Environmental Health EPA says dioxin risk from burning BP/Deepwater Horizon oil is low – but what’s the context?
December 13, 2010 Elizabeth Grossman 2Comment

by Elizabeth Grossman On November 30th, the Louisiana Bucket Brigade (LABB) released a bulletin reporting on the accidental release of sulfur dioxide at the Murphy Oil refinery in Meraux, Louisiana. The Bucket Brigade tracks these releases as part of its work to reduce refinery accidents, and they explain that the November 30th release is “just […]

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Environmental Health What Next: Assessing Deepwater Horizon damages and what we have yet to learn about the oil spill’s impacts
August 23, 2010 Elizabeth Grossman 5Comment

By Elizabeth Grossman On August 17th the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) held the first public discussion of plans for its Gulf Worker Study – also called the Gulf Long Term Follow-up Study – designed to assess short and long-term health effects associated with BP/Deepwater Horizon oil disaster clean-up work. “Since the spill,” […]

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Environmental Health “We are by no means through this disaster” – Gulf Coast fishing community searches for some certainty
August 12, 2010 Elizabeth Grossman 2Comment

by Elizabeth Grossman “After three long months of oil geysering continuously from the depths of the Gulf, a temporary cap has stemmed the flow and it appears that the well is on its way to being killed. But we are by no means through this disaster,” said Senator Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) in his opening remarks […]

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Environmental Health Will BP Pay for the Spill’s Toll on Mental Health?
August 3, 2010 Liz Borkowski, MPH 3Comment

BP’s well in the Gulf of Mexico has been capped and may soon be “killed” for good, but fixing the widespread damage from the disaster will take years. The National Center for Disaster Preparedness at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public Health has has released a report (supported by the Children’s Health Fund) based on […]

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Environmental Health Oil Spill Kills Gulf Coast Shrimp Season; A Culture Hangs in the Balance
June 18, 2010 Elizabeth Grossman 3Comment

By Elizabeth Grossman “This is the one thing that could destroy our culture and I don’t want to see it happen,” says Grand Isle, Louisiana resident Karen Hopkins, wiping at tears she’s clearly fighting. Hopkins, a Louisiana native and long-time resident of Grand Isle, runs the office at Dean Blanchard Seafood. Blanchard typically buys 13 […]

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Environmental Health “From a happy guy to a zombie consumed by the oil spill”
June 17, 2010 Liz Borkowski, MPH 4Comment

It’s appropriate for BP to dedicate $20 billion to an escrow fund for oil-spill claims, and I hope the fund’s independent administration will allow for quick payment of claims. Nicholas Beaudrot points out that the fund’s structure means BP has an incentive to resolve claims quickly – in contrast to the 20 years that it […]

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Environmental Health Are Respirators Necessary in the Gulf?
June 8, 2010 Liz Borkowski, MPH 14Comment

Melanie Trottman reported in the Wall Street Journal last week that US Representatives James Oberstar and Jerrold Nadler have demanded that Gulf response and recovery workers be provided with respirators (among other protective equipment), but OSHA doesn’t think respirators should be required: David Michaels, assistant secretary for the Department of Labor’s OSHA, said in an […]

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Environmental Health What are Gulf responders breathing? Some data released, but questions remain
June 7, 2010 Elizabeth Grossman 11Comment

By Elizabeth Grossman Expressions of concern for oil spill response workers’ health and safety grew this past week as reports arrived by way of the Louisiana Environmental Action Network that BP was denying workers’ requests for respirators. On June 4th, the Wall Street Journal reported that Representatives Jerrold Nadler (D-NY) and James Oberstar (D-Minn) had […]

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