BP oil spill 10th anniversary: still unanswered questions concerning Corexit, human and wildlife toll

Ten years ago 11 rig workers lost their lives working on the Deepwater Horizon out in the Gulf of Mexico, off the coast of Louisiana. Their names were Jason Anderson, Aaron Dale Burkeen, Donald "Duck" Clark, Stephen Ray Curtis, Gordon Jones, Roy Wyatt Kemp, Karl Kleppinger, Keith Blair Manuel, Dewey Revette, Shane Roshto and Adam Weise. I offer my deepest condolences to their families and ask that the public remember them.

They were not the only victims of the BP oil spill.

I reported on the effects of the tragedy for Examiner.com, and was even invited to speak about my coverage at the University of Georgia for "Building Bridges in Crisis" along with reporters from NPR and The New York Times. During my speech that day in January 2011 I spoke about the horrors that occurred, how I had "colored out of the lines" to find sources, including sick Gulf residents and their children. I talked about conference calls with those in charge of the spill, namely Admiral Thad Allen, who told me, "Issues related to offshore drilling and the moratorium ...are really above my pay grade." He said he would leave policy to the policy makers.

I said I was excited to interview biogeochemist Samantha Joye from University of Georgia, under the headline "Academics Help Keep Feds Honest". And in the quest for honesty, I never bought one aspect of the "recovery" and that was the use of Corexit. Shirley Tillman, an activist, took remarkable photos of turtles and bird parts. She was convinced that the foamy water that surrounded these perished wildlife and marine life was evidence that Corexit was still being used in the Gulf long after the feds officially had stated it was occurring.

I am writing this April 20, 2020, during the heat of the greatest catastrophe of my lifetime, Covid-19. Knowing that the coronavirus is especially toxic to the elderly and those with preexisting conditions, it is a natural leap to realize that Corexit, the dispersant banned in England, sickened and even killed individuals along the Gulf. I think of the mother of a young woman I interviewed, 62-year-old Fritzi Presley, a blonde chanteuse from Gulfport, Miss. who very tragically died September 25, 2017. While the official diagnosis was COPD, Presley and her family and friends fought long and hard to prove that Corexit was the culprit. In a video called "Leaving with Grace: A Conversation with Ms Fritzi" Presley, wearing a breathing tube and yet still smiling, explained to the cameraman why she was nearing death. It was not because of COPD, but then, she could not prove her case to the country doctors she'd known all her life. She was kind. She did not blame them. It was clear who she blamed: "“You can’t connect A with C because we have moneyed up B."

Presley grew up in Mississippi, and her heart was in that Gulf. She said she just wanted her family to enjoy the same pleasures she had there, like the "feelin' of the sand stickin' to the backs of your legs when you're runnin' across the beach ...!" It inspired a tear - my mother grew up near the Gulf in South Texas, and I recall fondly frolicking on those shores. That is why, when I heard about the spill, I knew I had to cover it. I also recall exactly how much oil would stick to my feet on a given outing when I was a kid in the 1960s. It is an area rife with deepwater drilling, and yet it never suffered anything as oppressive as the April 2010 disaster: 200 million gallons of crude oil was pumped into the Gulf of Mexico for 87 days, making it the biggest oil spill in U.S. history. Finally on July 15, the Macondo well, site of the gusher, was capped. Yet the cost to the Gulf by air dropping Corexit in the preceding weeks was horrific.

By using Corexit, a dispersant banned in the very country where it was made, the UK, the government and BP aggravated the cost to the Gulf. While it made things prettier at the surface, below marine life and above wildlife and humans suffered greatly. In a report by the Government Accountability Project, the truth about Corexit was exposed. They write: "The only so-­‐called advantage of Corexit is the false impression that the oil disappears – in reality, the more toxic chemical mixture spreads throughout the environment, or settles on the seafloor." In 2012 a study from Georgia Tech and Universidad Autonoma de Aguascalientes in Environmental Pollution showed that Corexit used during the spill had increased the toxicity of the oil by up to 52 times.

