This is Robert Naman, an analytical chemist with over 30 years of experience and the president of Act Laboratory Inc in Mobile, AL. ACT is a private environmental testing laboratory. . . . .   In the latest Project Gulf Impact video, Naman discusses the EPA’s role in determining acceptable PAH levels, and how those acceptable limits are set higher than what is safe for children and the average adult. He also addresses recent water testing performed in Orange Beach, AL, which found some of the highest levels of oil and grease to date. Naman also has an interesting viewpoint on seafood consumption — he has personally decided to not eat seafood out of the Gulf.

From the Huffington Post regarding one of his most recent samplings: “Naman tested various samples for petroleum, and said he expected to find no more than 5 parts per million (ppm). Instead, Naman found results that far exceed his expectations: 16 ppm from waters at Katrina Key, and 29 ppm at Orange Beach.

The most shocking results came from a sample of water collected near boom at Dauphin Island Marina. When Naman combined the sample with an organic solvent that separates the oil from the water, which he did for all the other samples as well, it exploded in his lab, breaking the container and destroying the sample in the process. Naman thinks the reaction was caused by the presence of methane gas or Corexit, the dispersant that BP has been using in the Gulf.” — Source

It’s interesting that he notes that the BP disaster of last year was the first time ever that dispersants had been injected under the surface of the water and mixed with water at all levels.  Previously, it was used only on the surface of the water.  Why did the EPA allow BP to do that in our waters off our coast?

Besides seafood, this brings up another question — how has the severe pollution affected the living wildlife in the waters in the Gulf? Recently over 90 bottlenose dolphins were washed up dead on the beaches in the Gulf states, which is far more than usual for this time of year. The Guardian has concluded they were probably poisoned by the dispersant Corexit, and oil that remains in the water.

Since the start of the year, 87 bottlenose dolphins have washed up on the coasts of Louisiana, Alabama, Mississippi, and along the Florida panhandle, Kim Amendola, a spokeswoman for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said. That’s about 12 times higher than typical strandings at this time of year.

Forty-six of those were infants or still-born.

The coastal areas were the worst affected by BP’s blown-out well, which spewed 4.9 million barrels of oil into the Gulf of Mexico.

The die-off had prompted fears that exposure to toxins from the BP spill had interfered with last year’s calving season, causing miscarriages.

However, scientists at the Dauphin Island sea lab [...]