Exclusive: Multiple independent lab tests confirm oil in Gulf shrimp

Experts operating states apart confirm toxic content in not just shrimp, but crab and fish too

The federal government is going out of its way to assure the public that seafood pulled from recently reopened Gulf of Mexico waters is safe to consume, in spite of the largest accidental release of crude oil in America's history.

However, testing methodologies used by the government to deem areas of water safe for commercial fishing are woefully inadequate and permit high levels of toxic compounds to slip into the human food chain, according to a series of scientific and medical professionals interviewed by Raw Story.

In two separate cases, a toxicologist and a chemist independently confirmed their seafood samples contained unusually high volumes of crude oil and harmful hydrocarbons -- and some of this food was allegedly being sent to market.

One test, conducted by a chemist from Mobile, Alabama, employed a rudimentary chemical analysis of shrimp pulled from waters near Louisiana and found "oil and grease" in their digestive tracts.

The National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration's (NOAA) tests, which are approved by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), have focused on the animal's flesh, with samples shelled and cleaned before undergoing examination.

Unfortunately, many Gulf coast residents prepare shrimp whole, tossing the creatures into boiling water shells and all.  More...

Where does the US get its crude? Here's what you need to know.

Boston - The United States consumes more oil than any other country in the world: 18.7 million barrels of oil per day, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration's (EIA) short-term energy outlook.

To satisfy that demand, the United States imports 9 to 12 million barrels of oil per day.

The top seven countries on the following list account for more than $140 billion worth of oil every year:

1. Canada

Canada reigns as the United States' leading oil supplier, exporting some 707,316,000 barrels of oil per year (1,938,000 barrels per day) — a whopping 99 percent of its annual oil exports, according to the EIA.

Canada's exports to the United States are worth more than $37 billion and account for 16 percent of the total trade between the two countries, according to the U.S. Census Bureau's Foreign Trade Statistics. Canada holds the second largest oil reserves in the world after Saudi Arabia. And 95 percent of this oil is in sand deposits in Alberta, which makes the oil extraction process difficult.

2. Mexico

Mexico sends more than 400 million barrels of oil per year (or 1,096,000 barrels per day) to the U.S., according to the EIA. In 2009, that flow was worth over $22 billion.

Since Mexico's oil wells were nationalized in 1938, the country's oil industry operates under the control of PEMEX, the second largest oil company in the world.

3. Saudi Arabia

Saudi Arabia sends 360,934,000 barrels of oil per year (989,000 barrels per day), 20 percent of its total oil exports, to the United States, according to the EIA. Holding about one-third of the world's daily oil supply, Saudia Arabia’s economy is fueled by oil. Oil accounts for 90 percent of Saudi Arabia's export revenues and 45 percent of its GDP, according to the CIA World Factbook.

4. Venezuela

Venezuela sends the United States 352,278,000 barrels of oil per year (965,000 barrels per day), according to the EIA. The Venezuelan economy is heavily reliant on oil as it accounts for 90 percent of the country's export revenue and 30 percent of the country's GDP, according to the World Factbook. In May 2009, following its socialist policies, Venezuela's state oil company Petroleoes de Venezuela took over private companies operating in the east of the country, increasing the total number of nationalized oil companies to 74.

Earlier this month, President Hugo Chavez stated that his government would stop all oil exports to the United States if Washington's ally, Colombia, attacks Venezuela.

5. Nigeria

Nigeria sells 40 percent of its huge oil supply to the United States. Nigeria exports 281,291,000 barrels per year (771,000 barrels per day) to the United States, according to the EIA. But Nigeria is feeling the full brunt of the "oil curse." The vast earnings from oil have not translated into substantial improvements for ordinary Nigerians. People living in the oil-producing Niger Delta area, in particular, are very poor and the environment has been degraded by oil drilling.

Beginning in 2006, this reality led rebel groups groups to violently protest against the oil pipelines. The Movement for the Emancipation of the Niger Delta attacked and kidnapped foreign oil workers. The rebel insurrection are blamed for causing Nigeria's oil production to drop by as much as 20 percent. Furthermore, Nigeria has experienced 2,400 oil spills since 2006, decreasing the industry’s efficiency, according to Reuters.

6. Angola

Angola exports 163,790,000 of barrels of oil per year (449,000 barrels per day) to the United States, worth around $9 billion in 2009, according to the EIA. In recognition of its huge oil production, Angola is now the chair of OPEC.

In May 2008, due to unrest in Nigeria, Angola surpassed Nigeria as the largest oil producer in Africa. The majority of Angola's wells are located offshore in the Atlantic Ocean due to limited onshore exploration from 1975 to 2002 when the country faced civil unrest. Angola is the world's seventh largest oil producer but the United States's sixth largest oil source as it exports 31 percent of its oil to the United States.

