Crude oil spills into Mississippi River after oil barges crash

Mississippi River at Vicksburg (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Two oil barges pushed by a tugboat slammed into a railroad bridge in Vicksburg, Mississippi, on Sunday, causing one to leak crude oil into the Mississippi River, the U.S. Coast Guard said.

Officials used an "absorbent boom" to contain the undetermined amount of oil that leaked into the river after the collision, which occurred shortly after midnight and damaged both barges, Lieutenant Ryan Gomez said. The barge that is leaking was holding 80,000 gallons of light crude oil, he said.

"A towing vessel was pushing two barges side-by-side and they struck one of the Vicksburg railroad bridge piers," Gomez said.

No one was injured in the accident. Federal, state and local officials, as well as the industry's Oil Spill Response Organization, were on the scene. Gomez said he did not have information about any of the companies involved in the oil transport. Read more >>

Gulf Oil Spill: BP Trying To Hide Millions of Gallons of Toxic Oil?

BP Embraces Exxon’s Toxic Dispersant, Ignores Safer Alternative

protecttheocean.com

It has been confirmed that the dispersal agent being used by BP and the government is Corexit 9500, a solvent originally developed by Exxon and now manufactured by Nalco Holding Company of Naperville, IL. Their stock took a sharp jump, up more than 18% at its highest point of the day today, after it was announced that their product is the one being used in the Gulf. Nalco’s CEO, Erik Frywald, expressed their commitment to “helping the people and environment of the Gulf Coast recover as rapidly as possible.” It may be that the best way to help would be to remove their product from the fray. Take a look at some of the facts about Corexit 9500:

A report written by Anita George-Ares and James R. Clark for Exxon Biomedical Sciences, Inc. entitled “Acute Aquatic Toxicity of Three Corexit Products: An Overview” states that “Corexit 9500, Corexit 9527, and Corexit 9580 have moderate toxicity to early life stages of fish, crustaceans and mollusks (LC50 or EC50 – 1.6 to 100 ppm*). It goes on to say that decreasing water temperatures in lab tests showed decreased toxicity, a lowered uptake of the dispersant. Unfortunately, we’re going to be seeing an increase in temperatures, not a decrease. Amongst the other caveats is that the study is species-specific, that other animals may be more severely affected, silver-sided fish amongst them.

Oil is toxic at 11 ppm while Corexit 9500 is toxic at only 2.61 ppm; Corexit 9500 is four times as toxic as the oil itself. Sure, a lot less of it is being introduced, but that’s still a flawed logical perspective, because it’s not a “lesser of two evils” scenario. BOTH are going into the ocean water.

The lesser of two evils seems to be a product called Dispersit, manufactured by Polychem, a division of U.S. Polychemical Corporation. In comparison, water-based Dispersit is toxic at 7.9-8.2 ppm; Dispersit holds about one third of the toxicity that Corexit 9500 presents. Dispersit is a much less harmful water-based product which is both EPA approved and the U.S. Coast Guard’s NCP list. So why isn’t it being used?

We spoke with Bruce Gebhardt at Polychem Marine Products, asked him if Dispersit was being used in the Gulf Oil Spill situation. “Very little,” he replied. When asked why, the impression was that the government had used Corexit 9500 in the past, and was going with what they know — no matter how dangerous that might prove to be.

Dispersit has a demonstrated effectiveness of 100% on the lighter South Louisiana crude, and 40% on Pruhoe Bay’s heavier crude. Exxon’s Corexit 9500 is just 55% effective on SL and 55% effective on PB. On an average, Dispersit is 70% effective, and may prove 100% effective, while 9500 is an average of 50% effective, with a maximum effective use of just 55%. Corexit 9500 is a harsh petroleum-based solvent which is dangerous to people and sea life. Dispersit’s human health effect is “slight to none.” Whether or not a dispersal agent is a wise move, the question remaining unanswered is: Why is Corexit 9500 is being used at all, when the water-based Dispersit is available, markedly more effective and less toxic? Follow the money.

