(2 pm. – promoted by ek hornbeck)
This will be ignored at the risk to food safety, health concerns related to the eating seafood caught in the Gulf and the entire wild life environment.
Scientists on a research vessel in the Gulf of Mexico are finding a substantial layer of oily sediment stretching for dozens of miles in all directions. Their discovery suggests that a lot of oil from the Deepwater Horizon didn’t simply evaporate or dissipate into the water – it has settled to the seafloor.
The Research Vessel Oceanus sailed on Aug. 21 on a mission to figure out what happened to the more than 4 million barrels of oil that gushed into the water. Onboard, Samantha Joye, a professor in the Department of Marine Sciences at the University of Georgia, says she suddenly has a pretty good idea about where a lot of it ended up. It’s showing up in samples of the seafloor, between the well site and the coast.
“I’ve collected literally hundreds of sediment cores from the Gulf of Mexico, including around this area. And I’ve never seen anything like this,” she said in an interview via satellite phone from the boat.
Joye describes seeing layers of oily material – in some places more than 2 inches thick – covering the bottom of the seafloor.
“It’s very fluffy and porous. And there are little tar balls in there you can see that look like microscopic cauliflower heads,” she says.
It isn’t “sexy news” to discuss a higher percentage of cancers for small children who eat Gulf seafood more than once a month. But pointing out to the media that the FDA has flawed testing protocols and have ignored safety concerns is news. NOAA using only 12 shrimp to prove the safety of 5,000 miles of the Gulf should be news to the media.
This Monday the media will be shoveling shrimp into their mouths and they might be concerned for their own health if they aren’t concerned for others.
It’s not my job to care about the little kids and pregnant women eating Gulf seafood. Nine years from now when questions are being asked about sick kids the folks at the FDA can say, “Nobody could have anticipated…”
Where have I heard that line before?
h/t to Peter Daou and spocko @ FDL
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