Parts of this article (those related to Results) need to be updated. The reason given is: What conclusions or results were found?. Please help update this article to reflect recent events or newly available information.(March 2023)
Dale Sandler, chief of epidemiology, Division of Intramural Research, NIEHS
Staff scientist
Richard Kwok, Chronic Disease Epidemiology Group
Participants
55,000 clean-up workers
The GuLF Study, or Gulf Long-term Follow-up Study, is a five-year research project examining the human-health consequences of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in April 2010.[1] The spill followed an explosion on a drilling rig leased by BP, the British oil company, and led to the release of over four million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico, 48 miles off the coast of Louisiana in the United States.[3]
The Deepwater Horizon oil spill was the world's largest accidental marine oil spill.[5] It began on April 20, 2010, after an explosion on the Deepwater Horizon, a drilling rig leased by BP to drill an exploratory well.[6] Between then and July 15, when the well was capped, over four million barrels of oil (around 170 million US gallons, or 643 million litres) spilled from a depth of 5,000ft (1,500 m) into the Gulf of Mexico, 48 miles off the coast of Louisiana.[3]
According to the GuLF Study, the duration of the spill, the area affected, the proximity to local communities, and the number of people involved in the clean-up, were all greater than in any other spill that has been studied.[7] Around 180 miles of shoreline were "heavily to moderately oiled," according to a US government report.[8] Additional safety concerns were raised by the use of roughly nine million litres of oil dispersants, Corexit 9527 and 9500, during the clean-up operation. It was the largest known application of such dispersants to date,[9] and the first use of dispersants at that depth.[10]
Study details
Background and funding
Following the spill, there were anecdotal reports of health problems among workers involved in the clean-up, who complained of a variety of issues, including flu-like symptoms, rashes and stress. The Institute of Medicine held a workshop in June 2010, "Assessing the Human Health Effects of the Gulf of Mexico Oil Spill," and recommended that the United States government set up a study.[11] The Department of Health and Human Services agreed that month to set it up.[4] The study was launched in September 2010,[2] and in February 2011 the first mailing requests were sent out to potential participants.[12]
The study is expected to cost $34 million over five years,[13] and has been designed so that it can continue for up to 20 years.[4] The National Institutes of Health (NIH) contributed $10 million to fund the initial phases, and BP contributed an additional $10 million to NIH for this and other projects.[14] The BP funding was made through its Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GRI), a ten-year program to study the effects of the spill.[2]
Focus
Over four million barrels of oil spilled into the Gulf of Mexico.Map of the spill area
The areas affected are Alabama, Florida, Louisiana and Mississippi.[13] The study aims to track 55,000 workers for at least five years.[11] The workers will have been involved in a variety of tasks, such as oil burning, skimming, booming, as well as cleaning up animals, equipment and the shoreline, resulting in different levels of exposure to contaminants. The study has also recruited, as a control group, workers who completed the clean-up safety training, but who in the end did not take part in the clean-up itself.[14]
The researchers will examine the workers' exposure to volatile organic compounds (VOCs), polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and dispersants, using monitoring data gathered during the clean-up. Around 20,000 of the workers will be visited at home, and blood, hair, urine and toenail samples will be collected to look for biomarkers, such as DNA adducts and chromosome damage; lung-function tests will be carried out, and dust samples will be collected from their homes.[15]
Researchers will look for respiratory conditions, cancers, hematological outcomes, and neuro-behavioral or mental-health problems, and for any job losses, and financial or domestic disruption, the spill may have caused.[14] Questionnaires ask workers about their health at the time of the spill, exposure to oil or dispersant, and lifestyle factors that, as the study said, "might confound associations between exposures and health."[16] By January 2013 researchers had conducted 32,000 telephone interviews, including 800 interviews in Spanish and over 1,000 in Vietnamese, and 9,967 home visits.[17]
Obstacles and concerns
The difficulties facing the study are considerable. Sara Reardon wrote in Science in March 2011 that scientists were concerned that they did not know what to look for.[11] The delay between the workers' exposure in 2010 and the start of the study – the first interviews of participants took place in February 2011[18] – meant that short-term physical markers that could be directly related to the spill, such as rashes, had gone. There is also little information about the pre-spill baseline health of the workers, whose work involves regular exposure to environmental hazards. According to epidemiologist Maureen Lichtveld, the main health effects are likely to be psychosocial, such as depression and increased alcohol use resulting from job losses. Reardon wrote that, given how economically depressed the community is, it will be difficult to demonstrate what is causing the stress-related illnesses the workers report.[11]
There has been concern that the study will collect health information without addressing the medical needs of the workers, who may have no health insurance. The study's lead investigator, Dale Sandler, said in 2011 that participants who are found by the researchers to need medical care will be referred to local health-care providers who offer free or reduced-cost treatment. Local people say that finding such medical care is not easy, and that the workers' health should be prioritized over data collection.[18]
The Impact Study 2023
The Gulf of Mexico were still feeling the disastrous effects of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill of April 2010. Marsh grass retained plant-smothering oil, and the soil continued to crumble away at a faster rate than before the spill, causing the shoreline to retreat more rapidly than it would otherwise, a new study showed[19]
Notes
1 2 "GuLF Study"(PDF). National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. September 9, 2012.
