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Timeline of fisheries closures and reopenings in the Gulf of Mexico due to the DH blowout in 2010. Abbreviations: AL, Alabama; MS, Mississippi; LA, Louisiana; FL, Florida. Data from NOAA (2010b) and FDA (2010). On 13 January 2011, 4,213 mi 2 of federal waters around the well and parts of area 12 in LA State coastal waters remained closed. On 1 February 2011, NOAA repoened the federal waters that had been reclosed to royal red shrimp fishing. On 19 April 2011, NOAA reopened all remaining federal waters. Approximately 1.5% of LA coastal waters remain closed.
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The Deepwater Horizon (DH) blowout resulted in fisheries closings across the Gulf of Mexico. Federal agencies, in collaboration with impacted Gulf states, developed a protocol to determine when it is safe to reopen fisheries based on sensory and chemical analyses of seafood. All federal waters have been reopened, yet concerns have been raised regar...
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... of concerns over seafood safety, on 2 May 2010, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) initi- ated closures of federal waters to commercial and recreational fishing; Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and eventually Florida subsequently instituted fisheries closures in state waters, in coordination with the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) (Figure 1). By 21 June, closures covered approximately 37% of the Gulf of Mexico (225,290 km 2 ), extending east from Atchafalaya Bay, Louisiana, to Panama City, Florida (NOAA 2010b). ...
Citations
... In addition, approximately 250 x 10 3 mt of natural gas were released into the water column from the spill (Joye et al., 2016), and approximately 6.8 x 10 3 m 3 of chemical dispersants were applied to keep oil from coming ashore along the ncGOM coast (Trustees, 2016;Murawski et al., 2019). The extent of the spill and desire to minimize human impacts instigated fishery closures that were in place from May 2 to November 24, 2010, except for a small (<3,000 km 2 ) area around the wellhead that was closed until April 2011, with a maximum closed area of 225,290 km 2 in late June 2010 (Gohlke et al., 2011;Ylitalo et al., 2012). ...
The goal of this paper was to review the evidence of population-level impacts of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill (DWH) on Gulf of Mexico (GOM) continental shelf taxa, as well as evidence of resiliency following the DWH. There is considerable environmental and biological evidence that GOM shelf taxa were exposed to and suffered direct and indirect impacts of the DWH. Numerous assessments, from mesocosm studies to analysis of biopsied tissue or tissue samples from necropsied animals, revealed a constellation of physiological effects related to DWH impacts on GOM biota, some of which clearly or likely resulted in mortality. While the estimated concentrations of hydrocarbons in shelf waters and sediments were orders of magnitude lower than measured in inshore or deep GOM environments, the level of mortality observed or predicted was substantial for many shelf taxa. In some cases, such as for zooplankton, community shifts following the spill were ephemeral, likely reflecting high rates of population turnover and productivity. In other taxa, such as GOM reef fishes, impacts of the spill are confounded with other stressors, such as fishing mortality or the appearance and rapid population growth of invasive lionfish ( Pterois spp.). In yet others, such as cetaceans, modeling efforts to predict population-level effects of the DWH made conservative assumptions given the species’ protected status, which post-DWH population assessments either failed to detect or population increases were estimated. A persistent theme that emerged was the lack of precise population-level data or assessments prior to the DWH for many taxa, but even when data or assessments did exist, examining evidence of population resiliency was confounded by other stressors impacting GOM biota. Unless efforts are made to increase the resolution of the data or precision of population assessments, difficulties will likely remain in estimating the scale of population-level effects or resiliency in the case of future large-scale environmental catastrophes.
