Toxic waste contaminates US food supply and exports

Since the BP oil spill began on April 22 and clean up crews started skimming and booming the 206 million gallons of oil from the surface, people have been wandering where and how the contaminated material is being disposed of. The simple answer is that all of the oil-Corexit material is being dumped on public landfills in the near vicinity of the Gulf Coast and close to the natural aquifers that provide our drinking water and irrigate our crops.

BP hired two main contractors, Waste Management Inc. and Patriot Environmental Services to dispose of any oil or toxic residue brought on shore by The vessels of Opportunity in the Gulf of Mexico.

All skimmed oil-Corexit mixture was treated in so-called “decontamination areas” in the vicinity of New Orleans, Louisiana and Mobile, Alabama for further processing.

Both “de-con” facilities are wide open, not protected and the procedures used to decontaminate any protective gear or booms used at sea are simply treated with Clorox or ammonium.

The residual water in the open “de-con” facilities is pumped in large container trucks but nobody knows where these trucks dump their contaminated load.

The so called “dry” material is hauled to the nearest landfill and dumped as non-toxic material. This method is fully approved by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) without any prior examination as to the real toxicity level of such hazardous waste.

The EPA considers any oil or residue skimmed from the surface to be non-toxic and therefore allows the disposal of such as regular trash.

The problem is that whatever waste leaves these make-shift “de-con” facilities does not just consist of oil. It is a combination of oil residue and the highly toxic component better known as Corexit9500A and Corexit9527A.

Dumping this highly toxic waste in public landfills presents two main problems.

The liquid portion of the waste seeps naturally into the soil and may contaminate our natural aquifers which we all use as our source for drinking water as well as a natural irrigation source for our crops.

Those crops are not just used for local or national consumption, they are widely used for exports to other countries. Neither the FDA or the USDA can certify that our export products are safe for human consumption since no tests for the presence of Corexit is currently being conducted by either Government Agency.

As much as Gov’t Agencies are trying to protect the American consumer from toxic or poisonous contaminants in imported goods and agricultural products, they themselves cannot certify that our export products are now safe for human consumption.

The second problem is that the dry waste contains a non-biodegradable toxic that will not simply disappear by covering it up with fresh soil.

On the contrary, the toxic will remain well after the expected biodegradable period of 30 years, upon which it is deemed to be safe to use the land for residential development.

If we, as a responsible and respected country, impose safety regulations on any and all imported products, then it is highly questionable why we do not impose and enforce the same strict rules on our exports.

Our food and our crops are being contaminated with toxic waste that is undetectable according to the EPA, the FDA and the USDA but in the meantime BP organizes shrimp and oil festivals because all is just fine.

Our future will be determined when large importers of our agricultural products issue a ban on American products just as we did with the UK after the mad cow disease and with Hong Kong and China after the Chinese chicken flu.

What goes around comes around and how will BP or its contractors ever be held responsible for poisoning the food that the world needs?

Written by Nick Doms © 2010, all rights reserved.

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