Advisory Team's Spill Cleanup Findings Give Rise To Concerns
The Gulf Coast Incident Management Team last week released a report issued by its Operational Science Advisory Team (OSAT-2), a group tasked to provide information and advice about the status of residual oil along the Gulf of Mexico shoreline environment in the wake of the 2010 Deepwater Horizon catastrophe.
The advisory team focused on four case study beach areas with representative sensitive habitats that suffered oil contamination in Florida, Alabama, Mississippi and Louisiana.
Key findings in the OSAT-2 report include:
- Calculated human health effects from short and long-term exposures from remaining oil fall below EPA benchmarks for concern.
- There exists a minimal risk of oil leaching into groundwater from buried oil due to the combined effects of weathering, biodegradation, and the location of buried oil.
- Aggressive cleanup beyond established standards may likely threaten overall aquatic and wildlife resources.
Thus the analysis cautions against extended cleanup operations beyond existing guidelines, all with the idea of avoiding additional harm from cleanup efforts directed toward removing diminishing amounts of oil.
The report's recommendation to avoid additional cleanup efforts beyond amounts established in current guidelines raises concerns among some who fear that cleanup operations might be abandoned before they're complete, essentially letting BP off the hook prematurely and threatening the health of both the Gulf Coast beach environment and those who live, work, and visit there.
According to media reports, Louisiana chemist and environmental consultant Wilma Subra cautioned that people and animals could remain exposed to harmful toxins if the beach cleanup effort doesn't go far enough to be complete.
Likewise, a local mayor raised beach communities' concerns about being left "high and dry." Mayor Tony Kennon, of Orange Beach, Alabama, objected to what he perceived as a sign that BP's cleanup operations were going to end before the task was properly completed. Mayor Kennon characterized the report as a "get out of jail free" card for BP despite the company's pledge to "clean up the mess."
The consensus does seem to be that the OSAT-2 report signals the encroaching end of cleanup operations, even as those involved in the operations and those persons most affected by the oil spill continue to disagree on whether the cleanup effort has run its full course.
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