... Entre as múltiplas classes de hidrocarbonetos antrópicos que são lançados no meio ambiente, há particular interesse nos hidrocarbonetos aromáticos, tanto petrogênicos quanto pirogênicos (ver seção 1.1), devido à ampla e diversa produção dessa classe de compostos pelas atividades humanas, a relativa persistência e conhecidos efeitos tóxicos, mutagênicos, carcinogênicos e teratogênicos de diversos HPAs (Tabela 1), com implicações sobre a saúde ambiental e humana (e.g., Gohlke et al., 2011;Kalf et al., 1997;Law et al., 1997;Wickliffe et al., 2018;Witt, 2002). Já os hidrocarbonetos alifáticos incluem os n-alcanos, a mistura complexa não-resolvida (MCNR) e os isoprenóides pristano e fitano, que em conjunto permitem elaborar índices que caracterizam a presença de hidrocarbonetos petrogênicos e biogênicos e complementam as informações sobre os impactos ambientais por petróleo em ambientes aquáticos (Aboul-Kassim e Simoneit, 1996;Colombo et al., 1989a;Medeiros et al., 2005;Tolosa et al., 2005;Wang et al., 2019). ...
... A bioacumulação pode ocorrer diretamente pela assimilação do HPAs pelos organismos diretamente do meio ambiente onde vive (bioconcentração) ou através da transferência pela cadeia trófica (biomagnificação), sendo que o fator de bioacumulação pode ser visto como um balanço entre a quantidade assimilada e a excretada pelo organismo (Schwarzenbach et al., 2003). Em muitos casos, o aumento da concentração de HPAs nos tecidos de peixes, moluscos e crustáceos pode ameaçar a segurança alimentar de pescados para a população (e.g., Gohlke et al., 2011;Wenzl e Zelinkova, 2019). O detalhamento sobre as formas de interação contaminante-organismo e os efeitos tóxicos associados pode ser obtido em artigos/livros de referência sobre o tema (e.g., Meador et al., 1995;Mearns et al., 2019;Neff, 2002;Schwarzenbach et al., 2006). ...
... Even after the safety confirmation of the fishing products by government authorities, public opinion expressed its concern and mistrust about the real risk of consuming seafood from regions affected by the Deepwater Horizon disaster, which greatly affected the livelihood of fishing communities (Simon-Friedt et al., 2016). In addition, some studies have reported a series of inconsistencies in the metrics used by the FDA to establish levels of concern for PAH in seafood after the disaster, such as, high consumer body weight (80 kg), low estimated seafood intake (13 -49 g day − 1 ), short term exposure to the contaminants (5 years), among others (Gohlke et al., 2011;Rotkin-Ellman et al., 2012). ...
More than 5.8 million tonnes of oil have been spilled into the oceans. Some oil disasters marked history, causing multiple social and economic consequences in addition to catastrophic environmental impacts. Recently, Brazil and Mauritius faced oil disasters that have severely impacted seafood sanitary credibility. One of the components of the oil composition are the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH), which are the main contamination markers of petrogenic origin. There is enough evidence to correlate the intake of food contaminated with PAH with increased risks of developing cancer. The set PAH4, composed of benzo[a]anthracene, benzo[a]pyrene, benzo[b]fluoranthene, and chrysene, and the set PAH8, composed of benzo[a]anthracene, benzo[a]pyrene, benzo[b]fluoranthene, benzo[k]fluoranthene, benzo[ghi]perylene, chrysene, dibenzo[a,h]anthracene, and indeno[1,2,3-cd]pyrene are recognized as markers of food chemical contamination. After oil disasters in the oceans, the risk to the health of seafood consumers tends to be of special concern, Countries like the European Union set maximum levels for benzo[a]pyrene (5 µg kg⁻¹) and PAH4 (30 µg kg⁻¹) in bivalve mollusks. Levels of concern established by countries that have faced oil disasters are given special attention in this review. Laboratory analysis of PAH in food samples is very challenging because it deals with quite different kinds of matrices. Furthermore, analytical results are usually related to the closure or reopening of cultivated areas and fishing points. Therefore, the progress of the analytical methods for PAH in seafood is covered in detail. Chemical laboratory measurements provide essential data to assess the potential risks to human health due to consumption of seafood contaminated with PAH. The main human health risk assessment approaches in a seafood contamination scenario with PAH are reviewed and discussed, providing an insightful and guiding tool to each step of the risk assessment framework.
