Just some days before
I came out to join Greenpeace’s Arctic Sunrise
on August 4, headlines from a NOAA (National
Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration)
press conference said that ‘the vast majority
of the oil from the BP spill has either
evaporated or been
burned, skimmed, recovered from the wellhead
or dispersed’. This, the Federal report
boasted, was a ‘direct result of the robust
federal response efforts’.
However, as reported
in the journal Nature other scientists were,
to say the least, sceptical. James Cowan,
an oceanographer at Louisiana State University
said "in my mind it's scientifically
indefensible". It appears that neither
the report nor its supporting data mention
the scale of the uncertainties, and there
are scant details about how the numbers
were calculated. Other scientists questioned
the timing of the report which was released
at the same time that BP announced that
it had succeeded in capping the well.
The beginning of this
spill was characterised by claims and counter-claims
– and now as the well is capped and the
in-depth work starts to assess the impacts
of this spill we are confronted again by
claims and counter-claims. Who are we to
believe?
Science is certainly
not the final arbiter of truth, but we all
rely on science as in some ways able to
give some kind of balanced assessment. But
in the case of the politically and economically
powerful vested interests of the oil industry
issues of ‘balance’ ‘truth’ ‘openness’ and
‘honesty’ all come way down the priority
list when compared to ‘profit’ ‘getting
back to business’ ‘satisfying shareholders’.
And today, August 17,
clearly outraged by media reports suggesting
that 75% of oil had “gone”, the Georgia
Sea Grant Program issued a report of their
calculations. Contrary to the upbeat NOAA
findings this report says that many independent
scientists interpret the data differently
with some suggesting that less than 10%
is gone, leaving 90% in the ecosystem. This
report, from a group of university based
oceanographic experts, criticised media
reports that “gone” meant no longer a threat.
But it is difficult to blame the media when
this is the spin put on the report as at
a White House press conference announcing
the calculations Jane Lubchenco, administrator
of NOAA said “At least 50% of the oil that
was released is now completely gone from
the system.”
By contrast the Georgia
Sea Grant group believes that most of the
dissolved and dispersed oil are still present
and not necessarily harmless. They point
out that the degradation of crude oil by
marine organisms mostly entails the less
toxic parts of the crude oil (the so-called
short-chain hydrocarbons) not the most toxic
elements such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons
(PAHs). In fact the most toxic components
of crude oil are the least likely to be
naturally broken down.
This group of scientists
agree that about 4.9 million barrels of
oil had gushed from the wellhead between
the rig explosion on April 20 and the final
capping of the well on July 15 2010, but
they estimate that between 70 and 79% remains.
In a further serious
questioning of so-called scientific balance,
it has emerged that independent scientists
who have been working on the Gulf coast
for years have had samples taken from them
and been denied access to sample areas by
BP or the government's National Resource
Damage Assessment (NRSA) process. One researcher,
Linda Hooper-Bui is an ecosystem biologist
at Louisiana State University wrote that
if she were to submit data to the NRDA she
would have to sign a confidentiality agreement
that lacks an end date. Exactly when she
or her students would be able to publish
any results would be determined by the Department
of Justice. If she was to accept research
funding directly from BP or from one of
their contractors, she would have to sign
a contract that includes a three-year no
publication clause.
But if she agreed to
work then she would have funds and virtually
unlimited access to study sites and more
research support. Fortunately for us all,
this scientist says that the price of the
secrecy involved with participating in NRDA
or conducting research under the auspices
of BP is too high.
It is against this background
that Greenpeace is providing the logistical
support for independent scientists to do
their work and to publish their findings
freely. We must not let the truth suffer
in this high stakes game with the environment.
It is up to all of us to challenge the corporate
and political fossil fuel powers that would
have it differently.