In addition to Fritzi Presley, her daughter and her granddaughter Bella, now 6, suffered greatly because of Corexit. Proving this, for whatever reasons, was impossible. Perhaps one need only be reminded of Presley's comment about money. Daughter Daisy Seal, 39, tells me now: "I lived a few blocks away from the beach during the spill. I was on the beach the day of. I had gotten tar all over my feet and nothing would get it off. I finally had to scrub them with gas. I do not go to the beach any more."

Five years ago I wrote about Seal's daughter Bella, who today needs a kidney transplant to save her life, born after her mother suffered innumerable miscarriages. I reported then:

She was born with severe health problems.

"I don't want people to feel sorry for her," the mother says simply, and indeed Bella is a bright and beautiful little girl. But she is underweight, her kidneys haven't worked since birth, Seal says. She has end-stage renal failure and rickets.

It's actually too much for a journalist to even listen to. How can a mother manage?

"She has problems with calcium being too high and it causes her bones to be brittle and for them to twist and not grow properly and her brain not to have a chance to grow like it is supposed to," says Seal. "And her parathyroid hormones might have to be removed because they can't get hormones down."

Seal told me this week via e-mail that, "To this day they still do not know what caused her kidney failure. But she is an awesome kid. She is unable to attend school because of her many medical problems...I am too busy playing nurse and just running everyday errands. We live a few miles from the beach now in an apartment." On a happier note, she has a 17-year-old son, Noah, who will join the Air Force soon, and a four-year-old, Madden, who is healthy apart from ADHD.

It is no accident that in my years of reporting on the spill I covered a Tulane study examining the miscarriages and ill effects on pregnant women following the Gulf disaster. As a reporter I promise to continue following up on studies such as these including studies that look at the impacts of Corexit.

A National Wildlife Federation spokesperson sent me some information including this paragraph from a report they published in 2016, when I asked about Corexit's damage to wildlife and marine life, as opposed to just oil:

"Dispersants May Have Made Things Worse: A National Academy of Sciences study found that chemical dispersants did not accelerate oil biodegradation and may have even suppressed it. A separate Florida State University study found that dispersants were able to eliminate about 21 percent of the oil on the surface of the Gulf, but at the cost of spreading the remaining oil over a 49 percent larger area. As the toxicity of oil often increases when mixed with dispersants, it is likely that the use of dispersants exacerbated the Deepwater Horizon disaster’s impacts on fish and wildlife."

President Obama said in a national address regarding the government and BP's efforts to cap Macondo, in a video Jun 25, 2010,"Stopping it has tested the limits of human technology." And the millions of gallons of oil gushing into the Gulf "were more like an epidemic - one we will be fighting for years."

Tomorrow, the wildlife toll.

PHOTOS: TOP: By Technical Sergeant Adrian Cadiz - US Air Force public affairs story direct link, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=10277175; Second - Fritzi Presley and friends John and Cindy; Botton - Daisy and daughter Bella.

To contribute to Bella's health fund, please visit this page.

Repost from 2012: Tulane's new studies punctuate ongoing research on women's health after spill

The following article first appeared on Examiner.com, June 20, 2012. Since its publication, Dr. Lichtveld has published papers, which can be read here.The story has been lightly edited.

Today, April 20, is the seventh anniversary of the tragic and massive BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. Eleven men, rig workers, would lose their lives after an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon rig owned by Transocean.

Yet, while the oil spill -- that wasn't shuttered for 87 days -- was horrific enough, the U.S. in concert with BP sprayed the Gulf with nearly 2 million gallons of dispersants, dispersants banned in the very country in which they are manufactured.

This reporter has followed the story from the beginning, including having spoken to numerous individuals who were in the zones most affected.

In the original posting of this story, I ran a picture by Mario Tama of Getty Images, dated April 18, 2011. The headline was "Lorrie Williams of Ocean Springs, MS developed severe health problems from the spill including lung polyps and liver damage. She believes this and her 42-lb weight loss as of Apr 2011 was caused by the dispersants."