... Entre as múltiplas classes de hidrocarbonetos antrópicos que são lançados no meio ambiente, há particular interesse nos hidrocarbonetos aromáticos, tanto petrogênicos quanto pirogênicos (ver seção 1.1), devido à ampla e diversa produção dessa classe de compostos pelas atividades humanas, a relativa persistência e conhecidos efeitos tóxicos, mutagênicos, carcinogênicos e teratogênicos de diversos HPAs (Tabela 1), com implicações sobre a saúde ambiental e humana (e.g., Gohlke et al., 2011;Kalf et al., 1997;Law et al., 1997;Wickliffe et al., 2018;Witt, 2002). Já os hidrocarbonetos alifáticos incluem os n-alcanos, a mistura complexa não-resolvida (MCNR) e os isoprenóides pristano e fitano, que em conjunto permitem elaborar índices que caracterizam a presença de hidrocarbonetos petrogênicos e biogênicos e complementam as informações sobre os impactos ambientais por petróleo em ambientes aquáticos (Aboul-Kassim e Simoneit, 1996;Colombo et al., 1989a;Medeiros et al., 2005;Tolosa et al., 2005;Wang et al., 2019). ...
... A bioacumulação pode ocorrer diretamente pela assimilação do HPAs pelos organismos diretamente do meio ambiente onde vive (bioconcentração) ou através da transferência pela cadeia trófica (biomagnificação), sendo que o fator de bioacumulação pode ser visto como um balanço entre a quantidade assimilada e a excretada pelo organismo (Schwarzenbach et al., 2003). Em muitos casos, o aumento da concentração de HPAs nos tecidos de peixes, moluscos e crustáceos pode ameaçar a segurança alimentar de pescados para a população (e.g., Gohlke et al., 2011;Wenzl e Zelinkova, 2019). O detalhamento sobre as formas de interação contaminante-organismo e os efeitos tóxicos associados pode ser obtido em artigos/livros de referência sobre o tema (e.g., Meador et al., 1995;Mearns et al., 2019;Neff, 2002;Schwarzenbach et al., 2006). ...
Neste capítulo, abordamos (1) a diversidade de habitats de substrato consolidado da Baía de Guanabara, (2) os costões da baía, (3) os substratos duros naturais, (4) os substratos duros artificiais, (5) os substratos duros artificiais móveis, tais como cascos de navios e plataformas de petróleo, (6) os organismos típicos de substratos duros da baía, (7) as comunidades bentônicas como modelo ecológico e (8) os substratos não consolidados. É apresentada também uma tabela não exaustiva das espécies exóticas de substrato duro encontradas na Baía de Guanabara.
Available: https://aequor.site/material-educativo/
... Entre as múltiplas classes de hidrocarbonetos antrópicos que são lançados no meio ambiente, há particular interesse nos hidrocarbonetos aromáticos, tanto petrogênicos quanto pirogênicos (ver seção 1.1), devido à ampla e diversa produção dessa classe de compostos pelas atividades humanas, a relativa persistência e conhecidos efeitos tóxicos, mutagênicos, carcinogênicos e teratogênicos de diversos HPAs (Tabela 1), com implicações sobre a saúde ambiental e humana (e.g., Gohlke et al., 2011;Kalf et al., 1997;Law et al., 1997;Wickliffe et al., 2018;Witt, 2002). Já os hidrocarbonetos alifáticos incluem os n-alcanos, a mistura complexa não-resolvida (MCNR) e os isoprenóides pristano e fitano, que em conjunto permitem elaborar índices que caracterizam a presença de hidrocarbonetos petrogênicos e biogênicos e complementam as informações sobre os impactos ambientais por petróleo em ambientes aquáticos (Aboul-Kassim e Simoneit, 1996;Colombo et al., 1989a;Medeiros et al., 2005;Tolosa et al., 2005;Wang et al., 2019). ...
