Bitter fish in crude oil sea

Headline reads: NOAA: Gulf seafood tested so far is safe to eat And yet midway through the text of the article we get,

Still, Don Kraemer, who is leading FDA's Gulf seafood safety efforts, said the government isn't relying on testing alone.

"We couldn't possibly have enough samples to make assurances that fish is safe. The reason we have confidence in the seafood is not because of the testing, it's because of the preventive measures that are in place," such as fishing closures, he said.

FDA issued guidance last month that encourages seafood processors to heighten precautions so they know the origin of their seafood.

The federal government plans surprise inspections at docks along the Gulf Coast, though Dr. Steve Murawski, NOAA's chief scientist, acknowledged they can't be everywhere.

Last month we pointed out that chief among the Feds' inspection techniques was having inexperienced inspectors sniff harvested shrimp and oysters for "taint". One supposes the results of these NOAA tests are more encouraging than they would be had they found lots and lots of poisoned shrimp, but, at the same time, is this really a moment to start preaching the gospel of safe seafood? I'm still eating it (especially Gulf oysters) wherever and whenever anyone will sell it to me. But I'm kind of stupid and emotional about this. I'm in no way convinced that every product is one hundred percent un-tainted. And I certainly don't begrudge consumers without sentimental ties to this area their trepidation.

The fact is, no one really knows how serious the threat to human health from massive amounts of oil and dispersant is. EPA flat-out admits that they haven't developed any reliable data beyond that which they've been fed by the producers of these products.

In an interview at EPA headquarters, Jackson, who grew up in New Orleans, acknowledged deficiencies in EPA's National Contingency Plan Product Schedule. It is supposed to list the effectiveness and toxicity of alternative dispersants authorized for use combating a spill.

But it is really just a compilation of industry-supplied data, and, in the view of Carys Mitchelmore, a leading toxicologist who teaches at the University of Maryland and has testified five times before Congress on dispersants in the past two months, a useless jumble with test results that simply don't parse.

"When I looked at that contingency table I just couldn't believe it. I thought I must be seeing things because surely they can't be posting this data," she said.

Jackson acknowledges that, "none of the testing that was done prior to this incident was what I'd call extensive and geared toward the long-term effects or effects in the sub-sea."

Instead of doing its job, EPA has largely been taking the industry's word about these products for years. How credible is any evidence they compile now under pressure to go back and do their homework decades past the due date?

We don't even know how much is still being put out there.

Daily doses of dispersant

Since a May 26 directive from the Environmental Protection Agency directing BP "to eliminate the surface application of dispersants," except in "rare cases," the Coast Guard has been routinely approving continued use, according to Richard Denison, a senior scientist at the Environmental Defense Fund. A check of Coast Guard records indicates that 40 requests to use dispersants by BP have been made to the Coast Guard since May 26 and that all were approved. It has allowed dispersants to be used virtually every day since the EPA directive, according to Denison. But he said that starting June 9, the Coast Guard began approving use of less dispersants than requested by BP, and also asked for use of small quantities for research to assess the effects and effectiveness of the chemicals -- designed to reduce the concentration of oil spreading through Gulf waters.

On the other hand, we are learning more about how a product like Corexit affects the toxicity of petroleum.

CNN, July 9. 2010: Rush Transcript Excerpt Susan Shaw, Marine Toxicologist:

The reason this is so toxic is because of these solvents [from dispersant] that penetrate the skin of anything that's going through the dispersed oil takes the oil into the cells -- takes the oil into the organs... and this stuff is toxic to every organ system in the body. ...

This stuff is so toxic combined... not the oil or dispersants alone. ...

Very, very toxic and goes right through skin.

We know that humans exposed to a similar combination of these chemicals twenty years ago haven't fared particularly well.

CNN is warning volunteers on the current Gulf Spill of this dire information. The fact that the workers from the 1989 Alaska spill have died, surely will give current workers something to think about.

CNN and numerous other groups including Salem-News.com, have revealed the fact that this is very unhealthy work. Exposure to contaminants is something humans are supposed to avoid, but in this case it is a draw card for work in a broken national economy.

