in his opening remarks at the August 4th Senate Environment and Public Works Committee hearing on the use of oil dispersants in the BP/Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
Gulf Coast fishermen and others whose livelihoods depend on the Gulf of Mexico's sea life know this all too well.
While the scientists testifying…
lborkowski | August 3, 2010BP's well in the Gulf of Mexico has been capped and may soon be "killed" for good, but fixing the widespread damage from the disaster will take years. The National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health has has released a report (supported by the Children's Health Fund) based on a survey of 1,200 residents of coastal Louisiana and Mississippi. Their findings give a sense of how widespread the spill's impacts are on physical, mental, and financial health:
Over one-third of parents reported that their children had experienced either physical…
egrossman | July 26, 2010By Elizabeth Grossman
In mid-June most of the seafood shacks along the bayou roads between New Orleans and Grand Isle were closed. A seafood market that I stopped by on the western edge of New Orleans was virtually devoid of customers despite bins brimming with bright blue crab and tawny shrimp. Business was so slim that two women who should have been tending to customers were playing Yahtzee. "We've never done this on a workday before," they told me. Another woman unloading sacks of shrimp frowned at my notepad and said, "I blame the media. We've got plenty of shrimp and it's safe." She…
egrossman | June 28, 2010By Elizabeth Grossman
"This is my place. This is my peace. This is where I come to pray. Now it's damaged for years to come," Dauphin Islander Angela Bonner tells me as we stand on the pier that stretches out over the beach. This fine white sand beach on Alabama's Gulf Coast is nearly empty save for clean-up crews finishing the day's work and several pairs of beach goers. The beach is open but there's a double red-flag advisory warning against going in the water. Regardless, a father and son with boogey-boards leave their bicycles at the end of the pier and head for the water.
"When the oil…
egrossman | June 18, 2010By Elizabeth Grossman
"This is the one thing that could destroy our culture and I don't want to see it happen," says Grand Isle, Louisiana resident Karen Hopkins, wiping at tears she's clearly fighting. Hopkins, a Louisiana native and long-time resident of Grand Isle, runs the office at Dean Blanchard Seafood. Blanchard typically buys 13 to 15 million pounds of Gulf Coast shrimp annually. Hopkins' house sits across from what should be a busy loading area for Dean Blanchard Seafood and no more than ten yards from a pier where boats that should be gearing up for a night out shrimping are coming…
lborkowski | June 17, 2010It's appropriate for BP to dedicate $20 billion to an escrow fund for oil-spill claims, and I hope the fund's independent administration will allow for quick payment of claims. Nicholas Beaudrot points out that the fund's structure means BP has an incentive to resolve claims quickly - in contrast to the 20 years that it took ExxonMobil to pay claims related to the Valdez oil spill.
Though the process of compensating financial losses will be complicated, it's far easier to quantify lost income than to tally the costs to Gulf residents' mental health. The New York Times' Mireya Navarro focuses…
lborkowski | June 8, 2010Melanie Trottman reported in the Wall Street Journal last week that US Representatives James Oberstar and Jerrold Nadler have demanded that Gulf response and recovery workers be provided with respirators (among other protective equipment), but OSHA doesn't think respirators should be required:
David Michaels, assistant secretary for the Department of Labor's OSHA, said in an interview Thursday that based on test results so far, cleanup workers are receiving "minimal" exposure to airborne toxins. OSHA will require that BP provide certain protective clothing, but not respirators.
The "based on…
egrossman | June 7, 2010By Elizabeth Grossman
Expressions of concern for oil spill response workers' health and safety grew this past week as reports arrived by way of the Louisiana Environmental Action Network that BP was denying workers' requests for respirators. On June 4th, the Wall Street Journal reported that Representatives Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) and James Oberstar (D-Minn) had written to the EPA and Department of Labor demanding that all response workers be provided with "proper protective equipment, including respirators."
Anna Hrybyk, program manager of the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, also reports that in…