Tests raise questions about cleanup workers' chemical exposure in the Gulf

By ELANA SCHOR of Greenwire
Published: June 11, 2010 On the growing list of unknowns that surround the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster — How many barrels are spilling? When will the leak be capped? — belongs another, less-discussed mystery: How will the chemical soup of gushing crude and dispersants affect the health of cleanup workers, fishermen and others working along the coast? Testing data released so far by the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and BP PLC raised more questions than they answered for scientists and industrial medicine specialists consulted by Greenwire. Meanwhile, the chorus of lawmakers raising alarms about the health hazards of chemical exposure in the Gulf was joined yesterday by House Education and Labor Chairman George Miller (D-Calif.), who warned BP CEO Tony Hayward that a failure to request full worker monitoring “is irresponsible.” “The magnitude of the Deepwater Horizon disaster is unparalleled and the potential health risks for cleanup workers remains largely unknown,” Miller wrote to Hayward, urging BP to expand its existing request for a National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) hazard evaluation of a portion of Louisiana coastal workers. NIOSH, a division of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that provides scientific advice to OSHA, sent two teams of hygienists to the Gulf this week to test for chemical exposures of workers burning off collected oil and placing booms to help contain the spill. As that work begins, BP has released limited test results aimed at tamping down public worries about the number of cleanup workers already reporting adverse symptoms. “It is important to recognise that the risks to the health of people from the chemicals associated with both the crude oil from the leak and the dispersants used to clean up the oil are very low,” the company states in a preface to its testing data. That declaration was not sufficient for Gina Solomon, senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council and a member of U.S. EPA’s Science Advisory Board. “Even in the data BP has posted, there are quite a large number of samples over NIOSH recommended exposure limits and some samples over a limit BP had previously identified as over a level of concern for hydrocarbons,” Solomon said. … BP’s tests also show some workers have been exposed to the carcinogen benzene, which came as an unwelcome surprise to an occupational health expert and veteran of the 1989 Exxon Valdez cleanup who agreed to speak candidly on the condition of anonymity. “They’re trying to say it’s not that bad, but I’m looking at it and saying, wow — that would be enough for me to say there’s [notable] exposure,” this source said, adding that the number of air samples BP has taken is “shockingly low … you would expect a lot more sampling data, but it can be difficult to take a lot of these samples.” …

Tests Raise Questions About Cleanup Workers’ Chemical Exposure in the Gulf