The average life expectancy for an Exxon Valdez oil spill worker according to the CNN report, is 51 years.

We know that this stuff certainly is in the food chain out there.

Oil droplets have been found beneath the shells of tiny post-larval blue crabs drifting into Mississippi coastal marshes from offshore waters.

The finding represents one of the first examples of how oil from the Deepwater Horizon spill is moving into the Gulf of Mexico's food chain. The larval crabs are eaten by all kinds of fish, from speckled trout to whale sharks, as well as by shore birds.

Again, I'm not saying I'm not still eating this stuff. But I'm one of these people who doesn't see anything wrong with texting while driving drunk so who really cares what I'm doing. Others may not have the same kind of tolerance for risk that I do. But I'm not one to deny the risk is there. Part of the reason we're in this mess in the first place is powerful oil companies like BP and their enablers and friends in our political leadership decided that ignoring the catastrophic risks of their activities at everyone else's peril was A-OK.

Meanwhile some folks are plowing right ahead with that message anyway. For the past few weeks, local food writer Lorin Gaudin has been crusading against the "foul rumors" that Louisiana seafood (despite all of the above) could possibly be unsafe. And she's been doing so in a rather breathless and blustery tone with lots of all caps words and exclamation points and stuff.

While it seems utterly ludicrous to me, apparently there are those who BELIEVE that Louisiana seafood is tainted or unsafe to eat!! Unreal. It's time to dispell those foul rumors. In converstion (not really conversing, more like heated debate about restaurant lawsuits against BP) with brilliant, Beard Award winning Jennifer English of The Food and Wine Radio network, I learned there are LOTS and LOTS of people who think Louisiana seafood might not be safe. Now really, can the world possibly think that we Louisianans would eat tainted seafood and more important, that restaurants and chefs, our world famous and fabulous restaurants and chefs, would serve tainted seafood??? Come on people, think.

Yeah, come on, people. Think!! Under what circumstances has any "world famous" purveyor of foodstuffs ever served customers a tainted product?? What a foul ludicrous rumor!! Could anyone believe it?? Apparently some do.

To some degree, I understand what Gaudin is trying to do. Anyone connected to the Louisiana seafood industry has already had their life turned upside down by BP's destruction of Gulf fisheries. In light of this combined with memories of the absurd hostility hurled at everyone in this region following the Federal Flood, it's difficult not to take every factually murky reaction from afar as an insult. But sometimes people are really just worried about what they're eating. And sometimes those concerns are legitimate. There can be a fine line between defending local businesses and downplaying the extent of the damage BP is responsible for. And when it comes to something as crucial as food safety, I'd rather not do any of BP's lifting for them if I can avoid it.

Not at all worried about doing BP's heavy lifting for them is Ivor Van Heerden. Here, Van Heerden participates in a BP propaganda video where he really ought to be ashamed of himself for neglecting to include the obligatory reference to "iced tea".

"The public gets the perception that this is the black, heavy, tarry stuff that is in ship's bunkers and it covers everything and smothers it and just kills it, but that's not the kind of oil we're dealing with," Van Heerden says in a video on the BP website, dated July 1. "It's a very, very light oil. It's almost like diesel, and it breaks down very, very rapidly, especially here in Louisiana where it's very hot during the day and the water has suspended sediment in it so it may actually get hotter, and all of those combine with the fact that we have naturally in our system, the organisms, the microbes that break down the oil."

Ivor goes on to say in this video featured on a BP website that "Most of the heavily oiled areas are sandy beaches" which we know because those are the places that are easiest to photograph (well, outside of 65 feet anyway).Ivor also says that those beaches "obviously are a lot easier to clean up than the marshes." Or it may be easier to just dump new sand on top of the oil there. Although it's not always easy to tell exactly what's happening from 65 feet away while being hounded by privately hired policemen.

Meanwhile, (via Dambala) here's some video footage of Ivor's "very very light oil" coating and killing these oysters. Or at least I think that's what's happened. Better have an FDA guy come sniff them first just to be sure.