While the media might focus on the recovery and how many brown pelicans were cleaned up, the deeper story is that oil is still at the bottom of the gulf and weighing the effects of oil-plus-dispersants is only beginning to show light. Scientists have proven, though, that together the mix is far more toxic than just using oil alone.

In the course of my reporting over the years, I heard then Plaquemines President Billy Nungesser explain how the EPA told them one day there would be no more spraying, only to reverse course and come back again. I heard people I respect tell me again and again that I'd have to wait until papers were published, or that choosing Corexit was the best choice at the time. It kept the oil from coming up on shore. Yes, sort of like hitting you over the head so you faint keeps you from tripping and falling into the pool.

...

Following is my story from 2012, in which I interview a prominent scientist studying the effects of the BP oil spill on women's health:

Dr. Maureen Lichtveld, Tulane's chair of environmental policy, met with this reporter a couple of weeks ago in her Canal Street office to discuss recent grants to her department. Announced June 1, an overarching study of potential health impacts of the Deepwater Horizon disaster on coastal communities is being conducted thanks to $18.7 million from the BP spill settlement, as well as $3.7 million from the Baton Rouge Area Foundation's Fund for the Future of the Gulf, which will facilitate the evaluation of environmental health risks to seafood.

Since last July, though, Lichtveld has already been overseeing a vital three-year project paid for by a $6.5 million grant from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. This one explores the potential impacts of the spill on pregnant women and females of reproductive age. Their focus is women living in Jefferson, Lafourche, Orleans and Plaquemines parishes.

Lichtveld said:

"Pregnant women are always a population of concern when there are environmental exposures, as the developing fetus may be vulnerable to even small doses of contaminants...To our knowledge, this is also the first study to examine maternal stress and anxiety related to a major oil spill and the associated effects on birth outcomes, fetal health and family-planning behavior.”

Last year's grant created the Transdisciplinary Research Consortium for Gulf Resilience on Women’s Health (or GROWH) at Tulane. It is quantifying potential exposure levels among women to environmental contaminants via seafood consumption and air emissions; studying how disasters affect reproduction choices; and exploring how the relationship between the environment and socioeconomics affect women’s health and pregnancies.

"GROWH will collaborate with vulnerable populations along the Gulf Coast to conduct transdisciplinary, community-based participatory research," the National Institutes for Health said last year.

The consortium also partners with community groups to conduct its research, partnering with communities to design the studies, Lichtveld said. These partners include Mary Queen of Vietnam Community Development Corp., Bayou Interfaith Sharing Community Organizing and Women Infant and Children (WIC) clinics in the affected parishes. Explaining how the school is able to use funds from the first, $18.7 million grant, Lichtveld said, "the school is in a wonderfully neutral position." BP has no involvement in how Tulane manages the money since it was part of their $7.8 billion settlement on the Gulf spill, she said.

Lichtveld, who had the surreal experience of starting at Tulane shortly before Katrina hit, says she is "excited" by her work. This includes a fascinating element of the community study, which will allow her to reach high schools and train students to learn about environmental health. Then these newly environmental medicine-savvy kids will allow the community to "recruit very competively."

Someday, hopefully, these high schoolers will be the new medical professionals in the gulf, able to assess health problems resulting from spills.

### - An earlier version of this report listed the awards in the wrong order. This version is correct.

PHOTO: May 2, 2010 - U.S. Coast Guard Commandant Admiral Thad Allen, then National Incident Commander, and then EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson, briefed President Barack Obama about the situation along the Gulf Coast following the BP oil spill at the Coast Guard Venice Center in Venice, La.. Official White House Photo by Pete Souza; Author: USEPA Environmental-Protection-Agency

BP oil spill 7-year anniversary: National Wildlife Federation discusses funding priorities for Gulf

Where were you April 20, 2010? If you are like most Americans, you flipped the dial (we watched TV then) and saw a fire in the Gulf of Mexico. It may not have seemed like much at the time. Like all tragedies, it's often impossible to fully stomach the weight of such incidents until much later. And the BP oil spill was no different.

