Spill Here, Spill Now, Don’t Look Back 0
Facing South reports on the current status of Buccaneer Petroleum’s wild well. Just because it ain’t news doesn’t mean it ain’t still doing damage.
A nugget:
Study of the oil’s fate and its impact on the marine environment will likely continue for months and years to come, but many independent scientists have produced preliminary research seemingly at odds with a rosy government report and official statements in August that said that at least half of the oil released was “completely gone from the system” and the rest was being quickly degraded.
Eight months after the spill, the safety of Gulf seafood is still being debated among toxicologists, some of whom allege that the Food and Drug Administration’s seafood testing process is flawed, according to the New Orleans Times-Picayune. The FDA’s process does not certify that the products tested are free from contamination, but screens for contamination that reaches “levels of concern.” Cancer-causing chemicals found in crude oil have been detected in Gulf seafood, but according to the FDA have been found at levels that the agency considers to be safe.
