Plan to burn oil raises health concerns

WASHINGTON — Plans to burn hundreds of thousands of gallons of oil from BP’s blown-out well are raising new questions about the health and safety of the thousands of workers on rigs and vessels near the spill site.

BP and the federal government are in new territory once again in dealing with the nation’s worst environmental disaster: There’s never been such a huge flaring of oil in the Gulf of Mexico, or possibly anywhere.

The incineration of such huge amounts of oil combined with the black clouds of smoke already wafting over the Gulf waters from controlled burns of surface oil create pollution hazards for the estimated 2,000 people working in the area.

Dozens of rigs and ships are clustered in the area around the spill site.

The Discoverer Enterprise, the main recovery ship, is recovering as much as 15,000 barrels of oil a day through a pipe from the wellhead. A second vessel, the Q4000, is being prepared to pull up more oil and burn it. Experts say it could be burning 10,000 barrels, or 420,000 gallons, a day.

Dr. Phil Harber, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, said the burning oil could expose workers to toxins that might cause severe respiratory irritation, asthma attacks and inflamed airways depending on how the burns are handled. Burning oil is a fairly common method of relieving pressure in refinery operations, he said.

“But the magnitude is a concern,” said Harber, who’s also the chief of UCLA’s division of occupational and environmental medicine.

The other worry, he said, is if the wind carries off the thick clouds, “there are hundreds of ships in the area, and those workers could have significant exposures and perhaps less protection because the exposures would be unanticipated,” he said.

Harmful byproducts of burning the light crude flowing into the Gulf include fine particles; toxic gases such as sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and carbon monoxide; polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, which result from the incomplete burning of carbon-containing materials such as oil; and volatile organic compounds such as benzene toluene, ethylbenzene and xylene.

EPA’s stationary monitors and mobile laboratories are checking for pollutants from the spill, but have found air quality levels for ozone and particulates that are normal on the coast for this time of year. The agency has reported that it’s also found low levels of chemicals from the oil that produce odors and can cause short-term effects such as headaches or nausea.

Diane Bailey, a senior scientist with the Natural Resources Defense Council, questioned why the Coast Guard decided to allow the oil to be burned.

“It seems like a no-brainer that you wouldn’t want to do this,” she said. “Maybe there’s just such a logistical challenge in getting it onshore and getting it processed that they decided this is the cheapest, easiest thing to do. But the possible acute health problems should be of a greater concern.”