It took until July 15 that year to seal the Macondo well, the oil gushing to the tune of millions of gallons following the fire on the Deepwater Horizon rig owned by Transocean. In the months that followed, thousands of brown pelicans, Kemp's ridley sea turtles, herons, and fish perished. Even dolphins' offspring died, many of them washing up as premies on the beaches of Louisiana's coasts.

Today, Collin O’Mara, president and CEO, National Wildlife Federation; along with Ryan Sikes, Gulf of Mexico staff scientist for NWF; and David Muth, NWF's Gulf program director, weighed in on funding priorities for the Gulf. Remarkably, it's only this month they said that funds have actually started flowing from the massive BP payout to affected Gulf interests.

On its website, the NWF states, "On April 4, 2016, the Department of Justice and the five Gulf states finalized a global settlement with BP for $20.8 billion dollars, to be paid out over the next 15 years."

Importantly, though, NWF calculates that about $16 billion will be going to ecological restoration. The 2012 Restore Act dictates that funds from the Clean Water Act go to Gulf states.

Further, each Gulf state - affected in varying degrees by the catastrophe - will receive a portion of BP dollars each year through 2031. Specifically, $4.4 billion will go to the Gulf region via the RESTORE Act to be used for ecosystem and economic restoration and recovery. Another $8.8 billion is available under the Oil Pollution Act’s Natural Resource Damage Assessment (NRDA) process to restore areas where wildlife were damaged by the spill and where recreational areas were affected.

The breakdown is as follows:

- Texas will get $37 million annually

- Louisiana will receive $372 million annually

- Mississippi will get $50 million annually

- Alabama will receive $51 million annually

- Florida will get $74 million annually

NWF has created a handy, interactive map that delineates where dollars are going. Divided by states, one can key in whatever criteria interests them - i.e. click on Louisiana, then punch the Port Fourchon emblem - and information about how funds are being used pops up.

This reporter asked whether scientific studies of Corexit had been showing evidence of damage, and if lessons had been learned from the Gulf spill that would prohibit its use going forward.

Sikes took the questions, starting with the first part. He said a lot of research has been and is being done, for example with the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (or GOMRI). "They're in their seventh year of research looking at impacts of Corexit," he said. "We know it amplifies toxicity," he said in part. As for whether they'd learned their lessons, he said he wasn't at liberty to say.

NWF said that while so far, only a quarter of the $16 billion has been "committed to projects across the Gulf," the process is, apparently complicated and includes funds from criminal fines resulting from a $2.54 billion 2013 Justice Department settlement.

While the accounting of the spill is fairly complex and difficult for many to understand, seeing real results happen will be both welcome and obvious as they occur. For example, land loss in Louisiana is occurring at a frightening clip, and losing precious wetlands means losing habitat and nutrients — So if projects such as Timbalier Islands Barrier Island Restoration are successful, they will restore dune and beach habitat as well as reduce storm surge impacts, among other plusses. Likewise, the Isles Derniers Barrier Island Restoration project will restore those islands, offering beach, dune, and back barrier marsh habitat to protect them from storm surge impacts.

With the impact of climate change, glaciers are melting and seas are rising: New Orleans along with Miami and New York are extremely vulnerable to sea rise. The BP funds to help coastal restoration can help alleviate a plague that still challenges a recovering gulf, including oil still on the sea floor.

To see scientific studies detailing the effects of the dispersant Corexit on the Gulf of Mexico following the spill, click here.

For more information on how funds have been allocated in the Gulf, click here.

PHOTO: Wikimedia Commons Images. "Health, safety and environment (HSE) workers contracted by BP clean up oil on a beach in Port Fourchon, La., May 23, 2010. Hundreds of contracted HSE workers are cleaning up oil from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, which began washing up onto area beaches a month after the drilling unit exploded." Source:; Author: PO3 Patrick Kelley.

