Gulf Seafood with a Side of Oil Dispersants?

© Blue Legacy/Oscar Durand

Commercial crabbing along sections of the oil-tarnished Gulf Coast were re-opened today, with shrimping and recreational fishing kicking into gear earlier this week.

The media buzz is about whether the seafood coming out of the Gulf is safe to consume, but you’d never know there were health concerns when you sit down to eat with the locals.

“This is the safest seafood in the world. It’s like flying after 9-11,” remarked the Lafourche Parish President’s husband over dinner with Expedition Blue Planet last Friday night. His reasoning: The catch coming into shore here is probably more thoroughly tested than anything being imported into the state.

© Blue Legacy/Ali Sanderson

The questions are tested for what, and is that testing adequate?

The decision to re-open areas to harvest along the shores and into open water east and west of the Mississippi River comes from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) and the Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, with input and testing data from the federal Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

The FDA, which runs sensory “sniff” tests and chemical analysis, says it has yet to find harmful levels of the oils’ Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons (PAHs), which are known carcinogens, in seafood from the areas now open for harvest. However, there has been no mention of tests for the 1.8 million gallons of toxic dispersants used to break-up the oil during spill recovery efforts.

Andy Nyman, associate professor of wetland wildlife ecology at Louisiana State University told me that he is still looking into it, but doesn’t think they’re testing for dispersants because the focus has been first and foremost on oil, but also because there is no readily available test.

Both dispersants used by BP—Corexit 9527 and Corexit 9500—come with a list of potentially negative human-health side effects, including kidney and liver damage.

Andy says he’s heard of a test for one of the toxic ingredients in Corexit, but has also heard that it is “so complicated that no lab has been able to replicate the results of the lab claiming to have that test.”

In 2002 Andy ran his own experiment with Corexit 9500 on freshwater wetland organisms. He found that dispersant-treated oil was more toxic than undispersed crude. And the dispersant had toxic effects all on its own, over time killing many of the animal species tested.

But the situation in the Gulf is different, he explains. The assumption in the Gulf is that huge volumes of ocean water will dilute both oil and dispersant to the point of it being harmless.

“I hope [my study] doesn’t apply at all,” Andy laments. “Those were pretty scary results.”

He still enjoys his gumbo. “I would eat the seafood off of Grand Isle,” he says. “If I wasn’t allergic to shrimp, I’d buy them off the side of the road.” Seafood isn’t being caught where the dispersants were used, he explains. Those areas, closer to the spill’s ground zero, are still closed to commercial fishing.

Ronald Kendall, director of the Institute of Environmental and Human Health at Texas Tech University, is a bit more cautious, suggesting he’ll stick to seafood caught off the Longhorn state’s coast for now.

The dispersants are not only expediting the release of PAHs into the marine environment, he explains, they are also breaking the oil down into such small droplets that PAHs are likely to get into the food chain faster, starting with zooplankton and other tiny crustaceans that sustain commercially fished species, including bluefin tuna larvae.

What’s know about the short-term effects of using the dispersants is watery, and the long-term effects of the chemicals, as well as their course through the water, remain a total mystery.

“We are running a big experiment in the Gulf,” says Ronald.

Apparently the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) didn’t know much about Corexit before it approved dumping it into the ocean. An investigation by Mother Jones reporter Kate Sheppard found that while the company that makes Corexit was required to test the short-term effects (not both short- and long-term) of its dispersants on shrimp and fish, the results didn’t play into the approval process. All that mattered was that the chemical concoction could break up oil. Under current federal law that protects proprietary business information, the company doesn’t have to disclose what is in the dispersants.

In the heat of disaster relief, Corexit emerged as the solution, at least for dissolving the slick, and preventing a total coating of coastal wetlands and beaches (also for saving BP from the stigma of flocks of oiled birds).

EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson has told reporters “We live in a world where we're making tough decisions based on little science."

EPA is monitoring the dispersants, but their plan isn’t enough, according to Wilma Subra, a chemist and community activist who has testified before Congress about the spill.

“We really have a dispersant spill in addition to the oil spill,” says Wilma. “The dispersants were an absolutely absurd idea.” And there is no separate cleanup effort for them.

For now, most people in this neck of the bayou will continue to crack open crabs, probably until someone at FDA says it’s not safe and the waters are closed to fisherman again.

“We have to live with this decision,” adds Ronald. “Time will tell if it was best for the Gulf.”