Harry R. Weber, "BP seeks to spread blame as first phase of spill trial ends", Houston Chronicle, April 17, 2013: "The government once estimated the spill was 4.9 million barrels, but agreed this year to lower that to 4.1 million barrels, about 172 million gallons. BP has disputed the government estimates."
↑ "The GuLF STUDY", National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, accessed July 9, 2013: "The oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico differed from previous spill in that the leak was at the ocean floor rather than on the surface. However, the area covered, the proximity to populated communities, the number of potentially exposed workers and community members, and the duration of the spill were far greater than any previously studied oil spills."
J. Wise and J.P. Wise Sr., "A review of the toxicity of chemical dispersants", Reviews on Environmental Health, 26(4), 2011, pp. 281–300: "Chemical dispersants used for the cleanup and containment of crude oil toxicity became a major concern after the 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil crisis in the Gulf of Mexico. During the crisis, millions of liters of chemical dispersants (Corexit 9527 and 9500) were used – the largest known application of dispersants in the field."
↑ Anderson, Aileen. "BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill," in S. George Philander (ed.), Encyclopedia of Global Warming and Climate Change, Second Edition, SAGE, 2012 (pp. 146–147), p. 147: "The spill was the first to release a huge amount of oil at a depth of nearly 5,000 ft (1,500 m), and the first to use dispersants at this depth."
"In addition, investigators will collect samples of blood, hair, toenail, urine and other biospecimens from about half the participants to search for biomarkers showing some evidence of interaction with or influence on a biological process. DNA adducts, chromosome damage, and altered ability to repair DNA are examples of the sorts of biomarkers being considered."
Akinso: "Dr. Sandler explains that about 20,000 of the people who enroll in this study will participate in a home visit."
Sandler: "And that home visit will involve a very brief clinical exam, where we will measure lung function and blood pressure, height and weight and collect some biological blood samples."
↑ "The GuLF STUDY", National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, accessed July 9, 2013.
"Final report", National Commission on the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, January 12, 2011.
Anderson, Aileen. "BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill", in S. George Philander (ed.), Encyclopedia of Global Warming and Climate Change, Second Edition, SAGE, 2012, pp.146–147.
Ixtoc 1 was an exploratory oil well being drilled by the semi-submersible drilling rig Sedco 135 in the Bay of Campeche of the Gulf of Mexico, about 100 km (62 mi) northwest of Ciudad del Carmen, Campeche in waters 50 m (164 ft) deep. On 3 June 1979, the well suffered a blowout resulting the largest oil spill in US history at its time. To-date, it remains the second largest oil spill in US history after the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.
The Florida Institute of Oceanography (FIO), located on the campus of the University of South Florida St. Petersburg, is an entity of the State University System of Florida that works collaboratively with 32 institutions and agencies from across the state that support marine research.
A dispersant or a dispersing agent is a substance, typically a surfactant, that is added to a suspension of solid or liquid particles in a liquid to improve the separation of the particles and to prevent their settling or clumping.
BP p.l.c. is a British multinational oil and gas company headquartered in London, England. It is one of the oil and gas "supermajors" and one of the world's largest companies measured by revenues and profits. It is a vertically integrated company operating in all areas of the oil and gas industry, including exploration and extraction, refining, distribution and marketing, power generation, and trading.
The Deepwater Horizon oil spill was an industrial disaster that began on 20 April 2010 off of the coast of the United States in the Gulf of Mexico on the BP-operated Macondo Prospect, considered to be the largest marine oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry and estimated to be 8 to 31 percent larger in volume than the previous largest, the Ixtoc I oil spill, also in the Gulf of Mexico. The United States federal government estimated the total discharge at 4.9 MMbbl. After several failed efforts to contain the flow, the well was declared sealed on 19 September 2010. Reports in early 2012 indicated that the well site was still leaking. The Deepwater Horizon oil spill is regarded as one of the largest environmental disasters in world history.
The Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion was an April 20, 2010 explosion and subsequent fire on the Deepwater Horizon semi-submersible mobile offshore drilling unit, which was owned and operated by Transocean and drilling for BP in the Macondo Prospect oil field about 40 miles (64 km) southeast off the Louisiana coast. The explosion and subsequent fire resulted in the sinking of the Deepwater Horizon and the deaths of 11 workers; 17 others were injured. The same blowout that caused the explosion also caused an oil well fire and a massive offshore oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, considered the largest accidental marine oil spill in the world, and the largest environmental disaster in United States history.