(Repost from 2015) BP oil spill 5 years later: one brave young woman and baby battle for health

The following article originally ran on Examiner.com, March 23, 2015.

Daisy Seal, a bright and brave young wife and mother from Gulfport, Mississippi, is unusually kind and even-keeled when discussing a horrific blight that would anger many to outbursts.

For, as a resident of this beachside community, she never thought she'd be right in the heart of the nation's worst environmental disaster. She was just taking her usual walks back in late April of 2010 when news came that there had been a spill further up the gulf.

Anyone who walks these beaches knows that it's normal to have a little black stickiness on one's feet. Small tar balls are ubiquitous. But what she found suddenly terrified her.

"It was bad. That stuff was all over the sand. There was more oily stuff than there was sand," Seal told this reporter today, Mar. 23. At the time, her son was seven and life was good. Her fertility to date had been solid: no miscarriages or any health effects to speak of.

All of that was about to change.

After the spill, Seal suffered 13 miscarriages. When her daughter Bella was finally born almost 14 months ago - a blessing beyond compare - she was born with severe health problems.

"I don't want people to feel sorry for her," the mother says simply, and indeed Bella is a bright and beautiful little girl. But she is underweight, her kidneys "haven't worked since birth", Seal says. She has end-stage renal failure and rickets.

It's actually too much for a journalist to even listen to. How can a mother manage?

"She has problems with calcium being too high and it causes her bones to be brittle and for them to twist and not grow properly and her brain not to have a chance to grow like it is supposed to," says Seal. "And her parathyroid hormones might have to be removed because they can't get hormones down."

Asked if she was being compensated by BP for this, she said her claim had been denied, that she was not able to sufficiently show the link, cause and effect. This despite the images showing the rashes she had, the "burn holes" in her arms and legs.

Of her post-oil spill fertility battle, she says, "I stayed sick all the time and I'd get pregnant and then lose the baby and they never could come up with a definitive reason why I kept having miscarriages. Young Bella, who only weighs 11 pounds at 14 months, is on Medicare because she is classified as disabled.

But her parents have been denied Medicaid despite their extremely low income. Her husband was a seafood cook but not any longer.

The family does not want sympathy, but they deserve help and they deserve care for themselves and their children. Presently, the little girl has to travel to New Orleans for her care. Mississippi doesn't even offer what they need, Seal says. Further, the young boy has asthma and needs help, too. Asked if she'd ever had a miscarriage before conceiving her son, she says no. Her health was good.

All this suffering traced back to that Apr. 2010 disaster in the Gulf. Oh yes, Gulfport, Miss. is considered Zone A. It's more in the line of fire than New Orleans is.

Reflecting back to that day five years ago, she relays that she was "just down there because it was something I did and got it all over my feet."

Asked what "it" is she explains it could have been both oil and Corexit. It was "one or two or both - I had to use gasoline to get it off. It was big balls..." She says, "We all just went down there to check it out and see what was going on because they were talking about it on the news. There were people out there, boogie boarding and stuff, and I think it was probably a few days later they saw cops stopped letting people go down there and pretty much closed the beach off."

Asked how many days she was walking there before realizing the danger, she says about three days, about how long it took the police to shut the beach down. Because of her lack of insurance, she only has documentation for two of the miscarriages, which she went to the hospital for. What she does have, though, is proof of the spill's effects.

A doctor tested her blood a few years ago.

"My blood was full of those cancer causing chemicals, VOCs," she says. She went with her mom to have the test because she kept having health issues.

Later this week, with the seventh anniversary coming soon, GOME will post another blog updating readers on Bella's health.

If you'd like to contribute to Bella's health fund, visit: https://www.gofundme.com/bellabutton

PHOTOS: L: beautiful little Bella; R: Bella and her mommy, Daisy. Bella was underweight at birth and has suffered a number of health issues.