... A bioacumulação pode ocorrer diretamente pela assimilação do HPAs pelos organismos diretamente do meio ambiente onde vive (bioconcentração) ou através da transferência pela cadeia trófica (biomagnificação), sendo que o fator de bioacumulação pode ser visto como um balanço entre a quantidade assimilada e a excretada pelo organismo (Schwarzenbach et al., 2003). Em muitos casos, o aumento da concentração de HPAs nos tecidos de peixes, moluscos e crustáceos pode ameaçar a segurança alimentar de pescados para a população (e.g., Gohlke et al., 2011;Wenzl e Zelinkova, 2019). O detalhamento sobre as formas de interação contaminante-organismo e os efeitos tóxicos associados pode ser obtido em artigos/livros de referência sobre o tema (e.g., Meador et al., 1995;Mearns et al., 2019;Neff, 2002;Schwarzenbach et al., 2006). ...
... While fines associated with the Horizon Deepwater Oil Spill appear quite large, the spill had and continues to have wide-ranging ecological, human and nonhuman health impacts which are perhaps incalculable financially, meaning that relative to the harm generated, these fines may be rather small. For example, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration had at one point ordered that 86,985 square miles of the Gulf of Mexico (36% of the Gulf of Mexico under US control) be closed to commercial and recreational fishing (Gohlke et al. 2011). Studies suggest that these restrictions caused an estimated economic loss of 2.5 USD billion to the fishing industry (Walsh 2010) -a cost 37 times larger than the fines imposed. ...
Despite growing interest in environmental/green crimes, little remains known about these offenses and how environmental offenders are punished in criminal cases. Much of what is known about the punishment of environmental offenders comes from studies that are now more than 25 years old. Further, many studies rely on aggregated US EPA data, which provides information about these cases nationally, but does not address potential variability in the punishment of environmental criminals in any particular state. To address these issues, this study examines state-level criminal punishments for environmental offenders in Louisiana for the years 2004–2014. The discussion also draws attention to estimating the potential frequency of environmental crimes and punishments in Louisiana. The results support contentions that environmental punishment are rare, that penalties in a handful of cases significantly skew the results, and that when extreme punishments are omitted, criminal punishments for environmental offenses are lenient in comparison to the potentially damaging consequences of those offenses.
... Following all oil spills in marine waters, the potential contamination of seafood supplies and the subsequent risks posed to human health from seafood consumption are of major concern to government authorities and community members where the spill occurred (Gohlke et al., 2011;Dickey and Huettel, 2016;Wickliffe et al., 2018). The magnitude and duration of the DWH spill posed a significant threat to the well-being of Gulf Coast communities, many of which depend upon safe and productive fisheries (Dickey and Huettel, 2016). ...
... These levels were considered to be safe or associated with negligible cancer and non-cancer risk for the US population (Ylitalo et al., 2012). However, the risk level, estimated duration of exposure, and the use of national demographic values for body weight, consumption rate, and longevity were extensively scrutinized (Gohlke et al., 2011;Ylitalo et al., 2012;Wilson et al., 2015;Dickey and Huettel, 2016). There was particularly strong criticism around the adequacy of information about exposure risks and how those risks were communicated to vulnerable populations (Rotkin-Ellman et al., 2012; K. Xia et al., 2012;Sathiakumar et al., 2017), such as pregnant women and Vietnamese-American fishers and their families. ...
