Resh­ma Ra­goonath

Petrotrin's ad­mis­sion that it used the high­ly tox­ic dis­per­sant Corex­it A9500 in the La Brea oil spill clean-up has prompt­ed calls for res­i­dents to be evac­u­at­ed from af­fect­ed ar­eas im­me­di­ate­ly.Yes­ter­day, both La Brea MP Fitzger­ald Jef­frey and sec­re­tary of Fish­er­men and Friends of the Sea (FFOS) Gary Aboud called for res­i­dents to be re­moved for their pro­tec­tion.The dis­per­sant has been flagged in­ter­na­tion­al­ly for its tox­i­c­i­ty and can­cer-caus­ing com­po­nents.

Jef­frey said he want­ed to get con­fir­ma­tion on the use of Corex­it and its ef­fects be­fore he com­ment­ed on its tox­i­c­i­ty, but said he still be­lieves res­i­dents should be re­lo­cat­ed."Res­i­dents should move, I am still seek­ing re­lo­ca­tion for the res­i­dents," he said.Aboud, in a tele­phone in­ter­view yes­ter­day, ex­pressed out­rage that the state-run oil com­pa­ny had used the dis­per­sant in the face of sci­en­tif­ic da­ta high­light­ing sig­nif­i­cant health risks.

"That is gross neg­li­gence and in­com­pe­tence," he de­clared yes­ter­day as he called for Pres­i­dent An­tho­ny Car­mona's in­ter­ven­tion.He said the res­i­dents, all of whom have been ex­posed since the De­cem­ber 17 oil spill, should be re­moved and test­ed for ex­po­sure and con­t­a­m­i­na­tion.

"We are very con­cerned. We con­tin­ue to ap­peal to his Ex­cel­len­cy to de­clare the area a dis­as­ter zone, to force­ful­ly re­move all res­i­dents and cre­ate a dis­as­ter buffer zone. We are ap­peal­ing to the gov­ern­ment to im­me­di­ate­ly take blood tests of the af­fect­ed res­i­dents," he added.Corex­it, like oth­er oil dis­per­sants, emul­si­fies oil in­to tiny beads, which then sink and are de­grad­ed fur­ther.

A Huff­in­g­ton Post ar­ti­cle ti­tled, "Corex­it, Oil Dis­per­sant Used By BP, Is De­stroy­ing Gulf Ma­rine Life, Sci­en­tists Say," said, "Evap­o­ra­tion con­cen­trates the tox­ins in the oil-Corex­it mix­ture, in­clud­ing dan­ger­ous com­pounds called poly­cyclic aro­mat­ic hy­dro­car­bons (PAHs), known to cause can­cer and de­vel­op­men­tal dis­or­ders."It is this that has raised alarm bells for Aboud and Marc De Ver­teuil of Pa­pa Bois Con­ser­va­tion.

Aboud de­scribed the sit­u­a­tion as a "com­plete night­mare."He said it is crit­i­cal for blood tests to be per­formed on all those ex­posed to the oil spill and the hy­dro­car­bon fumes, be­cause once PAHs get in­to the hu­man blood­stream they can­not be re­moved.The blood tests, he said, will give an in­di­ca­tion of the PAHs in the blood con­tent which would de­ter­mine the medi­um-term risk of ex­po­sure.He warned that in two or three years from now peo­ple in La Brea may sud­den­ly turn up with var­i­ous forms of can­cers.

Corex­it is list­ed in the Na­tion­al Oil Spill Con­tin­gency Plan as an au­tho­rised dis­per­sant/clean­er.Aboud said it was gross in­com­pe­tence to have rec­om­mend­ed the prod­uct when Corex­it has been sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly proven to be "car­cino­genic, mu­ta­genic and ter­ato­genic."He said divers, af­ter div­ing at a 20-me­tre depth off the La Brea jet­ty, found oil set­tled on the sea floor. Aboud said the oil on the seafloor must be re­moved.

De Ver­teuil, in a brief in­ter­view, said all dis­per­sants have ques­tions sur­round­ing their tox­i­c­i­ty and its im­pact on the ecosys­tem and hu­mans.While he was guard­ed about his views on Petrotrin's Corex­it use, De Ver­teuil said, it is es­sen­tial that food safe­ty tests are done on seafood from the af­fect­ed ar­eas.

"I think this is im­por­tant for two rea­sons. One for health rea­sons: con­sumers have a right to know about the safe­ty of their food. And sec­ond, fish­er­men have been com­plain­ing that con­sumers do not trust the fish caught in the oil-spill-af­fect­ed ar­eas where dis­per­sants are used," he said. –with re­port­ing by Zi­co Co­zi­er

Petrotrin: We had EMA clear­ance

Petrotrin's man­ag­er of cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions Gillian Fri­day said yes­ter­day: "In re­sponse to your ques­tions, please note that ap­proval to use Corex­it 9500 on this oil spill was giv­en by the En­vi­ron­men­tal Man­age­ment Agency (EMA) and Min­istry of En­er­gy and En­er­gy Af­fairs (MEEA) per­son­nel."

Safe­ty sheet

Corex­it is made by Nal­co, a US com­pa­ny.The man­u­fac­tur­er's safe­ty sheet says: "Ex­po­sure guide­lines have not been es­tab­lished for this prod­uct."It rec­om­mends that gloves, gog­gles and stan­dard pro­tec­tive cloth­ing should be used by those work­ing with Corex­it.It al­so says, on car­cino­genic­i­ty:

"None of the sub­stances in this prod­uct are list­ed as car­cino­gens by the In­ter­na­tion­al Agency for Re­search on Can­cer (IARC), the Na­tion­al Tox­i­col­o­gy Pro­gram (NTP), or the Amer­i­can Con­fer­ence of Gov­ern­men­tal In­dus­tri­al Hy­gien­ists (ACGIH)."

On risks as­so­ci­at­ed with us­ing Corex­it, it says once the prod­uct is used cor­rect­ly: "We have eval­u­at­ed the hu­man and en­vi­ron­men­tal haz­ards and ex­po­sures of this prod­uct. Based on our rec­om­mend­ed use of this prod­uct, we have char­ac­terised the prod­uct's gen­er­al risk. This in­for­ma­tion should pro­vide as­sis­tance for your own risk man­age­ment prac­tices. We have eval­u­at­ed our prod­uct's risk as fol­lows:

�2 The hu­man risk is: Low

�2 The en­vi­ron­men­tal risk is: Low."

Aboud: Stop seis­mic tests

Aboud al­so called for the seis­mic test­ing which is be­ing done in the Gulf of Paria to be post­poned un­til the oil spill clean-up is con­clud­ed."It is a dou­ble ex­po­sure of threat and at­tack. All we are ask­ing is to post­pone the seis­mic sur­vey for six months. The oil in the ground is not go­ing to run away, so post­pon­ing the sur­vey and giv­ing the fish­ery time to re­cov­er is not an un­rea­son­able re­quest. The en­tire Gulf of Paria needs to be pro­tect­ed as the food bas­ket.

"They need to start tak­ing sam­ples of the fish in the Gulf of Paria and de­ter­mine tox­i­c­i­ty," Aboud said.

–with re­port­ing by Zi­co Co­zi­er