In Offshore Oil Worker Safety Hearing, Polis Calls on Agencies to Learn from Past Exxon Valdez Mistakes

Interview

Today, during a House Education and Labor Committee hearing on offshore oil worker safety, Congressman Jared Polis (D-CO) urged federal agencies to learn from, rather than repeat, the mistakes made following the Exxon Valdez spill as they work to protect the safety of workers cleaning up BP's Deepwater Horizon spill in the Gulf.

Polis questioned Coast Guard Rear Admiral Kevin Cook and Assistant Labor Secretary David Michaels about the experiences of cleanup workers from the1989 Exxon Valdez spill, many of whom complain of ongoing health problems to this day. Immediately following the Exxon Valdez spill, responsible parties claimed that sicknesses experienced by workers were unrelated to their exposure to crude oil and chemicals. Proper education about the use of safety goggles and respirators was viewed as an afterthought, rather than a priority. As a result many former Exxon Valdez cleanup workers suffer from systemic, long-term health consequences, including neurological and respiratory problems. Polis urged cleanup agencies to be vigilant, lest history repeat itself in the Gulf.

The transcript of Polis' remarks is below:

Congressman Polis: Thank you Mr. Chairman. I have some questions for Dr. Michaels and Rear Admiral Cook, but first a little history. "Valdez Crud" was the nickname that was given to the sickness experienced by cleanup workers, which Exxon attributed to a cold or flu. I have to say that I found it incredibly troubling that during the Exxon Valdez spill, Exxon argued that their cleanup workers simply had a nasty flu that was spreading through their camp, accounting for symptoms that just happened to be more closely aligned with high chemical and crude oil exposure.

Now unfortunately this so called "flu", for many of the Exxon Valdez cleanup workers, lasted for over 20 years--that's a long flu. I think it is past time we realize that cleanup crews are being exposed to unhealthy chemicals and toxins that can have debilitating long term health effects.

Now, here we are today, twenty years later, but most troubling of all, we're watching history repeat itself, and we seem to be learning too little from past disasters. Just weeks ago, we saw BP taking a strategy page right out of Exxon's book by saying that the same common symptoms, were the result of food poisoning.

BP's, Tony Hayward said "I'm sure they were genuinely ill, but whether it had anything to do with dispersants and oil, whether it was food poisoning, or some other reason," etc. Exxon said of its disaster that "the illnesses were a flu-like upper respiratory illness that spread because of crowded living conditions."

I'd like to ask why you think a company in Exxon or BP's position would want to link common symptoms of crude oil and chemical exposure to a virus or food poisoning, no matter how obvious the linkage to toxic exposure the symptoms could be?

Asst. Sec. Michaels (OSHA): I can't speak to BP's motivation, but we see over and over again situations where even when workers are injured, clearly the worker is blamed. After BP Texas City, the initial response of BP was to fire the workers involved. And only after there was an investigation that was done, it was shown that they weren't--that they did make mistakes, but they weren't at fault at all because of the way the system worked and they were actually rehired again with apologies made.

The issue though of figuring out what illness are associated with the exposure is a very tough one. You know, we have long-term OSHA rules on what's reportable, but what's going on in the Gulf now, is any time a worker reports a condition that they believe to be work related--either reports it to NIOSH, to BP, or through one of the health surveillance systems that Dr. Howard worked on--that goes into a system and the medical detectives from NIOSH actually investigate it. Because we've learned from Exxon Valdez and we need to run down every one of these cases.

Polis: Quick follow up question. It's my understanding that there is a clause that specifically states that under OSHA, "Colds and Flu will not be considered work related." So, is there any concern that throwing into question these symptoms' obvious linkage to toxic exposure could limit your agency's ability to investigate? ([2] U.S. Dept. of Labor, OSHA 29 CFR Part 1904.5(b)(2)(viii): "Colds and flu will not be considered work-related.")

Michaels: I don't think so. I mean, officially it's not recordable. Because the way we--what's useful--we keep recordable conditions consistent. But in this situation, we are running down every report of an illness. This may lead to changes in the way we record injuries, but certainly, I think in this case, we are not considering these any less valid than any other reports.

Admiral Cook (Coast Guard): Briefly Congressman. I'm sitting here wearing the blue uniform trying, to represent all aspects of the Coast Guard, but we receive our medical support from the public health service. So we have an Admiral on staff, who is part of the public health service, who is our chief medical officer. And he's just spent the better part of the last week in the Gulf, at the same meetings as our two doctors here. And, because we're so interested too, I think there has been some learning that has gone on over the years, as far as getting in there and trying to assess the impact of workers quickly.

Polis: Well I want to encourage you all to look at the lessons from the last 20 years, from the Exxon Valdez incident. We really can't let history repeat itself, and we need your agencies to be very vigilant in that cause.

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