CTEH is part of the Joint Unified Command based in Houma, Louisiana, where BP shares its office with the Coast Guard. The CTEH website is frank: CTEH is "proud" of its role in the Unified Command response. The website is less frank, however, about one stunningly important omission. CTEH is being paid by BP.
CTEH, in other word, is monitoring the possible toxic effects on workers of the chemicals BP has unleashed, and it is doing this at BP's expense. In short, CTEH is being paid by BP to check up on BP. This is a conflict of interest so flagrant it is like a murder suspect hiring the forensic experts who will examine the murder scene.
CTEH has, to boot, an impressively consistent record of unsavory conflict of interest cases, where they have ruled favorably every time on behalf of their corporate clients. CTEH was hired by a coal company after it unleashed a massive coal-ash spill in the Tennessee Valley. CTEH declared everything hunky-dory. CTEH was hired by a paper mill sued by an employee for asbestos exposure. CTEH blamed the employee's health problems on his lifestyle. Murphy Oil Refinery hired CTEH after spilling one million gallons into a community in St Bernard's parish, LA. CTEH found nothing there for anyone to worry about.
Now, down in the Gulf, BP is paying CTEH to monitor the toxic levels of the air and water. As Nicholas Cheremisinoff, a former Exxon chemical engineer and expert on pollution prevention says, this means there is "a huge incentive for them to under-report."
This also means that if anyone sues BP for health problems caused by toxic exposure to oil or chemicals, CTEH will be the expert witness called in on BP's behalf. Indeed, two Gulf Coast residents, Glynis Wright and Janille Turner, are now filing a class action suit against BP in Alabama, for alleged health problems caused by clean-up chemicals, claiming that Corexit is four times more toxic than the crude oil. Cheremisinoff has said he is "100 per cent certain" CTEH will be called in as expert witness for BP.
Not surprisingly, down in the Gulf CTEH is flying very low under the radar. According to a report filed by the Louisian Bucket Brigade, at a community meeting in New Orleans, CTEH was present, but without any insignia or identifying credentials, repeatedly reassuring residents that the area was safe and that heat was the main hazard facing workers. When the LBB reporter asked the EPA rep why they were working for CTEH, the rep responded: "CTEH?"don't know them." When the reporter pulled out a copy of the CTEH website, the EPA rep backtracked: "Oh, yeah, we look at their data." Asked if that didn't amount to a conflict of interest, the rep admitted, "Yeah, that is a danger." Shortly afterwards, he backtracked again: "No, we don't really do anything with them. Who are they again?"
This crazy, conflict-of-interest carousel--where BP pays CTEH, and the EPA relies on CTEH data to monitor BP--is so flagrant that Rep. Lois Capps (D-CA) has formally requested that President Obama relieve BP of responsibility for protecting the health of workers and local residents.
CTEH and the EPA underplay the hazards, but down in the Gulf people are getting sick. Some men working on the oil spill have become ill and some hospitalized, though we don't know the full extent because sick workers are contracted by BP not to talk to the media. BP could well stand, not for Beyond Petroleum, but for Beyond Principle. In a particularly nefarious act of cost-cutting and labor control, BP has hired prison inmates to do the clean-up, refusing to let them wear respirators, as this makes it visible that conditions are hazardous. Nor can they carry cell-phones lest they document the damage. Forced labor: slavery dà ©jà vu. And there's an extra perk for BP. Private companies like BP who use people on work-release get tax rebates of $2,400 for every worker they employ.
I heard many stories of people getting sick. I talked to the wife of a Vietnamese fisherman: "My husband has had chest problems ever since he went to work for BP," she told me. "A lot of people are getting sick. And when the south wind blows, my asthma gets bad," she said. In an internet cafà ©, I overheard a young man talking loudly into his cell about a blistering rash on his chest. "The doctor thinks it's over-exposure to the chemicals," he said.
The Corexit Cover-up
You have to hand it to them: BP's image makers do a heck of a job looking on the bright side of life. Consider the multi-million dollar ads they regularly place in the New York Times (any one of which would go a long way towards putting an out-of-work fisherman on his feet). Not a drop of oil to be seen from sea to shining sea. Even the skimmers seem to be skimming up stardust. The beach are pristine. Not a dollop of oil to be seen. As Marci, a private contractor with an energy company, sardonically said to me one evening: "Clean. Clean as a baby's butt clean. You know why? Dispersants." Marci asked me: "Why do you think the oil stopped fifteen miles from the Florida coast? All along the Gulf, there is a fifteen-mile wide line where the oil stopped. How did it stop at that magical line?" She told me the same story others had told: "At night they go out with planes and spray it with dispersants. So the beaches look clean. But the oil is still there. Wait until the fall," she said, "Wait until the weather cools, and the Mississippi drops. Then the oil will rise to the surface. Then the oil will come back."
Marci was bristling with suppressed anger. --You have to understand the tides," she said. "Why do you think the oil is inside the booms, not outside them? It's because of the dispersants. The dispersants sink the oil under the water. It looks like the oil is gone. But then the tides go in, taking the oil with them, and the oil goes in under the booms. Then the water cools, the oil rises, the tide goes out, and the oil is caught on the inside of the boom. Close to the marshes, close to the birds." Travelling round Barataria Bay by boat and air, I have seen this for myself and have photos to show for it: islands surrounded by boom, with the oil trapped on the inside.
From the beginning, the use of dispersants has been clouded with controversy and cover-ups. The cutely named Corexit is made by the American company Nalco, and is famously banned in the UK and Europe on the grounds of its lethal toxicity. In April, shortly after the Deep Horizon blowout, Lisa Jackson of the EPA ruled that Corexit should only be used in "extremely rare" cases. Down in Louisiana, for decades there's been a tightly-knit culture of mutual cronyism where local politicians and oilmen have their hands deep in each others pockets. On August 1st, the US House of Representatives Committee confirmed that for over three months, in violation of EPA's official guidelines, the US Coast Guard had fast-tracked 74 permits giving BP the green light to "carpet-bomb" the Gulf. All told, at least 2 million gallons have been dumped into the Gulf, sprayed over the seas, islands and marshes.
The main ingredient in Corexit is 2-Butoxyethenol, which is toxic to blood, kidneys, liver and the central nervous system, also causing cancer, birth defects. Corexit is mutagenic for bacteria, huge amounts of which live in the Gulf of Mexico. Corexit ruptures red blood cells and accumulates as it moves up the food chain. The EPA, reluctant at first to release data, eventually conceded that Corexit is lethal for 50% of any group of test animals that comes in contact with it. Even the Department of Transportation classifies Corexit as Class 6.1: Poisonous Material" for transportation purposes.
The risks of Corexit to humans, the fragile marsh ecosystems and marine life are potentially staggering. Riki Ott, a marine toxicologist and tireless community activist, has testified meeting people all over the Gulf who are showing symptoms: "headaches, dizziness, sorethroats, burning eyes, rashes and blisters that go so deep, they are leaving scars."
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