Dispersal of the oil does not eliminate it, nor does it decrease the toxicity of the oil. It just breaks it up into small particles, where it becomes less visible. It’s still there, spewing toxicity at an even greater rate (due to higher surface area.) But now it’s pretty much impossible to skim or trap or vacuum or even soak up at the shoreline, because most of it will never make it to the shoreline. Instead, that toxic crude oil AND the dispersant will be spread all over the ocean’s waters. This is why introducing such a product into the crude oil as it comes out from the pipe is a very bad idea for the ocean.

It may not be pretty, but if the oil makes it to the shore, it can be soaked up, cleaned up. To “disperse” it means it will NEVER be cleaned up. It will just stay out there, polluting and poisoning the ocean, her inhabitants, and all the food we take from it. It’s unwise to be using Corexit 9500 at all, but introducing it to the oil as it leaves the broken pipe is approaching madness. Mr. Gebhardt agrees that the oil should be contained, and what has been leaked should be allowed to come to shore where it can be removed from the ocean by less toxic means.

BP’s use of Corexit 9500 on the oil before it rises to the surface seems to be a deliberate attempt to mask the poison, to cover up that it continues to flow out from the ocean’s floor, while making it impossible to recover. In short, BP and Exxon want to spread the toxic oil throughout the oceans of the world, pollute everywhere, rather than allow it to be seen coming to shore where BP would have to pay for its containment and clean-up. It’s our job to keep them from getting away with sweeping this ugly mess under the surface.

NPR: Gulf oil spill more than 10X greater than thought

Image by IBRRC via Flickr

desdemonadespair.net

By Frank James and Allison Richards
May 13, 2010, 7:02 pm

NPR has learned that much more oil, 70,000 barrels a day or more than ten times the official estimate, is gushing into the Gulf of Mexico from the Deepwater Horizon pipe, based on scientific analysis of the video released Wednesday.

That's the equivalent of one Exxon Valdez tanker full every four days.

The U.S. Coast Guard has estimated that oil was gushing into the ocean at the rate of 5,000 barrels a day. But, again, NPR has been told that estimate is very low.

By Richard Harris
May 13, 2010

The volume of oil pouring into the Gulf of Mexico from the Deepwater Horizon oil rig may be at least 10 times higher than previously estimated, NPR has learned.

The U.S. Coast Guard has estimated that oil was gushing from a broken pipe on the Gulf floor at the rate of 5,000 barrels a day.

But sophisticated scientific analysis of sea floor video made available Wednesday by the oil company BP shows that the true figure is closer to 70,000 barrels a day, NPR's Richard Harris reports.

That means the oil spilling into the Gulf has already far exceeded the equivalent of the 1989 Exxon Valdez tanker accident in Alaska, which spilled at least 250,000 barrels of oil.

The analysis was conducted by Steve Werely, an associate professor at Purdue University, using a technique called particle image velocimetry. Harris tells Michele Norris that the method is accurate to about 20 percent. That means the flow could range between 56,000 barrels a day and 84,000 barrels a day.

Another analysis by Eugene Chiang, a professor of astrophysics at the University of California Berkeley, calculated the rate of flow to be between 20,000 barrels a day and 100,000 barrels a day — both higher than the Coast Guard's estimate.

But the pipe is spewing both oil and gas and the BP does not make it clear how much is oil and how much gas.

"BP has always said there is no way to measure the amount spilling from the pipe," Harris said.

But, he said, the uncertainty could be reduced if BP would share more information with the scientists.

Criticism of Secret Oil Dispersant in Gulf Grows Louder

Image by DigitalGlobe-Imagery via Flickr

Stacy Feldman

Scientists and ocean advocates stepped up warnings this week of potential dangers from chemical dispersants, as oil giant BP released unprecedented amounts of a classified and toxic chemical to thin the Gulf of Mexico oil slick before it reaches shore.

"Unfortunate recent events in the Gulf Coast have once again brought to the forefront issues pertaining to the impacts of dispersants and dispersed oil," Carys Mitchelmore, a researcher at the University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science, told the Senate Subcommittees on Oversight and Water and Wildlife.

