Public Service ANNOUNCEMENT:                        

                  Exxon Valdez Oil Spill and You

           A Special Project to Help Sick Cleanup Workers

WHAT is going on?

The Alaska Community Action on Toxics (ACAT)

and the Alaska Forum for Environmental Responsibility (AFER)

have teamed up to examine the health effects

of the Exxon Valdez oil spill cleanup on workers.

 

The Exxon Valdez oil spill was a hazardous waste cleanup,

and the federal government should have required Exxon

to do long-term health monitoring of all the workers.

However, court records show that

Exxon never reported any of the more than 6700 cases of respiratory illnesses

to federal and state oversight agencies,

so no long-term monitoring program was implemented.

 

During the cleanup, many workers reported respiratory problems

(cough, flu-like symptoms, bronchitis, headaches, etc.) to Veco and Exxon.

These respiratory illnesses were treated as colds or flu,

however, these symptoms are virtually identical to those from chemical poisoning

due to, for example,

inhalation of the seawater-oil mist created by the high pressure, hot water wash.

 

ACAT and AFER found

that crude oil, diesel exhaust, bioremediation products such as Inipol EAP 22,

chemical dispersants,

and even cleaning products used during the cleanup

all can cause severe short- and long-term health problems.

 

Researchers realized there was a potentially huge problem

after they reviewed court cases filed by sick workers in the early 1990s

and interviewed former cleanup workers in fall 2001.

 

Many of the short- and long-term health symptoms described by workers matched

those described in the literature for chemicals present during the cleanup.

 

WHO is doing the work and WHY?  ACAT and AFER are 501(c)3 nonprofit organizations in Alaska. ACAT promotes environmental justice and the public’s right to know: it works with individuals and in communities seeking assistance because of health concerns related to toxic contamination (www.akaction.net). AFER focuses on holding the North Slope oil industry and government regulators accountable to laws that protect the environment and worker safety (www.alaskaforum.org). Pam Miller (ACAT) and Riki Ott (AFER) are co-leaders for this special project. The goal of the Exxon Valdez Oil Spill (EVOS) Worker Health Project is to find and help people who worked on the EVOS cleanup and who may be sick now from exposure to toxic chemicals present during the cleanup.  

HOW are we going to do this?  1) We are working with various doctors who specialize in chemical poisoning to establish diagnostic tests specific to crude oil and other chemicals present during the cleanup; and to determine proper treatment.  2) We are working with various lawyers who specialize in chronic poisoning and toxic tort law to pursue legal action.  3) We are working with key policy-makers to change cleanup laws to adequately protect future oil spill cleanup workers; and, possibly, to investigate what happened during the EVOS cleanup.

HOW can you help? We hope to find as many cleanup workers as possible, whether sick or not. We are also interested in interviewing family members of workers who are deceased. If you were, or someone you know was, a cleanup worker, then please contact your Community Liaison or our special project staff Christina Cinelli. We need current addresses and contact information. We also need you to fill out a Worker Contact Info & Health Form, which we can mail to you. By May we will contact you about community visits and further information.

call Pam Miller with Alaska
Community Action on Toxics at 907-222-7714 for more info on worker
health. Email pkmiller@akaction.net

or  907-424-3334

2-24-03 Additional Contact   &   e-mail

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