... Though the federal response to the spill, including the seafood testing program, drew much public scrutiny and concern, results from independent studies largely corroborated the federal effort. While some research-ers found shortcomings in the federal approach, including the narrow scope of the PAHs included in chemical screening (Andersson and Achten, 2015;Dickey and Huettel, 2016;Farrington, 2019), based on toxicity information available at the time, no studies concluded that there was an excess exposure risk from consuming Gulf seafood in the months and years after the oil spill (Gohlke et al., 2011;Dickey and Huettel, 2016;Wickliffe et al., 2018). However, it is also largely agreed that the communication of exposure risks in general, and to vulnerable populations specifically, left much to be desired (Greiner et al., 2013;Dickey and Huettel, 2016). ...
The Deepwater Horizon (DWH) oil spill is the only declared Spill of National Significance in US history, and it significantly impacted the health of people and communities in the Gulf of Mexico region. These impacts amplified adverse effects of prior disasters and may compound those of future traumas. Studies, both to date and ongoing, show some negative mental and physical health outcomes associated with DWH in some spill workers, as well as some coastal residents in all Gulf States. The spill was also associated with negative effects in the living resources, tourism, and recreation sectors, at least in the short term. Compared with others, people dependent on these sectors reported more health and financial concerns. Consumer concerns about the safety and marketability of seafood persisted well after data demonstrated very low risk. Parents were concerned about possible exposures of children as they played on beaches, but this risk was found to be minor. Spill-related stress was an overarching factor associated with adverse health outcomes, and some residents reported greater stress from navigating the legal and claims processes following the spill than from the spill itself. Research revealed a serious lack of baseline health, environmental, and socioeconomic data against which to compare spill effects. This finding highlighted the need for ongoing observing systems to monitor health and socioeconomic parameters and establish continuous baselines of such information.
... These included the deployment of sorbent booms, the construction of protective sand berms (Martínez et al., 2012;Suir et al., 2016), and increasing the discharge of freshwater from the mainstem Mississippi River into marshlands through freshwater diversion gates at Davis Pond (leading to Barataria Bay) and Caernarvon (leading to Black Bay, Louisiana; Figure 1; de Mutsert and Cowan, 2012;O'Connor et al., 2016;White et al., 2018;Turner et al., 2019b), though the latter two response measures are not considered standard practice. Emergency managers also instituted largescale fishery closures of state and federal waters to commercial and recreational fishing (Gohlke et al., 2011;Ylitalo et al., 2012;Cockrell et al., 2019), at their maximum extending 217,000 km 2 in federal waters and including all state waters from affected areas. ...
The 2010 Deepwater Horizon (DWH) oil blowout in the Gulf of Mexico began on April 20, originating in the deep sea 66 km off the Louisiana coast. By early June, DWH oil had spread to coastal Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and western Florida. An estimated 2,113 km of shoreline were oiled, making DWH the largest marine oil spill in global history by length of affected shoreline. Additionally, a series of oil spill response measures were deployed, including diversions of Mississippi River discharge to forestall oil coming ashore, and the establishment of large-scale fishery closures, with both affecting coastal resources to varying degrees. Here, we review published studies and describe additional analyses evaluating long-term impacts of DWH on coastal/nearshore biological resources. We assembled time-series data collected by state, federal and academic partners on population abundance and environmental conditions to evaluate species and community change. Our study focused on plankton, invertebrates, fishes and dolphins, and 13 “key species” were selected to conduct semi-quantitative vulnerability-resilience (V-R) analyses. At one extreme, early life stages of Gulf Menhaden (Brevoortia patronus) were not affected due to seasonal spawning and larval development preceding the spill. In contrast, demographically independent populations of the common Bottlenose Dolphin, (Tursiops truncatus) suffered a variety of severe and ongoing health effects owing to oil exposure. Virtually all of the heavily oiled salt marsh habitat was in Louisiana, with the majority occurring in Barataria Bay. Multispecies trawl survey abundances declined post-DWH throughout eastern coastal Louisiana but remained stable elsewhere. A regime shift in composition of Barataria Bay trawl survey catches occurred during and following the spill, the persistence of which was associated with long-term reductions in average salinity and increases in water clarity. In some cases, fishery closures were associated with measurable but ephemeral increases in abundance of some targeted and bycatch species. Freshwater flooding of marshes was ineffective in preventing coastal oiling and severely affected benthic euryhaline resources including Eastern Oyster (Crassostrea virginica) and Marsh Periwinkle (Littoraria irrorata). The flooding response measure experiment also indicates the directionality of impacts that further planned water diversions may have on ecological communities of lower Mississippi River basins.
