June 7, 6:40 PM | Huntsville Conservative Examiner | Hank Richards
This isn’t an oil spill and the EPA has it wrong. It’s an oil well blowout, an explosion; an uncontrolled release of crude oil, toxic gas and contaminants from an oil well after pressure control systems failed that killed 11 and left 17 injured - the media and EPA keep calling it an oil spill.
The Environmental Protection Agency says it's stepping up air quality monitoring on the Gulf Coast in the wake of the oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
Toxic gases continue to circulate in the air above Gulf coastal cities. Available data from a collection station in Venice, Louisiana recorded a reading of 14ppm for volatile organic compounds in the air. The National Resources Defense Council registers a reading of 14ppm for VOC gases to be in the highest danger zone on its gas measurement scale which measures potential threats to human health.
The NRDC scale reports VOC gases above 10ppm as a ‘Significant Potential for Health Risks.’ The reading of 14ppm at Venice indicates an increase in the trend line for the volatile organic compounds.
VOC gases include some of the most toxic and potentially most deadly of the many gases that make up crude oil as it enters the Gulf waters and air along the coastline.
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In an Examiner interview by Hank Richards with Dan Youra, a research and quantitative analyst, Youra explains that ‘It is the oil in the air over the gulf that carries the greatest health risks for humans. BP has a cap on the blowout, but the gases can continue to increase and escape from the water for some incalculable period of time.
These gases and oil chemicals are in a dance, where the dancers keep changing from gases to liquids to solids and back and forth. If you could follow one molecule expelled from the blowout, it could rise through the 5000 feet of water as a liquid and pop out of the sea as a gas. It could float over to the coast, liquefy or solidify, heat up again and float off as a gas in the clouds.
Gases dissipate! What a convenient word of denial from the experts. It dissipates to where? Gas can dissipate for a few minutes or days and reappear as a liquid or solid again somewhere else. That’s one reason that producers burn it off as part of the process in some cases,’ says Youra.
There are concerns that vapor from the oil might cause health problems for people living in the region. Oil vapor can cause headaches or nausea, but EPA spokesman Dave Bary said there have been no confirmed reports of such problems. The EPA cautions that those who may experience headaches or other effects due to chemical smells should try to remain indoors as much as possible and use an air conditioner instead of leaving windows and doors open. If the symptoms persist, individuals should seek medical attention.
The oil leaking into the Gulf, and the dispersants being sprayed on the oil,
contain chemicals that evaporate into the air and could be carried in the wind
toward shore. As the oil continues to spread through coastal areas in Louisiana and Mississippi, people will likely notice these odors getting worse.
Meteorologists are concerned with the effects of a turbulent weather history in the Gulf. With a forecast for more active hurricanes during this current season, there is a possibility that the prevailing winds from the Gulf (southeast to southwest at 7 to 15 mph) plus the force of any developing storm potential pushing northward could carry with it a path of oil vapor over nearly every state east of the Mississippi River.
As the chart indicates, the jet stream can be a significant factor in carrying the oil vapors and chemicals as far north as Vermont, depending upon the atmospheric movement of the stream.
According to weather specialists, the ‘oil vapors, chemical molecules and contaminants could be drawn into a jet stream and deposited on nearly half of the United States,’ an incident similar to the recent volcanic eruption in Iceland that left ash in the atmosphere and on land areas causing a number of airports in Europe to be closed.
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