Learn to live sick

The Berkley Law Clinic is suing the EPA on behalf of environmental groups in Alaska and Louisiana over its failure to adequately restrict the use of Corexit to "disperse" oil spilled into the sea during the Valdez and Macondo disasters.

This article (and presumably the lawsuit) cites several "recent studies" indicating the harmful effects of these dispersants.

Recent studies have indicated dispersants caused lung irritation, rashes, nausea and other illness in humans, as well as a host of problems for fish, deep-sea coral and other marine life. Dispersants can kill or inhibit the growth of oil-eating microbes, weakening nature’s ability to cleanup spills. New research also indicates that dispersants can have the unintended effect of transforming oil into a toxic mist able to travel for miles and penetrate deep into human lungs.

Those of us old enough to remember the 2010 Macondo spill will remember also that this was all widely understood and observed at that time.  None of that stopped BP from insisting everything was perfectly safe, of course.  So it is no surprise they are continuing to do so now. There is a BP contractor quoted in that story who says, "many of Corexit’s ingredients are shared by common health beauty products." So, you know, nothing to worry about. It's like Botox for the ocean.

Of course that doesn't help the many workers and fishers on the Louisiana coast who have documented health problems from exposure to these chemicals over the past decade. 

Arnesen, whose family business fishes for Gulf shrimp, crab and reef fish, said she continues to suffer from respiratory problems and headaches eight years after exposure to dispersants. She was aboard a vessel sprayed with dispersant while in Barataria Bay, an area hard-hit by the spill.

“Dispersant is nasty stuff to deal with,” she said Monday. “You learn to live sick.”