... Oil spills generate negative environmental impacts and liabilities (Cormier and Magnan, 1997) in the ocean ecosystems and coastal communities (Beyer et al., 2016), threatening environmental safety (Lee and Jung, 2015;Azevedo et al., 2017), human health (Osofsky et al., 2011;Gohlke et al., 2011) and socioeconomic activities (Sumaila et al., 2012). These casualties can trigger processes such as bioaccumulation and biomagnifications in organisms (D'adamo et al., 1997;Wang et al., 2019); increase aquatic and sediment toxicity (Xia et al., 2019;Struch et al., 2019;Akinola et al., 2019;Yoon et al., 2019); and also expose humans to severe and chronic toxicity (Wells et al., 1999) through swallowing, skin contact and inhalation (Noh et al., 2019). ...
Fossil fuels still prevail over other energy sources in the world’s consumption energy matrix. Thus, oil transportation and operations over maritime routes have been in high demand for a long time. Although oil spill accidents caused by these activities have reduced significantly over the last few decades, they still cause great concern. From this perspective, this paper presents simulation analyses of oil spill case studies using Telemac-3D hydrodynamic model coupled with an oil model. Hence a location susceptible to such accidents was selected and three real oil spills were simulated, for each of which there were official technical monitoring reports available. The obtained results contribute to the knowledge of oil pollution susceptibility in environmentally sensitive areas, as well as provide information concerning oil slick behaviour. Additionally, similarities between the modelled results and the technical reports were confirmed. These findings are useful
for contingency planning and responding to these probable accidents.
... In an effort to relieve concern and protect public health, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Association (NOAA) assessed the safety of commercially-harvested Gulf seafood. Efforts were made by federal and state agencies to assess the various exposures to oil spill related chemicals and their associated health risks [7][8][9][10]. These assessments used national statistics to represent body weight and seafood consumption for Gulf residents. ...
... These assessments used national statistics to represent body weight and seafood consumption for Gulf residents. The assessments were not accepted by many residents of the coastal communities along the Gulf [10][11][12]. Distrust stemmed in part from the belief that the agencies' risk assessment did not account for coastal populations who eat more fish and shellfish than populations in non-coastal areas [13]. The FDA rationale for using 90th percentile national consumption data reported in the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) was to ensure protection for high-end consumers nationwide [7,14]. ...
The Deepwater Horizon oil spill (April 20, 2010) caused concern regarding Gulf seafood safety. Communities were skeptical of governmental risk assessments because they did not take into account the higher consumption of seafood along coastal areas. The objective of this study was to perform a probabilistic risk assessment based on the consumption rates of high-end consumers of Gulf seafood. We utilized seafood consumption data from five communities across the northeastern Gulf of Mexico. This study collected finfish, shrimp, blue crab, and oysters from these communities and analyzed their tissues for polynuclear aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs). A probabilistic risk assessment was performed using population-specific seafood consumption rates and body weights for commercial fishers, recreational fishers, and a Filipino-American community. For non-cancer effects, 95th percentile hazard quotients for these targeted populations ranged between 1.84E−04 to 5.39E−03 for individual seafood types. The 95th percentile hazard indices for total seafood consumption ranged from 3.45E−03 to 8.41E−03. Based on total seafood consumption, highest hazard indices were modeled for the Filipino-American community followed by commercial and recreational fishers. Despite higher consumption rates, hazard indices for the high-end consumers targeted in this study were two to three orders of magnitude below the regulatory limit of 1.