Corexit is a product line of oil dispersants used during oil spill response operations. It is produced by Nalco Holding Company, an indirect subsidiary of Ecolab. Corexit was originally developed by the Standard Oil Company of New Jersey. Corexit is typically applied by aerial spraying or spraying from ships directly onto an oil slick. On contact with the dispersant, oil that would otherwise float on the surface of the water is emulsified into tiny droplets and sinks or remains suspended in the water. In theory this allows the oil to be more rapidly degraded by bacteria (bioremediation) and prevents it from accumulating on beaches and in marshes.
The following is a timeline of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. It was a massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, the largest offshore spill in U.S. history. It was a result of the well blowout that began with the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion on April 20, 2010.
The civil and criminal proceedings stemming from the explosion of Deepwater Horizon and the resulting massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico began shortly after the April 20, 2010 incident and have continued since then. They have included an extensive claims settlement process for a guilty plea to criminal charges by BP, and an ongoing Clean Water Act lawsuit brought by the U.S. Department of Justice and other parties.
This article covers the effect of the Deepwater Horizon disaster and the resulting oil spill on global and national economies and the energy industry.
Following is a timeline of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill for June 2010.
Following is a Timeline of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill for May 2010.
Reactions to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill from various officials and interested parties ranged from blame and outrage at the damage caused by the spill, to calls for greater accountability on the part of the U.S. government and BP, including new legislation dealing with preventative security and clean-up improvements.
Following is a timeline of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill for August 2010.
Riki Ott is a marine toxicologist and activist in Cordova, Alaska. Ott was frequently introduced as an "oil spill expert" in her many media appearances during the height of the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill news coverage. After graduating with a doctorate in sedimentary toxicology from the University of Washington, Ott moved to Alaska and started a fishing business. When the Exxon Valdez oil spill disrupted the local fishing-based economy, she became an environmental activist. Since the spill, she has participated in legal and public relations disputes with the Exxon company.
The 2010 Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico has been described as the worst environmental disaster in the United States, releasing about 4.9 million barrels of crude oil making it the largest marine oil spill. Both the spill and the cleanup efforts had effects on the environment.
The Health consequences of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill are health effects related to the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon offshore drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20, 2010. An oil discharge continued for 84 days, resulting in the largest oil spill in the history of the petroleum industry, estimated at approximately 206 million gallons. The spill exposed thousands of area residents and cleanup workers to risks associated with oil fumes, particulate matter from Controlled burns, volatile organic compounds (VOCs), polycylic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), and heavy metals.
The Deepwater Horizon oil spill was discovered on the afternoon of 22 April 2010 when a large oil slick began to spread at the former rig site. According to the Flow Rate Technical Group, the leak amounted to about 4.9 million barrels of oil, exceeding the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill as the largest ever to originate in U.S.-controlled waters and the 1979 Ixtoc I oil spill as the largest spill in the Gulf of Mexico. BP has challenged this calculation saying that it is overestimated as it includes over 810,000 barrels of oil which was collected before it could enter the Gulf waters.
The Deepwater Horizon oil spill occurred between 10 April and 19 September 2010 in the Gulf of Mexico. A variety of techniques were used to address fundamental strategies for addressing the spilled oil, which were: to contain oil on the surface, dispersal, and removal. While most of the oil drilled off Louisiana is a lighter crude, the leaking oil was of a heavier blend which contained asphalt-like substances. According to Ed Overton, who heads a federal chemical hazard assessment team for oil spills, this type of oil emulsifies well. Once it becomes emulsified, it no longer evaporates as quickly as regular oil, does not rinse off as easily, cannot be broken down by microbes as easily, and does not burn as well. "That type of mixture essentially removes all the best oil clean-up weapons", Overton said.
Susan D. Shaw was an American environmental health scientist, marine toxicologist, explorer, ocean conservationist, and author. A Doctor of Public Health, she was a professor in the Department of Environmental Health Sciences at the School of Public Health at the State University of New York at Albany, and Founder/President of the Shaw Institute, a nonprofit scientific institution with a mission to improve human and ecological health through innovative science and strategic partnerships. Shaw is globally recognized for pioneering high-impact environmental research on ocean pollution, climate change, oil spills, and plastics that has fueled public policy over three decades. In 1983, with landscape photographer Ansel Adams, she published Overexposure, the first book to document the health hazards of photographic chemicals. Shaw is credited as the first scientist to show that brominated flame retardant chemicals used in consumer products have contaminated marine mammals and commercially important fish stocks in the northwest Atlantic Ocean. She became the first scientist to dive into the Gulf of Mexico oil slick following the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon oil rig explosion to investigate the impacts of chemical dispersants used in response to the spill.
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