7. Iraq

Iraq exports 163,684,000 barrels of oil per year to the United States (448,000 barrels per day), worth over $9 billion in 2009, according to the EIA. This makes the United States Iraq’s number one oil export partner.

Louisiana Deputies Pull Over Activist at Behest of BP. Deputy falsifies incident report. Sheriff’s department Malcolm Wolfe thinks that’s just fine. You can contact the Major at 985-857-0217

Everyone knows by now that BP is still blocking press access to oil-spill sites even though they're not supposed to anymore. I've been blathering about it for weeks, and it's been all of three days since four contractors wouldn't let me through the Pointe Aux Chenes marina outside Montegut, Louisiana. And though as of June 16 the federal government was saying helicopters could fly reporters as low as 1,500 feet around spill sites, on June 17 I was on a helicopter that was prohibited from flying below 3,000 feet (and whose pilot flipped silent birds at the "military guys" coming over the radio and hassling him about being in the area at all). But a Louisiana sheriff's deputy* pulling over a video camera-wielding private citizen because the head of BP security wanted to ask him some questions is a whole other level of alarming.

Last week, Drew Wheelan, the conservation coordinator for the American Birding Association, was filming himself across the street from the BP building/Deepwater Horizon response command in Houma, Louisiana. As he explained to me, he was standing in a field that did not belong to the oil company when a police officer approached him and asked him for ID and "strongly suggest[ed]" that he get lost since "BP doesn't want people filming":

Here's the key exchange:

Wheelan: "Am I violating any laws or anything like that?"

Officer: "Um...not particularly. BP doesn't want people filming."

Wheelan: "Well, I'm not on their property so BP doesn't have anything to say about what I do right now."

Officer: "Let me explain: BP doesn't want any filming. So all I can really do is strongly suggest that you not film anything right now. If that makes any sense."

Not really! Shortly thereafter, Wheelan got in his car and drove away but was soon was pulled over.

It was the same cop, but this time he had company: Kenneth Thomas, whose badge, Wheelan told me, read "Chief BP Security." The cop stood by as Thomas interrogated Wheelan for 20 minutes, asking him who he worked with, who he answered to, what he was doing, why he was down here in Louisiana. He phoned Wheelan's information in to someone. Wheelan says Thomas confiscated his Audubon volunteer badge (he'd recently attended an official Audubon/BP bird-helper volunteer training) and then wouldn't give it back, which sounds like something only a bully in a bad movie would do. Eventually, Thomas let Wheelan go.

"Then two unmarked security cars followed me," Wheelan told me. "Maybe I'm paranoid, but I was specifically trying to figure out if they were following me, and every time I pulled over, they pulled over." This went on for 20 miles. Which does little to mitigate my own developing paranoia about reporting from what can feel like a corporate-police state.

The media liaison for the government-run Deepwater Horizon Response Joint Information Center told me BP would would get back to me for comment on the incident. I'm still waiting.

* Correction/Update: This story originally stated that a Louisiana state police officer pulled Wheelan over, per Wheelan's recounting of the incident. My apologies to the state police for misreporting their involvement. After many calls made and messages left, I've finally confirmed that the cop in question was actually a sheriff's deputy for Terrebonne Parish. The deputy was off official duty at the time, and working in the private employ of BP. Though the deputy failed to include the traffic stop in his incident report, Major Malcolm Wolfe of the sheriff's office says the deputy's pulling someone over in his official vehicle while working for a private company is standard and acceptable practice, because Wheelan was acting suspicious and could have been a terrorist.

Karoli - How George Bush, Joe Barton, Dick Cheney and Tom Delay caused the Gulf Oil Spill and made sure BP will never be held Accountable – Crooks and Liars

 

Does everyone remember Dick Cheney's "National Energy Task Force"? The one where meetings were held in secret, and energy policy was set by the foxes in charge of the henhouse? Yeah, I figured you might.

The Center for American Progress has connected the dots between this task force, the Bush Administration energy policies, and Tom DeLay's leadership in the House of Representatives to paint a straight line right back to Cheney & Co. I don't agree with the conclusion of "Cheney's Katrina", so how about we call it "Cheney's Oil Apocalypse" instead?

Setting the stage - May, 2001

Cheney's secret task force releases a 170-page harbinger of death under the title "National Energy Policy" (PDF). One of the pillars of their report is California's supposed energy crisis, helped along by the likes of Enron.

