Gulf Residents Still Suffering From The BP Oil Spill

Just weeks after BP's oil disaster in the Gulf of Mexico began on April 20, 2010, Fritzi Presley knew something was very wrong with her health. The 57-year-old singer/songwriter from Long Beach, Mississippi began to feel sick, and went to her doctor.

"I began getting treatments for bronchitis, was put on several antibiotics and rescue inhalers, and even a breathing machine," she said. The smell of chemicals on the Mississippi coastline is present on many days when wind blows in from the Gulf. Presley's list of symptoms mirrors what many people living in the areas affected by BP's oil spill have told Al Jazeera in its detailed report.

"I was having them then, and still have killer headaches. I'm experiencing memory loss, and when I had my blood tested for chemicals, they found m,p-Xylene, hexane, and ethylbenzene in my body."

Presley lives three blocks from the coast with her daughter, 30-year-old Daisy Seal, who has also become extremely sick. Both of them had their blood tested for the chemicals present in BP's oil, and six out of the 10 chemicals tested for were present. Daisy Seal has had skin rashes, respiratory problems, and two miscarriages, which she attributes to chemicals from BP's oil and toxic dispersants.

"I started having respiratory problems, a horrible skin rash, headaches, nosebleeds, low energy, and trouble sleeping," Seal said. "And I now feel like I'm dying from the inside out." Seal, who already has an eight-year-old son, has had two miscarriages in the last year.

The 4.9 million barrels of oil spilled into the Gulf last year was the largest accidental marine oil spill in history, affecting people living near the coasts of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida. Compounding the problem, BP has admitted to using at least 1.9 million gallons of toxic dispersants, which are banned by many countries, including the UK. According to many scientists, these dispersants create an even more toxic substance when mixed with crude oil.

Dr Wilma Subra, a chemist in New Iberia, Louisiana, has tested the blood of BP cleanup workers and residents. "Ethylbenzene, m,p-Xylene and hexane are volatile organic chemicals that are present in the BP crude oil," Subra explained. "The acute impacts of these chemicals include nose and throat irritation, coughing, wheezing, lung irritation, dizziness, light-headedness, nausea and vomiting."

Subra explained that exposure has been long enough to create long-term effects, such as "liver damage, kidney damage, and damage to the nervous system. So the presence of these chemicals in the blood indicates exposure". Testing by Subra has also revealed BP's chemicals are present "in coastal soil sediment, wetlands, and in crab, oyster and mussel tissues".

Pathways of exposure to the dispersants are inhalation, ingestion, and skin and eye contact. Symptoms of exposure include headaches, vomiting, diarrhea, abdominal pains, chest pains, respiratory system damage, skin sensitization, hypertension, central nervous system depression, neurotoxic effects, genetic mutations, cardiac arrhythmia, and cardiovascular damage. The chemicals can also cause birth defects, mutations, and cancer.

"In 'Generations at Risk', medical doctor Ted Schettler and others warn that solvents can rapidly enter the human body," Dr. Riki Ott, a toxicologist, marine biologist, and Exxon Valdez survivor, said. "They evaporate in air and are easily inhaled, they penetrate skin easily, and they cross the placenta into fetuses. For example, 2-butoxyethanol [a chemical used in Corexit, an oil dispersant] is a human health hazard substance; it is a fetal toxin and it breaks down blood cells, causing blood and kidney disorders."

"Solvents dissolve oil, grease, and rubber," Ott continued. "Spill responders have told me that the hard rubber propellers in their engines and the soft rubber bushings on their outboard motor pumps are falling apart and need frequent replacement. Given this evidence, it should be no surprise that solvents are also notoriously toxic to people, something the medical community has long known."
In March the US National Institutes of Health launched a long-range health study of workers who helped clean up after BP's oil disaster.

According to the NIH, 55,000 clean-up workers and volunteers in Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida will be checked for health problems, and participants will be followed for up to 10 years. The study is funded by NIH, which received a $10 million "gift" from BP to run the study. BP claims not to be involved in the study, which will cost $34m over the next five years.

But the study focuses mainly on people who participated in the clean-up. John Gooding, a resident of Pass Christian, Mississippi, began having health problems shortly after the oil spill started. He has become sicker with each passing month, and has moved inland in an effort to escape continuing exposure to the chemicals.

"I can't live at my home address anymore because it's too close to the coast," Gooding said. "I'm hypersensitive to the pollution, and there is a constant steady chemical smell coming off the Gulf. Even both my dogs had seizures and died."

The U.S. Coast Guard held an Area Contingency Plan meeting in Biloxi, Mississippi recently to discuss the lessons of the BP disaster. Coast Guard Captain John Rose was asked what has changed regarding the Coast Guard's dispersant use policy since April 20, 2010.

"We were pre-authorized to use it before, but now we have to get permission from the higher-ups. But it is still in the plan for how we will respond to oil spills in the future," he said. During the meeting, Captain Rose continuously referred to the use of dispersants as a "scientific tool" that is "effective in keeping oil from reaching beaches and wildlife".