"There's a potential for a toxic soup of unknown effects, which cannot be predicted even if the individual constituents are known."

Response teams have dumped about 436,000 gallons of a chemical dispersant, called Corexit, into the Gulf to battle the leak from BP's sunken Deepwater Horizon ruptured rig—more than has ever been used in the United States.

Some of that is being pumped 5,000 feet underwater at the site of the spill, a deepsea technique that has never been tried. The exact ingredients of chemical dispersants are protected as trade secrets and are unknown.

"Putting this right on the seabed, it's unknown what the consequences will be," said Mitchelmore.

The dispersant, a detergent-like brew of solvents, surfactants and other compounds, breaks down oil into tiny particles that scatter into the sea to prevent crude from washing ashore and wiping out wildlife.

Some analysts describe the chemical stew as a a slow and silent killer, however, quietly altering the balance of food webs, contaminating species and damaging the overall health of the oceans.

John Everett, president of Ocean Associates Inc., a Virginia-based oceans and fisheries consulting firm, said the dispersant could cause more harm than the calamitous spill itself, which is gushing oil at a pace of 210,000 gallons a day and has now exceeded the four-million gallon mark.

"The oil damage will eventually heal. Better procedures will be employed and this oil will be recycled and assimilated," Everett told Congress.

"The flow of chemical materials into our waters is another matter. There are too many insidious contaminants entering our estuaries, causing genetic harm and poisoning our Earth, turtles and seafood."

The harmful chemicals, he said, creep into the food supply and "directly impact us as well."

Soon after the April 20 oil rig blast, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Coast Guard gave BP the greenlight to spray the dispersant on the water's surface and to test it almost a mile under the sea. The chemical was pre-approved for use in the National Contingency Plan (NCP) Product Schedule.

EPA declares that it has "not given authorization for the full scale use of dispersants underwater beyond initial tests to determine its effectiveness." But that could soon change.

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson told reporters on Wednesday that so far 28,709 gallons of dispersants had been discharged in the seabed for testing purposes. Jackson said the agency is now waiting on results to determine the chemical's effectiveness in decomposing crude at those depths. Two earlier attempts to test the site failed, she said.

"The effect of underwater dispersant still is unknown," Jackson added.

Working with EPA, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) said it was examining water samples on the seafloor near the leak.

On the sea surface, the results of EPA's most recent water samples, gathered from April 30 to May 5, showed that "water quality does not pose increased risk to aquatic life."

Speaking to the subcommittees this week, Jim Jones, deputy assistant administrator for the EPA's Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention, conceded that the dispersant being deployed "has toxicity associated with it" and that "damage has been done."

He called the tests an "environmental trade-off" between long-term harm to offshore wildlife and fragile lands if the spill were to wash ashore, and potential shorter-term damage to some sea life.

Mitchelmore, said the trade-off is simply the "protection of one habitat...at the cost of another."

"In this case, the protection of shoreline species at the expense of organisms residing in the water column and potentially also those at the seabed," she added.

In regard to Corexit, Mitchelmore said, "limited prior toxicological information exists to fully assess risks to exposed organisms."

But both oil and oil spill dispersants are known to cause a variety of health effects in animals, she added, "including death and a variety of sublethal impacts including reduced growth, reproduction, cardiac dysfunction, immune system suppression, carcinogenic, mutagenic and teratogenic effects and alterations in behavior."

Jackson said that Corexit is at most one-tenth "as toxic as oil."

Fishing advocacy groups, meanwhile, such as the eight-state Southern Shrimp Alliance (SSA), are fearful of long-lasting effects of a chemical that could eat away at their livelihoods.

"SSA welcomes testing sediments in the water column as a good first step, but fear the 'act now, check later' approach being taken with dispersants," said John Williams, the group's executive director. "These chemicals relocate the oil from the shores to the water column where it will be spread by currents to vital reproductive grounds throughout the western Gulf of Mexico."