In Chapter Five, several recommendations for increasing domestic energy supplies are made, including:

• The NEPD Group recommends that the President direct the Secretary of the Interior to consider economic incentives for environmentally sound offshore oil and gas development where warranted by specific circumstances: explore opportunities for royalty reductions, consistent with ensuring a fair return to the public where warranted for enhanced oil and gas recovery; for reduction of risk associated with production in frontier areas or deep gas formations; and for development of small fields that would otherwise be uneconomic.
• The NEPD Group recommends that the President direct the Secretaries of Commerce and Interior to re-examine the current federal legal and policy regime (statutes, regulations, and Executive Orders) to determine if changes are needed regarding energy-related activi- ties and the siting of energy facilities in the coastal zone and on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS).
• The NEPD Group recommends that the President direct the Secretary of the Interior continue OCS oil and gas leasing and approval of exploration and development plans on predictable schedules.

Act One - The Administration complies

First, the SAFE Act is introduced in the House in 2001. It provides for the following (quotes from CAP post):

• Taxpayer funds to reimburse oil companies for the costs of complying with the National Environmental Policy Act (Sec. 6234)
• A suspension of royalties on tens of millions of barrels of oil produced in the Gulf of Mexico—especially from deepwater wells like the one now spewing into the gulf (Sec. 6202)
• Opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling—with expedited leasing, limited judicial review, and lip service to environmental concerns (Div. F, Title V)

Check off one set of recommendations, though it took Cheney and Big Oil until 2003 to get it to a conference committee. Just after the midterms, Republicans guided the bill through the House, with DeLay twisting arms as needed. With Democrats safely in the minority, the conference committee was able to exempt all oil and gas construction activities from the Clean Water Act, force BLM lease approvals within 10 days, grant unprecedented authority to the Department of Interior to fast-track permits, and allocate $2 billion for oil companies to drill in ultra deepwater areas.

A filibuster in the Senate stopped it from becoming law. Then.

Act Two - If at first you don't succeed, try, try again...

In 2004 a second legislative assault on our coastlines was mounted. This time Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) worked with DeLay to get a bill through the House with the assistance of oilman-turned-lobbyist Andrew Lundquist and Abramoff crony Stephen Griles.

CAP reports:

One of the worst elements of what has come to be known as the “Dick Cheney energy bill” had a direct role in eliminating the kind of regulatory oversight that may have prevented the blowout of BP’s Mississippi Canyon 252 well on April 20 of this year. Section 390 of the legislation dramatically expanded the circumstance under which drilling operations could forego environmental reviews and be approved almost immediately under so-called “categorical exclusions” from the National Environmental Policy Act.

There you go. Fast-track approvals by waiving environmental reviews and granting "categorical exclusions". In other words, tell the oil companies like BP that it's totally okay to ride their iron horses out to the wild coastal frontier without regard for safety or environmental damage.

Worth noting: BP liked those categorical exclusions so much they were lobbying as late as April of this year for more of them.

Other gifts to the oil industry included in the Cheney Energy Bill:

• Permanent permit exemptions granted to all oil and gas construction activities for roads, drill pads, pipeline corridors, refineries and compressor stations required under the Clean Water Act.
• Exempted oil companies from paying royalties on oil produced from deepwater wells.
• Created a special exception to the Safe Drinking Water Act for the "hydraulic fracturing process". As CAP notes, this process was invented by Halliburton.
• Mandated a federally-funded study to identify ways that legislation, regulations and local zoning laws impeded development of existing leases and unexplored oil reserves.
• Limited states' voice with regard to projects affecting their coastlines. This also included limiting court action with respect to offshore oil development.
• Reinstated lapsed leases due to nonpayment of royalties and rents.
• Transferred mineral rights of national seashores to private ownership or Texas state ownership in order to allow oil companies to drill under them.

Act Three - It is finished

On August 8, 2005, George W. Bush signed the Energy Policy Act of 2005 into law.

On October 22, 2007 Randall B. Luthi, Wyoming attorney, Cheney cohort and new director of MMS signed a "Finding of No New Significant Impact" (PDF) with regard to Lease Sale 206, also known as the Deepwater Horizon. This finding was the last barrier for BP to cross before plunging equipment 5000 feet under the ocean's surface, using Halliburton fracture techniques to open the well, and beginning the flow of oil which ends as an environmental and economic disaster to Gulf inhabitants. No significant impact, indeed.

Stay tuned for scenes from next year

It's unclear how the Cheney Energy Act will play out in the legal morass yet to come. What we should expect are many challenges by BP lawyers to any effort to claim damages under the Clean Water Act (given the exemptions) as well as challenges for liability beyond cleaning up the spill.

But whatever happens, dear viewers, know this: The responsible parties are George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Joe Barton, and Tom DeLay.

Repeat. Lather. Rinse. Repeat. Get the word out. Put the spotlight on the real villains